Technical Moveable rear wings (DRS)

[sportsman]

The collective brains of the FIA and FOTA's OWG decided in their wisdom in order to increase overtaking and "improve the show" they would introduce some artificial elements to achieve that result.
With what information is availble from the teams principals,press statements from Martin Whitmarsh last years trap speeds at the points where the wing would be available and the drivers themselves I decided to try to find out if was the "silver bullet" to end overtaking problems.
I wish I hadn't tried.The permutations are so varied that its almost impossible to to reach a definite conclusion.But for what its worth you can read both parts of the article by following the links below.
Its a long read and in two parts.
Brogan has kindly given me permission to add these links

http://www.formula1journal.com/2011/02/my-entry.html
http://www.formula1journal.com/

 

[sobriety]

Does the car in front of you have to be an immediate position ahead, or could you activate the wing to lap someone?

 

[snowy]

Good work Sportsman, I can't say I understood the calculations (I'm a bit slow) but I do know there are lies, damned lies, statistics and Drag Reduction Systems!

 

[sportsman]

Yes you could.It works on any car irrespective of race position.Any car that is within the one second timing zone.
If for example you had four cars in line astern and the following three cars were all within one second of each other the wing would work on their cars.Poor sod in front would just sit there like a stuffed dummy.

 

[snowy]

Does the car in front of you have to be an immediate position ahead, or could you activate the wing to lap someone?

I would have thought that would be a no brainer... so I'm guessing no one has thought about.

Oh, they have...

 

[gethinceri]

Most edifying, it will be unknown until late April by the look of it whether the movable rear wing makes a difference. Controlling its use to once per lap is daft though, it should be available for use at all times.

 

[snowy]

Then it would have no effect just like the F-Duct once everyone else had one.

Sorry... thinking about it ...

the most probable reason they don't have it for the entire lap is that it would take an army of 50 officials to police it.

 

[sobriety]

Controlling its use to once per lap is daft though, it should be available for use at all times

Yup, say you're 1.01 seconds ahead of the guy directly behind you, and you come to lap a back marker in the 'zone', hey presto you get a .28 second advantage that he doesn't, schweet.

 

[snowy]

Or you are 1.01 from a car you are lapping and the guy behind is .99 seconds behind you...

 

[sobriety]

Ok lemme clarify that.

Backmarker --->1.0s---->You--->1.01s----->Mr Unlucky.

 

[sportsman]

Good work Sportsman, I can't say I understood the calculations (I'm a bit slow) but I do know there are lies, damned lies, statistics and Drag Reduction Systems!

Hmm I must add that all the calcs were done with a great deal of help from Flood1.
I struggled to make any real sense of them on my own.

 

[snowy]

I hope you didn't think I was equating your calculations with statistical data? That was purely a coincidental, I am not anti-math or anti-static.

 

[sportsman]

No snowy.I was just agreeing that the calcs are complicated and I had to have a great deal of help from Flood1 to make any sense of them.

 

[snowy]

It's thinking, that is the problem. F1 and people in general are far better off without it.

You can tell I've been thinking about this, can't you?

 

[sportsman]

As I said the permutations are endless.The correllation beween time and distance is the hard part.We are all familiar with the "accordian" effect of cars appearing to to be outbraking their rivals into a corner.
This is just the effect that time has on the difference in distance.Even though the time gap is constant the distance changes according to the speed.Its an optical illusion.

A driver pursuing a rival will only be able to activate his wing there if he is within one-second of the car ahead of him at a timing zone that will be set-up in the braking area for the corner before that main straight.
Looking at real race application in conjuction with the rules and the point where the drivers can activate the wing a different picture emerges.
In Australia the activation zone is the start/finish straight.Which means that the timing zone will be set up in the braking area at turn 16 is taken at 180kph according to the Official F1 website.One second at 180 kph an F1 car will travel 50 metres.
So the car one second behind will have to overcome that 50 metre handicap to get alongside the car in front.
The previous calculations show that the wing activation does not give that advantage.

 

[Brogan]

I've made my feelings clear on this ridiculous, artificial concept on numerous other threads.

Hopefully it won't be long before the whole thing is dropped.

 

[snowy]

Have they taken relativity into their equations? If so, who's? Newton's, Einstein's or Schrodinger's?

As I said the permutations are endless.The correllation beween time and distance is the hard part.We are all familiar with the "accordian" effect

It's almost as bad as the "bagpipe effect" and a little more painful than the solo violin.

 

[KekeTheKing]

If you guys think that's artificial, just wait for these bad boys to hit the track!

 

[Galahad]

Thanks sportsman, good report. Obviously it's an extremely difficult thing to model from the outside; one can only hope that those who have the data, FOTA, have worked it out correctly - even if we can't necessarily trust or agree with their intentions.

Personally I think the psychological effect will be at least as important as the aerodynamic one; the driver ahead will know where and when to expect an attack and will be driving that section of track 'in his mirrors'. This may lead to more driving mistakes; it seems certain to lead to even more aggressive defensive tactics.

 

[snowy]

Or passivity, defeatism and lack of enthusiasm.