Prospects for South Americans pursuing F1 “getting better” – Colapinto

14 comments on “Prospects for South Americans pursuing F1 “getting better” – Colapinto”

1. 

   Jere (@jerejj)
   10th November 2024, 6:18

   Following isn’t automatically or directly about the downforce amount itself, but how the downforce is created.
   1. 

      notagrumpyfan
      10th November 2024, 7:27

      That, and also where on track you are. You want more downforce in the curvy bits and when accelerating; whilst when at speed on the straights you want to be more slippery (which is typically not compatible with creating downforce)
      1. 

         Jere (@jerejj)
         10th November 2024, 8:25

         Indeed
   2. 

      S
      10th November 2024, 9:54

      However – regardless of how downforce is created – the more of it there is, the more effect it has on following cars.

      Downforce is the direct result of air disturbance and increase/decrease of air pressure – and the larger these cars get, the more air is displaced/disturbed in the process, and in turn, the more relative performance is lost by the follower.
   3. 

      MichaelN
      10th November 2024, 12:06

      There’s another big factor, and that’s the tyres. Harder tyres with a wider operating window are better able to handle the momentary changes in grip and thus friction and temperature.
      1. 

         Coventry Climax
         10th November 2024, 16:15

         Maybe even more important than grip levels is the extra strain/pressure, impacting the requirements regarding tyre strength.
         Combine that with Pirelli and it might get as unpredictable again as sprinklers on a random program.
         I’m sure there’s people who think that is good.
   4. 

      GT Racer (@gt-racer)
      10th November 2024, 15:39

      @jerejj And more importantly how the car behind reacts to it.

      You can have a car producing a ton of downforce yet still have cars able to follow & race closer if you have a design where a car behind is less affected by it.

      The ground effect cars of the early 80s were producing tons of downforce & a lot of dirty air but cars behind were less affected by it because the front end of the cars weren’t as reliant on needing to be in clean air as cars became later on. In fact you go back & it wasn’t too uncommon to see cars running without a front wing because they weren’t reliant on them to produce front grip.

      And you also have the outwash to take into account because if you limit the outwash then you open up the possibility for cars behind to be able to take different lines to avoid or at least minimise the impact the turbulent air has.

      And from what I understand one of the key goals of the 2026 aerodynamic regulations is to reduce the outwash by mandating parts of the aero is designed in such a way that it creates more of an in-wash.
      1. 

         Jere (@jerejj)
         10th November 2024, 16:48

         @gt-racer Fully spot-on & unfortunately, following has been getting harder & harder season-by-season within the current technical regulation cycle specifically because the outwash effect has increased via general evolution, so I very much hope that the next technical regulations will be restrictive regarding how much freedom teams have towards outwash-inducing aero designs.
      2. 

         anon
         10th November 2024, 22:23

         @gt-racer some teams did dispense with the front wing in certain circumstances, but some teams did that more because of problems with aerodynamic instability at higher speeds due to the interaction between the airflow coming off the front wing and the rest of the car.

         It also depends what exactly you mean by “tons of downforce”, because whilst there is something of a mythical status around the cars of that era, the downforce figures, whilst respectable, do seem to have been subject to a fair bit of exaggeration (in much the same way that the power output figures of the turbo engined cars of the 1980s would be overinflated as those cars were mythologised).

         Some of the figures seem to have been quoted out of context or were based on wind tunnel aerodynamic configurations that, whilst producing some impressive sounding numbers, were also based on unrealistic conditions. I’ve seen, for example, figures quoted for wind tunnel testing by Lotus in late 1980 that quoted rather high lift to drag ratios and a high downforce coefficient, but the tester also noted that the car could never run in that configuration because the centre of pressure would have been too far forward and made the car unstable, with the figures for a more normal set-up being more modest. I’ve also seem some play the trick of quoting figures at high speeds – particularly at 200mph – that sound extremely good, but based on the drag figures and the power outputs of the engines of the time, no car could ever have achieved that on track as they’d never be able to go that fast.

         It’s not to say that the downforce wasn’t negligible, but rather that the amount of downforce they produced was probably more modest than is often claimed publicly – indeed, some have suggested the cars from the latter parts of the 1980s and the early 1990s were producing more downforce than the skirted cars of the 1980s.

         I also do think that, whilst they’re popularly referred to as “ground effect cars”, that term is misleading and results in people not really understanding the concept or the cars. “Ground effects” is just a generic term relating to the interaction between a body and the ground beneath it, and most cars since the mid 1970s have, to a greater or lesser degree, been utilising ground effects – figures like Forghieri and Murray were already taking partial benefit from ground effects with the 312T and BT44 in 1975, for example.
   5. 

      baasbas
      10th November 2024, 17:43

      More downforce means faster cornering. Thus less braking and less opportunity to overtake.
      Less downforce will make slipstreaming more effective and thus eliminate that annoying DRS. And less effective brakes means longer braking zones and thus more opportunity to overtake
      1. 

         Coventry Climax
         10th November 2024, 22:50

         Let’s not get too logical now; F1 and this site as well, is all about emotion and controversy these days.
         Oh, and about not allowing people to speak their minds ofcourse.
2. 

   PeteB (@peteb)
   10th November 2024, 10:26

   I may have missed it but I’m surprised theres no mention of Wolff or Ecclestone’s comments about Hamilton.
   1. 

      Doh
      10th November 2024, 17:52

      Which are? You could have
      mentioned them.
3. 

   Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
   10th November 2024, 12:31

   Francos comment is why I always thought people were very harsh on Norberto Fontana who’s a great driver and beat the heck of a lot of Motorsport stars in German F3 (including Ralf) before having a big accident in Macau from which he never recovered. He lived alone with his father in a caravan during his career in Europe and it’s harder to bounce back from that kind of thing without the emotional support of your loved ones.

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