2010 F1 Season

[nismoman]

I don't understand your argument djr81. I clearly gave some examples of the materials and products used in F1 that are now in production cars.

I know they are not going to grab the F duct and install it on a Corolla.

Not everything is practical or even relevant to a production car, but there are "some" crossovers, however limited they may be.

Look at the R35 GTR with its underbody aero, diffusers and spoilers. Didn't F1 have something to do with developing wings on cars to produce downforce?

[scarface_au]

I don't understand your argument djr81. I clearly gave some examples of the materials and products used in F1 that are now in production cars.

I know they are not going to grab the F duct and install it on a Corolla.

Not everything is practical or even relevant to a production car, but there are "some" crossovers, however limited they may be.

Look at the R35 GTR with its underbody aero, diffusers and spoilers. Didn't F1 have something to do with developing wings on cars to produce downforce?

Yes but the aerodynamics on a road car are completely different. If you took the rear wing off a R35 and put it on an F1 car it would drive like there was no wing there at all. F1 wings need quite high speeds to work, below 160 km/h or so they don't do much. When they do work, though, they generate a lot more downforce, which is why an F1 car can take 130R at Suzuka flat. Road cars don't need nearly so much downforce since they don't drive as fast. Granted an R35 is more race car than road car, but even tin-top racers don't generate a fraction of an F1 car's downforce. They do, however, come into effect at lower speeds.

The links between F1 and road car technology are so tenuous as to be irrelevant. General concepts may come from F1 but in a practical sense the parts are nothing alike. The applications are simply too different.

BTW F1 weren't the only ones to develop aero, you also need to give credit to Indycar, Can-Am, sports car racing, and nearly every open-wheeler category since the seventies.

[djr81]

I don't understand your argument djr81. I clearly gave some examples of the materials and products used in F1 that are now in production cars.

I know they are not going to grab the F duct and install it on a Corolla.

Not everything is practical or even relevant to a production car, but there are "some" crossovers, however limited they may be.

Look at the R35 GTR with its underbody aero, diffusers and spoilers. Didn't F1 have something to do with developing wings on cars to produce downforce?

It is a simple argument. The technology, engineering, tolerencing, build quality etc etc of an F1 car is so far outside that required on a road car as to be irrelevent to it. The competition in F1 is so fierce none of the people working there would give a rats arse about road car design.

Yes there may be some materials/principles etc that are common. But the sort of CNC machined wotsit made out from the heart of a forging of unobtainium & lifed to last 5 seconds that you find on an F1 car is nowhere near anything ever seen on a road car.

The only real influence F1 has on road cars is fashion.

Underbody aero became big in F1 in the late 70's. Does stuff take 30 years to filter down?

[Roy]

But head design, port design, fuel and oil research. ABS, traction control, active suspension was on road cars and you now have things like magnetic suspension which didnt come directly from F1 but the computing power and data logging that allows it has its roots in F1.

The crash design of cockpits, and energy dissipation from materials come from F1. Tyre technology comes from motorsport as a whole, mostly compunds and cut of the tyre, though not as developed as when there is a tyre war.

Its not black or white, but i would tend to say that there is a lot on the background that ends up as a practice in road cars. Hell, even down to the trainin of engineers where they cycle through that part of the business where rapid prototyping rules in F1 translates to production cars.

[Kinks]

+1 to nismoman and Roy's points. There is plenty that trickles down and makes a difference but the application for road and race is very different. You just need to have your eyes open to spot it, it's not like next year's lancer will rev to 18,000rpm and last about 600km before needing a rebuild but it might have traction control (lol), ABS, paddle shift, etc which had their roots in a racing formula. What about all the semi-automatic gearboxes now available in road cars that have two input shafts and 2 clutches, meaning the next gear is preselected for a quicker shift? Tell me that had no roots in F1!

[scarface_au]

But head design, port design, fuel and oil research. ABS, traction control, active suspension was on road cars and you now have things like magnetic suspension which didnt come directly from F1 but the computing power and data logging that allows it has its roots in F1.

The crash design of cockpits, and energy dissipation from materials come from F1. Tyre technology comes from motorsport as a whole, mostly compunds and cut of the tyre, though not as developed as when there is a tyre war.

Its not black or white, but i would tend to say that there is a lot on the background that ends up as a practice in road cars. Hell, even down to the trainin of engineers where they cycle through that part of the business where rapid prototyping rules in F1 translates to production cars.

Roy, I'm not seeing your point unless you can give some sort of example. I mean, tyres, seriously? What do 13-inch F1 slicks designed to last 100 km have in common with road tyres, besides being made of rubber? The compounds aren't remotely similar, the tyre construction is nothing alike, slicks don't even have tread patterns, which road tyres are required to have.

Crash design of cockpits? If I was driving a single-seat car with a carbon chassis it might be relevant, but a metal chassis road car reacts completely differently in a crash to an F1 car. The "energy dissipation" you refer to, as I understand it, is when the force of an impact is channeled into a part being ripped off the car. This just doesn't happen in road cars. Road cars use a mix of crumple zones and strong points to absorb energy and channel it around a safety zone, i.e. the passenger area.

BTW, some examples of "F1 technology" for you:

ABS - first invented in 1929 for aircraft. Modern electronic ABS first appeared on a road car (a Chrysler Imperial) in 1971

Traction control - developed in 1971 by Buick for GM

Active suspension - developed by Lotus F1 in the 1980s (I'm including this to be fair). However, its first road-car use, the 1987 Mitsubishi Galant, probably didn't derive any technical data from Lotus. Mitsubishi in all probability developed their system from scratch, although Lotus may have given them the idea.

And turbos, of course, were around for a long time before F1 began using them.

[FloydWestwood]

I'm looking at buying a bmw x1, and it seems they've even developed a 'KERS' style system where heat generated from braking/coasting charges a battery for less fuel consumption. Or something like that.

Can't say it's not remarkably similar to F1 technology.

[scarface_au]

I'm looking at buying a bmw x1, and it seems they've even developed a 'KERS' style system where heat generated from braking/coasting charges a battery for less fuel consumption. Or something like that.

Can't say it's not remarkably similar to F1 technology.

Yes but correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure someone will) I think KERS-style energy recovery pre-dates F1. The flywheel system that someone (Williams?) had was different, but the system you're talking about was on road cars before F1 I think.

[BezerkR32]

shit you guys are using some ealy big words...........im going to bed.

[Roy]

hehe, 10 days to go to the next GP and i just got back to my hotel room, so cool. An F1 disucssion

I haven't got answers to all of what you posted but I can offer how i view things You seem to think its black and white. I see it as grey with many areas of cross over and in instances where an existing technlogy from space programs, defence programs have been utulised or accelerated giving them application in the automove field.

Roy, I'm not seeing your point unless you can give some sort of example. I mean, tyres, seriously? What do 13-inch F1 slicks designed to last 100 km have in common with road tyres, besides being made of rubber? The compounds aren't remotely similar, the tyre construction is nothing alike, slicks don't even have tread patterns, which road tyres are required to have.

So no development goes into the symmetrical design of wets and intermediates? The tyre compounds that are designed to last 100kms whilst being stickly should not be dismissed as beneficial for road and performance cars. When you factor in the effect of aero and the loads going through the tyres, i would think there is a cross over for performance road cars that are having to deal with the heat of sustained 250km/h speeds with 1700kg cars loading them up. I agree that a lower profile slick in a larger diameter would allow more direct transfer of technology but I dont think you can dismiss any correlation between motorsport/F1 and tyre technoogy.

Tyre construction nothing alike? So te materials used in and under the rubber and their resistance to cuts and punctures at speed and temp? For the average road car or sports cars i could not see tyre manufacturers caring enough to spend the sort of coin on material science that they do. But for F1 and other motorsport, they get the PR of racing plus the tech transfer

Crash design of cockpits? If I was driving a single-seat car with a carbon chassis it might be relevant, but a metal chassis road car reacts completely differently in a crash to an F1 car. The "energy dissipation" you refer to, as I understand it, is when the force of an impact is channeled into a part being ripped off the car. This just doesn't happen in road cars. Road cars use a mix of crumple zones and strong points to absorb energy and channel it around a safety zone, i.e. the passenger area.

So the modelling F1 teams have used to develop safety cells, shaker rigs etc isused before they go crashing expensive prototypes and how they cycke to failure. The same modelling and testing techniques accelerated by F1 teams cross over to steel, aluminium monocoques. There are several premium cars that used carbon chassis. A deformable structure is a deformable structure to an engineer. If its the spoiler and suspension arm and nose cone or a inner and outer guard. Its numbers, loads and how to transform the energy.

BTW, some examples of "F1 technology" for you:

ABS - first invented in 1929 for aircraft. Modern electronic ABS first appeared on a road car (a Chrysler Imperial) in 1971

Traction control - developed in 1971 by Buick for GM

Active suspension - developed by Lotus F1 in the 1980s (I'm including this to be fair). However, its first road-car use, the 1987 Mitsubishi Galant, probably didn't derive any technical data from Lotus. Mitsubishi in all probability developed their system from scratch, although Lotus may have given them the idea.

And turbos, of course, were around for a long time before F1 began using them.

So you could also refer to old Mercs, superchargd MGs etc, fuel injected Corvettes in the late 50s? The Corvettes used actice suspension developed by Lotus in the 80s. Development of the systems was used up to the lates 90s, have not seen tha latest Vettes to know if they still use it. Turbos may have been aroud, but the materials used for housings, wheels, bearings etc changed with the environment which turbos were used in motorsport. You could say F1 didnt create the overhead cam engine, but i am pretty sure if gave us the 5 valve head and other combustion chamber technology that allowed performance and fuel economy to be improved and beTter understood. It wasnt that long ago i read somwhere that considering the power per litre of fuel burnt a V8 F1 engine was soemthing like 20-30% more efficient than that Fiesta or Golf or some crappy European hactch. And only burnt about the same amount of carbon dioxide per kg of fuel burnt.

I also read all the other industries that Cosworth was now involved in because of its intellectual property derived from building F1 engines. Ditto some of the companies like HP and i think Vodafone who through developments in F1 have improved processing/telemetry speeds, reduced weight and heat etc

So, not saying you are wrong, but i feel there is far more crossover in the detail rather then saying a given technology had to be created for F1 and that part directly find its way on to a road car. I would tend to think that there is probably more crossover between F1 and aviation these days.

[mickey]

ok of course motorsport in general, including F1, contribute to the R&D of cars in general. There's hundreds of inventions that NASA has founded for use in the space program that are used in everyday life. Things like invisible braces, memory foam, teflon, shoe insoles, etc.

I'm sure F1 has spawned a myriad of things that also have been used in normal applications. By your reasoning there's no point in motorsport in open wheelers because noone really drives them, should just be maxi taxi racings, and just to keep it all 'useful' everything should be legal so cars should race with normal road tyres and fluids.

Extreme forms of motorsport is what makes the breakthroughs in technology which trickle down and may be used even in non-motorsport applications.

[scarface_au]

Valid points, but the point I am trying to make is that the link between road cars and F1, and indeed almost all motorsport these days, is fairly distant. Certain concepts may flow on but it's always modified, modified, and modified again, probably numerous times, and by then they're almost unrecognizable except in a general sense.

As far as tyres go I was specifically talking about slicks, which are what F1 cars run on 95% of the time. Wet tyres may have some road car benefits, but in all honesty I'm not sure how much effort tyre companies put into wet tyre technology, given that they're not used a lot and give less performance gain per R&D dollar than slicks. To put it another way, spending money on slicks will deliver more tangible racing benefits more of the time than spending it on wets. In the wet the weather has more influence over grip than the tyre does, with the track constantly getting wetter and drier.

Maybe an engineer could see the similarities between F1 and road cars, but as a layman I can't. Some of the technologies you've referred to only appear on million-dollar hypercars that your average mortal won't ever drive, such as carbon chassis.

Maybe slightly off-topic, but I think any technological trickle-down, such as there is, will almost completely die off in the next decade. The loss of technical freedom means the teams have almost no scope to develop new concepts, they're restricted to developing what they have. Anything that makes the car faster is almost instantly banned, I'm surprised the F-duct hasn't been banned already. Colin Chapman would have been run out of town as a dangerous hooligan if he tried doing stuff like he did now.

Maybe my focus is too short-term. Some of the concepts you mentioned have some F1 influence, but it's all stuff from the 80s and 90s. Has there been anything in the last 10-15 years that is likely to make its way onto road cars in some form? I can't think of anything, but maybe you can.

You have convinced me to relax my position a bit, but I haven't completely converted :-)

[scarface_au]

ok of course motorsport in general, including F1, contribute to the R&D of cars in general. There's hundreds of inventions that NASA has founded for use in the space program that are used in everyday life. Things like invisible braces, memory foam, teflon, shoe insoles, etc.

I'm sure F1 has spawned a myriad of things that also have been used in normal applications. By your reasoning there's no point in motorsport in open wheelers because noone really drives them, should just be maxi taxi racings, and just to keep it all 'useful' everything should be legal so cars should race with normal road tyres and fluids.

Extreme forms of motorsport is what makes the breakthroughs in technology which trickle down and may be used even in non-motorsport applications.

1. What's NASA got to do with anything? We're talking about F1.

2. You're sure? Name them. Don't just guess.

3. "My reasoning"? I'm not arguing against F1 racing at all. That's not my point. I certainly don't think we should get rid of F1 and just run production car racing, how boring would that be? All I'm saying is that implying that F1 is a test-bed for road-car technology of the future is stretching things a lot.

I love my F1, but I love it because of what the cars do, not because it's a proving ground for technology.

[Roy]

Colin Chapman would have been run out of town as a dangerous hooligan if he tried doing stuff like he did now.

He should have been back in the day Anyone that drive his cars were nuts. Sure they were quick and could win, but they could also mess you up pretty bad when they failed !

Remember the RBRs and Toyotas being investigated few years back when they flew apart in the Aus GP? I suspect you are right about what you have said.

Maybe my focus is too short-term. Some of the concepts you mentioned have some F1 influence, but it's all stuff from the 80s and 90s. Has there been anything in the last 10-15 years that is likely to make its way onto road cars in some form? I can't think of anything, but maybe you can.

I think you are again right, innovation cannot continue at the rate it once did. It will plateau off, and with the regulations stifling innovation then we are not likely to see much more.

[nismoman]

djr81 and scarface_au - you both seem to suffer a deficiency in comprehension.

I'm not stating that F1 parts fit directly to our road cars, or that the same production process is even used.

I responded to both your posts where you took the position that F1 and it's innovations have nothing to do with inspiring the design of production cars.

To have this opinion shows both your ignorance.

Does it matter that it takes time for the technology to filter down? No. The correct answer is it does filter down regarless of time.

Does it matter that it gets re-designed and changed to fit and be better applied to a road car? No. The correct answer is F1 still inspires the design.

[scarface_au]

djr81 and scarface_au - you both seem to suffer a deficiency in comprehension.

I'm not stating that F1 parts fit directly to our road cars, or that the same production process is even used.

I responded to both your posts where you took the position that F1 and it's innovations have nothing to do with inspiring the design of production cars.

To have this opinion shows both your ignorance.

Does it matter that it takes time for the technology to filter down? No. The correct answer is it does filter down regarless of time.

Does it matter that it gets re-designed and changed to fit and be better applied to a road car? No. The correct answer is F1 still inspires the design.

And you seem to have misunderstood my understanding of your position. I never meant to say that you thought parts came directly off F1 cars.

I may have overstated my position. I recognise now that there is some influence, but I maintain that it is distant and tenuous. The applications are, I still say, too different to have more than a minimal degree of commonality. If F1 disappeared tomorrow (something I sincerely hope never happens), I don't think the production of road cars would be affected. There are plenty of technical innovations being produced by companies that have no participation in F1. On the other hand, a lot of the technology in F1 will never see the light of day on a road car.

[nismoman]

And you seem to have misunderstood my understanding of your position. I never meant to say that you thought parts came directly off F1 cars.

I may have overstated my position. I recognise now that there is some influence, but I maintain that it is distant and tenuous. The applications are, I still say, too different to have more than a minimal degree of commonality. If F1 disappeared tomorrow (something I sincerely hope never happens), I don't think the production of road cars would be affected. There are plenty of technical innovations being produced by companies that have no participation in F1. On the other hand, a lot of the technology in F1 will never see the light of day on a road car.

I'm cool with that.

It seemed earlier you weren't listening thats all. Also djr81 strongly disagreed with my earliler posts so was more directed at him.

[scarface_au]

I'm cool with that.

It seemed earlier you weren't listening thats all. Also djr81 strongly disagreed with my earliler posts so was more directed at him.

It's not so much a question of not listening as much as it is of interpretation. Often the problem with these debates is how you define terms. It's fine until people start getting narky and throwing insults at each other. That's when people stop listening.

[djr81]

djr81 and scarface_au - you both seem to suffer a deficiency in comprehension.

I'm not stating that F1 parts fit directly to our road cars, or that the same production process is even used.

I responded to both your posts where you took the position that F1 and it's innovations have nothing to do with inspiring the design of production cars.

To have this opinion shows both your ignorance.

Does it matter that it takes time for the technology to filter down? No. The correct answer is it does filter down regarless of time.

Does it matter that it gets re-designed and changed to fit and be better applied to a road car? No. The correct answer is F1 still inspires the design.

Gotta love the interweb.

To make things clear.

I understand your position(s).

I disagree with them.

That doesn't make me ignorant.

[Kinks]

Crash design of cockpits? If I was driving a single-seat car with a carbon chassis it might be relevant, but a metal chassis road car reacts completely differently in a crash to an F1 car. The "energy dissipation" you refer to, as I understand it, is when the force of an impact is channeled into a part being ripped off the car. This just doesn't happen in road cars. Road cars use a mix of crumple zones and strong points to absorb energy and channel it around a safety zone, i.e. the passenger area.

I'd like to present Exhibit A, a Ferrari Enzo that's been in a slight bingle. Notice how it's a road car and the driver's section has separated from the engine (carbon monocoque) thus dissipating energy. Driver not only survived but his only injury was a bloody lip.

It's doubtful that a regular car with spot welded metal chassis (like our favourite Hyundai Excels that seem to have collapsible suspension mounts) would have been survivable in this kind of accident. Therefore the trickle down technology of F1 cars can be applied to road cars in the sense that sports cars can be made faster while still being (relatively) safe to have an accident in. You wouldn't expect a middle range car to have this kind of technology, the top end will always get it first.