2013 Porsche 989F1

[prolific1]

This is what I've been up to when not making jets. In fact I may start making all my orthogonal illustrations in perspective as I have done this one. I was kicking this one around the various car and motorsports magazines covering the raft of rules changes for F1 in the near future...but no takers.

It's what the cars may look like in a few years with the new Turbo/KERS formula. Gone are the airboxes, and provided the rules call for single turbos, potentially the "blown" floors; certainly less effective with only one exhaust exit. In lieu of the ram air inlets of contemporary cars are the spinal rollover elements coupled with a turbo intake snorkel a la Audi R15 plus. The F-Duct is abolished (as of next year) though a passive one not unlike this year's Mercedes might do in conjunction with the movable rear element that is allowed for 2011 onwards. The sidepods have been extended further forward to improve lateral impact protection as is likely on the cards. The floors are to receive generous allowances for venturi channels to decrease the reliance on the wings, which will be correspondingly smaller. I imagine something in the realm of Monza spec depth to balance out the increase in floor generated "negative" lift. The wheels are now more production car relevant in size 18-19 inch as is common in LMP1. The 1.6L engine with its ancillary bits and possibly exhaust heat generated KERS is entirely notional however as there would have to be a buyer for me to continue the with the rest of this illustration.

 

[blackkite]

Oh! Beautiful car. Side pod is very long and front wing is high. Recent F1 car's shape is very hard to understand.

 

[Nik]

Ooh, remember the wild and woolly season waaay back, when some cars had *six* wheels ? IIRC, some had four driving, others four steering. Some had turbos, others were 'straight'. Wacky Races !!

 

[AeroFranz]

Bring back the Alfa Brabham Fan car and the Tyrrell P34!

 

[Archibald]

Ooh, remember the wild and woolly season waaay back, when some cars had *six* wheels ? IIRC, some had four driving, others four steering. Some had turbos, others were 'straight'. Wacky Races !!

My father bought "Sport Auto" at the time - still have plenty of them in my mom attic.
1977-1982 was a crazy peiod.
Renault had the turbo
Tyrrell had the six wheels
Lotus had the "wing car"
And Brabham had the ducted fan car that sucked the air out of the bottom.

All this result in some daring Japanese manga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Emblem:_Hawk_of_the_Grand_Prix

 

[prolific1]

I'm thinking of doing a "what if the rules hadn't't changed from the 70s era" story and illustration. F1 Racing did a similar story years back but although the illustration was made by Williams employees it was pretty lacking in detail.

 

[GeorgeA]

Nicely done prolific. Will be interesting to see how the internal ducting will evolve, since the heat exchangers will not need to be very large and can be positioned asymmetrically.

I have to say however that the raised-keel F1 cars have little appeal to me. I always thought the full-length venturi era, roughly from the Lotus 78 through the BT50 were the most attractive. Who knows how F1 would have evolved if Ferrari didn't twist arms to get side skirts banned! The evolution of Indy cars through the 1980s shows that full-length venturis could be made to work if you had aero people who were sharp enough to understand the movement of CoP and resulting pitch issues.

(Edited to fix typo.)

 

[sublight]

Christ to get high horsepower out of that 1.6 the boost is going to have to be pretty astronomical. Are they going to have to use iron blocks or sleeves?

 

[Sundog]

Beautiful work Prolific1. Every time I think my work is improving, your work completely blows me away. That is outstanding.

I was really excited about the new Delta for Indy racing, but it wasn't chosen as it was too radical. I thought it was rather exciting, myself. Some ref's below,

http://deltawingracing.com/

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/indycar-inside-the-delta-wing-project/

http://jalopnik.com/5468819/delta-wing-racer-an-indycar-batmobile-rocket-ship

 

[prolific1]

I have to say however that the raised-keel F1 cars have little appeal to me. I always thought the full-length venturi era, roughly from the Lotus 78 through the BT50 were the most attractive. Who knows how F1 would have evolved if Ferrari didn't twist arms to get side skirts banned! The evolution of Indy cars through the 1980s shows that full-length venturis could be made to work if you had aero people who were sharp enough to understand the movement of CoP and resulting pitch issues.

Although Ferrari no doubt helped spur the abolition of ground effects cars (their flat 12 didn't allow for generous enough space for the venturis) it was only a matter of time. I mean the spring rates were insanely high. Patrick Head of Williams GP spoke of the possible need for G suits in the swansong days of the skirted cars.

I personally would like to see a return to proper width cars like that of at least the 1993-1997 era. I'd really like to see the tire widths of the 1992 era. More mechanical grip and less wing aero (though more floor aero is good).

 

[prolific1]

Beautiful work Prolific1. Every time I think my work is improving, your work completely blows me away. That is outstanding.

I was really excited about the new Delta for Indy racing, but it wasn't chosen as it was too radical. I thought it was rather exciting, myself.

Thanks man. That made my day.

 

[prolific1]

Christ to get high horsepower out of that 1.6 the boost is going to have to be pretty astronomical. Are they going to have to use iron blocks or sleeves?

Actually they're only aiming for about 650bhp from those things and about 12,000rpm. That's actually in line with what the Championship winning Brabham's from 1980-1982 were making with a stock block BMW inline four. In fact they were pulling 1000+ in quali trim. They intend to make up the rest of the performance divide [between today's motors] with KERS...which will have a larger harvesting/output allowance pushing an additional 150bhp.

Bring back the Alfa Brabham Fan car and the Tyrrell P34!

Fan car showered debris into following traffic. LOL!

Niki Lauda said the fan car had sooo much grip that track conditions were made irrelevant. Oil on the track? Meh. (shrugs shoulders)

 

[shockonlip]

Excellent work prolific1, as usual.

BUT!

The problem is that these cars have no fenders !

 

[shockonlip]

...
I was really excited about the new Delta for Indy racing, but it wasn't chosen as it was too radical. I thought it was rather exciting, myself. Some ref's below,

http://deltawingracing.com/

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/indycar-inside-the-delta-wing-project/

http://jalopnik.com/5468819/delta-wing-racer-an-indycar-batmobile-rocket-ship

Sundog, we had those in the 1950's as enclosed.

Regards.

 

[joncarrfarrelly]

Sundog, we had those in the 1950's as enclosed.

Regards.

Yeah, if Pontiac hadn't folded they coulda called this thing the Firebird IV.

 

[RayBee27]

I was fortunate enough to be at Long Beach the year that Colin Chapman tried to race his dual-chassis Lotus 88. Still have photos from that qualifying effort. Race stewards DQ'd the car; it was a typical stroke of genius from Chapman.

Wish they would have sorted out the Arrows A2 "banana" car. From front to back, one huge wing. The Lotus 80 was to be one huge wing, too. But they got some bits wrong on it. So many were still coming to grips with the power of downforce, and so few (if any) understood what they were dealing with in the beginning, that some teams just outright copied bodywork/aerodynamics from the more successful teams.

Cars back then were were generating so much downforce, it was told that some teams were replacing suspension springs with wooden blocks on some of the faster tracks. Drivers complained of the "ride" for sure. Chapman himself said that if they could build an upside-down track, those cars would be able to drive on it.

Chassis flex was such a problem with that much downforce. Metal fatigue was quite the issue. That's when McLaren stepped it up and contracted Hercules to build carbon fiber tubs, in order to maintain suspension geometry/chassis consistency and longevity.

Oh, those were the days, when the cars LOOKED like cars, and drivers DROVE them. Creativity ruled the day. This "F-Duct" thing has me in stitches. Really? Is that the best they can do? Smokey Yunick is rolling over in his grave. He would have spit on a 3mph advantage.

Those were the days of fan cars, cars with two chassis, the Tyrell 6-wheeler, active suspension (still recall the Williams cars driving along the rough bits with nary a bounce), the Brabham "dragster" (and Lowrider), 1500hp turbo 4's, and genius designers like John Barnard, Gordon Murray, not to mention Colin Chapman and Harvey Posthlewaite.

Now it just all video games. IMNSHO.

Long live Senna.

Ray.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Any interesting new F1 designs so far this year?

 

[bobbymike]

I apologize if this is a silly question but why does F1 have all these design changes, engine power, HP, aerodynamic changes all the time. What is the rationale? Is it to push technologies, design engineering, material tech?

 

[prolific1]

The rules are constantly "adjusted" for the purpose if controlling speed, and to a lesser extent - cost. Teams routinely gain upwards of 3 seconds a lap per year. As such, if teams are permitted to develop unmolested by rules adjustments, the cars would prove far too dangerous at many tracks, particularly the older ones.

Secondarily, cost is a consideration, although the causal effect of changing rules itself can be argued to drive development cost up. If teams all copy a pr oven design, like f-duct let's say, then banning it creates the same level playing field at reduced cost as the complexities of this design feature have been eliminated. Other items like v-angle, cylinder bore, and weight distribution have been standardized to firstly follow a path most teams will whilst also taking out the guesswork.

F1 drives ingenious solutions to rules problems but not necessarily ingenious solutions to performance gains. Often the brilliant feature of the moment is a novel workaround to a rule limitation rather than an engineering solution beneficial to the industry as a whole. A good example of this would be: the F-Duct, the fiddle brake, rotating wheel covers, flexi wings, flexi floors, double diffusers, et al.

The current tightly controlled regulations breeds greater parity, among the top teams at least. The more liberal regulations of years past produced more disparate competition with unusually one or two successful teams. Rules stability can also breed greater parity but at the cost of safety as speeds rise concurrently. The 1980s saw the end of the skirt era at which time teams such as Williams had already contemplated g suits for their drivers!

 

[bobbymike]

The rules are constantly "adjusted" for the purpose if controlling speed, and to a lesser extent - cost. Teams routinely gain upwards of 3 seconds a lap per year. As such, if teams are permitted to develop unmolested by rules adjustments, the cars would prove far too dangerous at many tracks, particularly the older ones.

Secondarily, cost is a consideration, although the causal effect of changing rules itself can be argued to drive development cost up. If teams all copy a pr oven design, like f-duct let's say, then banning it creates the same level playing field at reduced cost as the complexities of this design feature have been eliminated. Other items like v-angle, cylinder bore, and weight distribution have been standardized to firstly follow a path most teams will whilst also taking out the guesswork.

F1 drives ingenious solutions to rules problems but not necessarily ingenious solutions to performance gains. Often the brilliant feature of the moment is a novel workaround to a rule limitation rather than an engineering solution beneficial to the industry as a whole. A good example of this would be: the F-Duct, the fiddle brake, rotating wheel covers, flexi wings, flexi floors, double diffusers, et al.

The current tightly controlled regulations breeds greater parity, among the top teams at least. The more liberal regulations of years past produced more disparate competition with unusually one or two successful teams. Rules stability can also breed greater parity but at the cost of safety as speeds rise concurrently. The 1980s saw the end of the skirt era at which time teams such as Williams had already contemplated g suits for their drivers!

Thank you!