Ask Gary: Why wouldn't customer cars work?

Why wouldn't customer cars work and didn't they used to be part of F1 as the norm?
@toomanyarmies, via Twitter

In the past, customer cars were the norm but usually they were at least one-year-old cars being run by teams that were not quite as professional as those that built them. Often, they had 'gentleman drivers' to foot the bills.

Customer cars would work but the biggest problem is that to build a Ferrari F1 car probably costs at least twice what it costs Sauber to build its cars. With the greatest respect to Sauber, it would struggle to get the performance out of it that Ferrari gets out of its own chassis, so I don't think it would improve overall either financially or competitively.

I read a comment recently [in Racecar Engineering magazine] where Mercedes HPP chief Andy Cowell mentioned how the throttle pedal is used to generate a torque demand, rather than a throttle opening angle. This means that the ECU is managing the nonlinearity of the turbo power delivery, and so contrary to an '80s turbo car where all hell would break loose as the turbo spools up, it is no more difficult then a normally aspirated engine. Everyone in charge of F1 seems complain that the dropping viewing figures are because cars are too easy to drive, so why is this form of traction control tolerated?
Jonathan Wingfield, via Twitter

I completely agree with you. Since the advent of electronic throttle control the throttle pedal and the throttle opening were not linear, with an electronic output from the throttle pedal you can play tunes on what is happening at the other end.

Now having the turbo speed, and hence boost pressure, controlled by the MGU-H and the ability to bring in electrical torque through the MGU-K to fill in the troughs in the normally-aspirated engine torque curve, it is actually easier to have a linear torque at the rear wheels relative to throttle opening than it has been in the past.

The driver can easily apply too much torque to the rear tyres and spin them up. But the days of, as you say, 'all hell would break loose' are, I'm afraid, gone.

This is also one of the main reasons that new or relatively inexperienced drivers are able to do such a good job. Go back to the days of Senna, Prost, Mansell or Piquet using only their talent to keep over 1000bhp under control with a power curve that was like getting hit on the back of the head with a sledgehammer and, naturally, talented drivers really stood out.

Are there any plans to get rid of the stubby noses some teams use, and if so how would they outlaw them?
Sammy Janiszewski, via Facebook

I haven't heard of any plans to change this regulation and really I don't see any reason to change.

The nose has to pass a very stringent crash test before it can be used in competition, so assuming they all do that then the FIA will be content with this rule.

My biggest worry is the height. I am pretty sure that if a car hits the back of another car on the startline, they will submarine underneath the one in front. The consequences of that could be catastrophic.

Given the randomness we have seen with the starts this year, it is probably only a matter of time before this happens.

The diffuser is the end component in a long chain of aerodynamic parts that beat the airflow around before it gets to back of the car.

It is these other components, including the front wing and, as I mention elsewhere, the front suspension, that open up opportunities for diffuser development. Beat the airflow up a bit less on the way to the back of the car and the diffuser will take on a different look and, in the end, give a different performance.

When you are trying to develop an F1 car aerodynamically, you need to start at the very tip of the nose and sweep right through every component to the rear, optimising everything on the way.

After you have done that and made sure the new package works on the track, you need to do exactly the same again and again until you have a car that is competitive with the best.

This is why manpower and budget are irreplaceable when it comes to being competitive in F1.

Do you think a Honda engine can match Mercedes this season? If yes, by when do you predict it to do so?
Tijo Joy, via Twitter

Sorry, but I don't think it will be a match for Mercedes this year. Honda has changed the head of the project and it will take more time for him to come to terms with what is required and how to implement it.

Getting the power unit to the same performance is one thing, but Honda then has to learn how to optimise it for each individual circuit's requirements. Mercedes - the team that is - appears to be much better at that then anyone else, including McLaren.

Honda also seems to shift the focus between performance and reliability. It finishes one race and suddenly it's all about performance. It has a failure and it's all about reliability. It needs to be big enough, well enough structured and funded to do both in parallel.

McLaren's demise as a competitive force in that era was caused a long time before it actually happened. And it came about because of its success.

The McLaren M23 was a very good car in its time and it won the world championship with Emerson Fittipaldi in 1974. A derivative of this car won the championship with James Hunt in 1976.

McLaren actually went on and started the 1977 season with the same car. By keeping keeping the M23 for so long, it lost out on the continual development stages that a new car responds to and, in the end, what the design engineers also respond to.

McLaren built the M26, which wasn't any better than the M23. When I arrived in 1977, it was parked up in the corner and I was actually the one that fought for it to be dusted down and brought into service so that at least the design engineers could try to understand why the M26 was struggling.

By the time 1978 came along, Lotus had moved onto the very successful ground effect designs but McLaren had stood still. The M28 was built as a ground effect car but was not totally committed to and it started its life as this huge overweight car that was just not producing the required downforce.

The M29 was a huge step forward in both aerodynamics and mechanical understanding, but unfortunately it was too late to save the original McLaren and Project 4, headed up by Ron Dennis, took over at the request of Marlboro.

So in my opinion getting rid of the M23 earlier and being much more adventurous with the design during 1975, '76 and '77 would have put McLaren in much better shape design-wise to react to what was happening.

We recently saw the banned twin chassis Lotus 88 at the Goodwood Members' Meeting. As I recall, it didn't record good laptimes when they actually ran it before it was banned but could it have worked well? Would it have taken a massive development budget to get it working properly?
Robert Archer, via Facebook

Robert, it would, as you have said, have cost a lot of money to develop but it was also extremely complicated.

It was all done to overcome the banning of sliding skirts. From memory, going from sliding to non-sliding skirts was a loss of something like 40 per cent of the downforce the underfloor created for most teams. Nobody was happy about this so everyone went their own way in trying to recover at least some of the losses.

I think the Brabham system was the most sensible and least complicated. It went for a double road spring system, which had an initial very soft spring with a lot of preload on it.

When the car sped up, the increasing aerodynamic force would overcome this preload and the car would move downwards towards the ground allowing the flexible skirts to come into contact with the track surface.

These would more or less seal the underfloor, creating extra downforce. The biggest problem was flexible skirt wear, which could lead to inconsistency in the aerodynamic forces.

The way around this was to actually allow the flexible skirt to flex inwards as opposed to outwards. As the low pressure under the car increased, creating the downforce, it would pull a film of air through between the skirt and the ground, dramatically reducing the skirt wear. This film of air was a small loss in overall downforce, but was much more consistent.

Will the SF16-H pushrod help Kimi perform this year? Looks like he has some serious pace, especially in races.
Sidd Verma, via Twitter

Kimi Raikkonen has always wanted a car with a consistent and strong front end, which means he can load the front up and then look after the rear himself. He doesn't mind the rear moving around a little bit but he can't stand understeer.

F1 cars are very intricate pieces of kit. Mechanically, the pushrod front suspension will probably improve the consistency in front tyre contact patch load, but I wouldn't get excited about that.

What it will do is improve the aerodynamic performance of the front wing. Actually, it will improve the overall aerodynamic performance.

It will do this because it is now working with the same attitude as the airflow coming off the front wing, so it will 'assist' with this airflow as opposed to blocking it.

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