One innovation

[EvilWhippet]

With the strictness of F1 regulations being tightened seemingly every year, we see more and more teams taking alternative methods to gain an edge. Recently there has been the F-duct and some controversial diffusers, and decades before that it was ground effect, the "fan" car and many other countless and brilliant ideas.

So now you're in charge of it all, the whole circus. Which banned innovation do you allow back in?

Me, I'd go for the Mclaren fiddle brake.

 

[Brogan]

The extra pair of wheels as sported by the Tyrrell P34.

That was the coolest F1 car ever

I wasn't sure what to vote on the poll so I didn't bother...

 

[EvilWhippet]

I'd go with no poll, personally.

I should probably expand on my choosing the fiddle brake. My understanding of it (which may be one or two acres wide of the mark) was an extra pedal that worked purely on the rears as the car was coming out of corners, serving as a kind of human traction control. Often battles on track involve who can get the best drag out of a corner, and something so different as the fiddle brake letting the driver have extra input into this could, potentially lead to some interesting wheel to wheel conflicts. Also, it was such a briefly used thing I'd just want to see it again for the sake of it.

 

[Pyrope]

The fiddle brake transferred torque from one side of the car to the other, to send the braking energy from the inner wheel to the outer, maintaining control (no locked brakes!) and improving braking performance and turn-in. That would be a good thing to bring back.

Personally, that's the kind of tech trick I like. It wasn't governed by an electronic brain but by the drivers' feet. I'd bring back the F-duct, certainly, as well as the tuned mass-damper (why that one was banned I'll never really understand) and CVT (which was banned before it ever really got going).

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

What's the poll for?

 

[FB]

as well as the tuned mass-damper (why that one was banned I'll never really understand)

Because Ferrari didn't have it?

I'd just like to see a more liberal approach to the rules rather than the prescriptive "spec" series we have and also like to see the other teams stop bitching about any new ideas just becaue they didn't think of them - double deck diffusers, flexible wings, F duct etc. The pinaccle of motorsport has to have new and inventive ideas otherwise we may just as well go and watch GP2.

Let the teams design the cars within a set of liberal rules and, as long as it's not dangerous, good job. When Champan bought in the wing car in the late 70's all the other teams took a while to react but got there in the end and did it better. When Renault introduced turbo engines they had an advantage they never capitalised on and everyone overtook them (literally and metaphorically). We might see one team domanate a season because of some master stroke of engineering but the season after everyone will have the same and, probably, will have move ahead of the inventor.

As to a single innovation, probably wing cars.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

FB, it sounds like you're advocating 'Divergent Governance'. Remember this thread from a few months ago?

http://cliptheapex.com/threads/dive...ase-overtaking-and-mechanical-diversity.1922/

 

[Pyrope]

As to a single innovation, probably wing cars.

I think the problem with wing cars is that, at the levels of performance we expect from F1 cars these days, it is very hard to make them safe. Even without skirts, once you get too much air underneath them they stop being wing cars and just become wings. You push the angle of attack beyond a critical point and all that downward thrust suddenly becomes upward thrust. One big nail in their coffin was Rene Arnoux's launch over the gravel trap and into the top (the top!) of the catch fence at Tarzan in 1982. That Renault flew clean over one of the widest gravel traps in racing and was only caught because they had introduced new, taller fences a couple of years previously. Had it happened in 1980 we would have been looking at Le Mans 1955 all over again. As Webber's test flight in the new RBR Dreamliner last year showed, flat bottomed cars aren't immune from similar problems, but they are much less efficient at converting forward motion into upward motion than the wing cars used to be.

 

[teabagyokel]

One big nail in their coffin was Rene Arnoux's launch over the gravel trap and into the top (the top!) of the catch fence at Tarzan in 1982. That Renault flew clean over one of the widest gravel traps in racing and was only caught because they had introduced new, taller fences a couple of years previously. Had it happened in 1980 we would have been looking at Le Mans 1955 all over again.

Don't forget that in the aftermath of Le Mans 1955, motorsport was banned in half of continental Europe until safety measures were improved. One of those cases of everything going wrong at the same time!

As Webber's test flight in the new RBR Dreamliner last year showed, flat bottomed cars aren't immune from similar problems, but they are much less efficient at converting forward motion into upward motion than the wing cars used to be.

I often wonder if the RBR would have kept going up had it not hit the hoarding...

 

[no-FIAt-please]

The F-duct or dual brake pedals, two great innovations which shouldn't have been banned, especially as they gave the driver a harder time, therefore separating the good from the great.

 

[MCLS]

One handed through Eau Rouge is getting too dangerous though isn't it?

 

[Pyrope]

That's Ferrari's fault for coming up with a dumb design for their F-duct actuation.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

What I thought was really clever about the original (i.e. Mclaren's) F-Duct, which none of the copies managed to emulate, was the knee operation. This achieved two things:
1. It avoided another operation that the driver needed to carry out with his hands.
2. To operate the device the driver had to lift their left knee up, meaning that they couldn't operate the device and the brake simultaneously. When they lowered the knee to apply the brakes, the device automatically de-activated, restoring downforce. A sort of 'Dead-man's handle'. Inherently safe at the same time as being really easy to use. Genius.

 

[EvilWhippet]

Thanks for all the responses, the poll is close as can bem with both outcomes at 2 each

 

[Andyoak]

I don't know... could be one of a hundred things; active suspension springs to mind but probably because Williams had it nailed so were the best at the time (always earns points for me). At this time in the evening I'm more inclined to just loosen the engine rules and tighten the aero rules then say anything goes within the car length / width / height limits prescribed.

 

[Andrea_Moda_Rules]

Ground effect or at least some form of it. I know thats sort of a conseqence of innovation rather then 1 itself and therotically coming back 2013 although nothing about how, restrictions etc etc.

Also loosened up engines rules, lets a max fuel loadand perhaps a rescrition in cubic capaacity and then let the engineers and designers do what they like. V8s, V12s turbos, hybrids, etc.

Basically anything that makes the cars so reliant on aerodyamics and less turbulence more slipsreaming, and hopefully more overtaking.