
Formula 1: The secret aerodynamicist reveals design concepts - clouddrover
https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/47527705
======
raiyu
Interesting to watch qualifying. The Mercedes was definitely more of a handful
so it looks like it has more corner entry over steer which will make the car
pivot around the Apex and allow for sooner throttle application.

The Ferrari was more composed but on turn 14 Vettel struggled to get the car
to the Apex perhaps showing signs of under steer. Less rotation, harder to get
the power down, and more likely to destroy the front tires if you keep pushing
too hard.

The Mercedes also looked to not enjoy bumps or curbs as much but as bouncy as
it was it was still planted. And though Hamilton had to do more counter
steering inputs than we are used to in formula 1 he was still quickest in
qualifying and the oversteer looked like it was completely manageable and just
the right amount. Probably around 15%-20% which is easy to control and quite
fun to drive.

Reading the article it seems like the analysis is spot on. Not enough front
grip because of the front wrong on the Ferrari which led to a tendency to
perhaps under steer. What looked promising in testing was obviously Mercedes
just not showing their full hand.

Still different tracks will suit different cars so will see how the first 3-4
races play out before giving the championship to Mercedes. Last year Ferrari
was leading just about till the summer break and there were a couple of costly
unforced errors from vettel that really cost him dearly.

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DVassallo
F1 is the best form of technology applied to a sport. If you like impressive
machinery take a look at Lewis Hamilton hitting 5 to 6.5 Gs multiple times in
an 82.188 second lap at the Australian GP in 2017:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJRh9FG83d0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJRh9FG83d0)

That s-curve at turn 11 starting at the ~53 sec mark (video above) with 6.5
lateral G-force is taken at 300km/h, down to 250 at the apex. This is the same
lap with the speedometer instead of g-force meter:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mtjC9DozXs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mtjC9DozXs)
(turn 11 at the ~59 sec mark)

~~~
james_s_tayler
I almost feel stupid but I never realized they take the corners THAT fast.
Holy shit. Respect. That's insane.

~~~
RaceWon
>I almost feel stupid but I never realized they take the corners THAT fast.
Holy shit. Respect. That's insane.

The camera angles Rarely do the cars justice in protraying their speed (though
its gotten better). There's a great vid on HN with a Porsche 919 sportscar at
the Nurbugring that portays the quick factor fairly realistically (you can
quibble about the various diffrences between a Sportscar and an F1 car in
terms of capabilities--both are other worldy quick, and fast). I like to post
that vid when talk here turns to self-driving cars, but I digress; F1 pilots
are simply amazing. The cars are too.

"[https://youtu.be/PQmSUHhP3ug"](https://youtu.be/PQmSUHhP3ug")

~~~
felipelemos
You need to remove the leading double quotes because it's being carried when
clicked on mobile, and leading to a 404 on YouTube.

~~~
RaceWon
>You need to remove the leading double quotes

Sorry, pulled an all nighter, didn't notice. Too late to edit it now.

~~~
jaytaylor
[https://youtu.be/PQmSUHhP3ug](https://youtu.be/PQmSUHhP3ug)

Always fun and andrenaline releasing to watch the Porsche 919 fly around the
nurburgring!

~~~
james_s_tayler
He takes one of those corners at 350kph

I can't even. The fastest I've been was 185kph. I always think back to that
experience when watching stuff like this and try and empathize with the
feeling of speed. It was insanely exhilarating to go that fast and I felt like
if I even make a tiny mistake I'm gonna end up in a flaming wreck. And that
was just down a long straight. I simply cannot imagine going almost twice as
fast and taking a corner.

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JakDrako
Some say that he can make a brick fly using only a banana and a pair of socks
and that he's been known to reverse the wind; all we know is he's called the
Secret Aerodynamicist.

~~~
shriphani
I really miss the Stig segments in the (now) old top gear with clarkson, may
and hammond. Really unfortunate what happened to that show - it kept me going
through some ugly periods in life.

~~~
lozaning
The Grand Tour is 95% the same show. In many ways I actually prefer it to Top
Gear.

~~~
TylerE
It’s so not. It’s conpletely missing what made the early seasons of new Top
Gear so magical at times.

Now it is just typical 100% staged reality TV bullshit.

~~~
ablation
Having worked briefly on a unit attached to the show, huge amounts of Top Gear
during the Clarkson era were also "staged". (I'm assuming by that you mean
scripted).

~~~
TylerE
Oh, I'm not saying that it wasn't, but in the early Clarkson years it
was....less flagrant.. and the show was mostly (obviously scripted) studio
segments. I have nothing against scripted television, I just don't like it
when they pretend they're on some grand adventure when in reality everything
was probably planned shot for shot in advance.

Everything became "oh, look how witty and clever and snarky we are" rather
than humor developing organically.

~~~
ablation
> Everything became "oh, look how witty and clever and snarky we are" rather
> than humor developing organically.

Yes, agreed.

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exDM69
Curious fact about F1 aerodynamics: the regulations limit the computing power
of the CFD clusters they use. The limit is about 30 teraflops but the teams
can trade off less teraflops to more wind tunnel time.

As someone working with semiconductors, I think the limit should be watts
instead of flops to encourage competition in this aspect too.

~~~
dest
Wow, how can you enforce a limit on simulation time?

Can't they use a secret cloud somewhere?

~~~
exDM69
Afaik they need to provide logs.

Of course they could cheat but the penalties of getting caught are severe.

The limit isn't very high, though. A single box with a few GPUs is enough to
hit the limit.

~~~
kingkongjaffa
fyi most cfd software is not using GPU, current cfd clusters are traditional
cpu solving systems.

also 30 teraflops of RANS simulations is a lot.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds-
averaged_Navier%E2%80...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds-
averaged_Navier%E2%80%93Stokes_equations)

basic cfd with turbulence modelling can get you pretty close and then refine
in wind tunnels.

the other techniques are LES
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_eddy_simulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_eddy_simulation)

genetic algorithms and iterative optimization is leading to more organic and
nature inspired shapes in the latest generations.

------
JshWright
We're just a few hours away from qualifying at the Australian GP, so we'll
know soon enough which approach is working better (at the moment they look
_really_ close)

~~~
mukwenhac
So it turns out Mercedes were sand bagging in testing, as usual. Beat Ferrari
by 7 tenths of a second! Anyways, that's the same gap as last year's race,
interestingly it turned out Ferrari had a car cappable to win the
championship.

[https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2018/races/979/aust...](https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2018/races/979/australia/qualifying.html)
\- 2018 Aus GP Quali result

[https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/races/1000/aus...](https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/races/1000/australia.html)
\- 2019 Aus GP Quali result

~~~
LandR
I think it's going to be another season of Mercedes dominating.

As a Ferrari fan this makes me sad.

~~~
JshWright
I was _really_ hoping for Seb to win this year. It would have set up Lewis and
Seb both going for their sixth driver's championship in the last season before
the upcoming rule change...

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lordnacho
I always wondered about the downforce. If one design is few % better than
another, providing the key advantage, does that mean the drivers are able to
drive so exactly that they can use the extra force without spinning out?

Is there some sort of feedback when you're really close? I've only had a
couple of track days, never came close to understanding it.

~~~
joncrane
There's an old saying for drivers (and it's usually trotted out when your
favorite driver has had an off) that goes "In order to know where the limit
is, one must occasionally cross it."

Usually drivers are going to test that limit in an area with less risk, for
example a corner with lots of paved runoff. But small factors such as the
ambient wind changing direction, or the sun coming out or going behind a
cloud, can affect grip enough that the limit changes enough to catch a driver
out. In these cases there's usually warning, that the car very slightly stops
responding as exactly to your inputs as it was the lap before.

However the most common scenario for a single car shunt is when the driver is
testing the track limits; for example riding 3 inches of his tire over the
kerb instead of 2, or using up the edge of the track to where the tire is now
on a painted line rather than bare asphalt. In these cases there is often no
warning, the car just steps out.

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na85
The article makes it seem like all teams add more rear downforce as the season
progresses.

I don't follow F1 - is this true about the increasing downforce and if so, why
is that so?

Is it simply that the drivers get more comfortable pushing the limits?

~~~
Devthrowaway80
My understanding is that the wash from old designs would reduce downforce for
cars that follow, which in turn would slow them down and make it harder to
overtake. This made for less interesting racing.

The new regulations are intended to promote overtaking. Teams of course are
trying to maximize downforce within the new regulations.

~~~
foobar1962
> My understanding is that the wash from old designs would reduce downforce
> for cars that follow, which in turn would slow them down and make it harder
> to overtake. This made for less interesting racing.

My understanding is that to reduce drag, the intakes for cooling air (engine
and possibly intercooler) have been minimised to the point where they are
sufficient for clean air but insufficient for turbulent air. The engine loses
power.

~~~
Devthrowaway80
No changes have been made to the intake, it's the aero package. From the
horse's mouth:

[https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.f1-rules-and-
regu...](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.f1-rules-and-regulations-
what%27s-new-for-2019.2DIt7TEs9YqI8IY6mEcwsM.html)

"What’s the change: A wider, higher – and much simplified – front wing

Why has it been made: To help chasing drivers follow the car in front more
closely - and in turn increase the possibility of overtaking."

------
djpilot
What about the underside of the vehicle? I remember hearing it was a super big
tightly guarded secret. Was that ever true? Is it still?

~~~
RaceWon
>What about the underside of the vehicle?

A very astute question. Yes, as much effort goes into the design of the
underside as does the shiny side.

The most recent article I found via a quick G search is from 2013. For sure
the rules have changed since then, but it's still a fair benchmark to
illustrate the complexity of overall design with regards to the aero.

"[https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a18417/the-
sec...](https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a18417/the-secret-
underside-of-a-modern-f1-car/")

~~~
mhh__
More effort probably, most of the downforce is from the floor AFAIK

