How F1 safety cars work: virtual vs real and ideas for improvements

Table Of Content

• The diffuser
• How to watch Premier League, EFL, WSL, Scottish Premiership, Tennis and more
• Queen Elizabeth II Drove This Daimler Majestic. Now It’s up for Auction.
• Revealed: The biggest winners and losers after first five F1 2024 races
• F1 EXPLAINS: How new F1 cars come to life – from sketches to reality
• Red Bull RB9 (

The sleek and aerodynamic shape of an F1 car allows it to cut through the air with minimal drag, enabling it to reach incredible speeds. However, creating this aerodynamic profile requires careful design and engineering. Every surface of the car, from the front wing to the rear diffuser, must be optimized to create the perfect balance of downforce and drag. While current cars’ rear wings direct airflow upwards, they are also designed to send flow outwards, leaving the ‘dirty air’ sitting there for the following car to drive through.

The diffuser

Every 2024 F1 car and livery - The Race

Every 2024 F1 car and livery.

Posted: Thu, 15 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Without enough cooling the engine and its other components are liable to overheat, losing performance and potentially failing. To catch the first episode of F1 Explains in 2024 tap the audio player above or click here to listen on your preferred platform. Also interesting is how Ferrari repurposed the front wing flow diverters that we saw on the Mercedes at Austin last year, which had been declared illegal by the FIA. Alfa Romeo has moved the pushrod strut forward of the wishbones, a solution that copies what was seen on the RB18 last year. Engines are the most expensive part, costing around £12 million per year – although for that the teams get a number of units.

How to watch Premier League, EFL, WSL, Scottish Premiership, Tennis and more

The system was introduced to promote more overtaking, and is often the reason for overtaking on straights or at the end of straights where overtaking is encouraged in the following corner(s). However, the reception of the DRS system has differed among drivers, fans, and specialists. The central section of the front wing has to have a 500mm-wide neutral section on all the cars. The tips of the wing elements create a vortex that helps to improve the quality of the airflow all around the car, feeding the diffuser as well as working to stop the negative drag created by the front tyre.

Queen Elizabeth II Drove This Daimler Majestic. Now It’s up for Auction.

The 2022 car was also developed in exclusive sessions in Sauber’s wind tunnel in Switzerland, with 138 ‘baseline configurations’ experimented with over two years, with around 100 ‘wind on’ hours. There will, however, be some more standard components in the fuel system, as well as some additional sensors to allow the FIA to better monitor the power units. Two of the striking features on the 2022 car are its over-wheel winglets and a return to a feature last seen in F1 in 2009 – wheel covers. Receive exciting Motorsport news, updates, and special offers straight to your inbox.

The diffuser is the flared opening at the rear of the floor and is the part of the car responsible for generating the most downforce from the underside of the vehicle. As a means of reducing drag, this is a better distance from the front axle, helping to prevent the negative influence of the airflow from the tyre and thereby improving cooling. The new rules made the rear wing taller again and the flap size increased by 20mm, making the use of DRS much more effective in an attempt to improve overtaking. When activated, the system lifts the leading edge of the wing up by 70 millimetres to create a much larger slot gap - and reduces the frontal area of the car.

F1 EXPLAINS: How new F1 cars come to life – from sketches to reality

Here are the 10 key things you need to know about the game-changing 2022 car, a full-scale model of which broke cover at the 2021 British Grand Prix. Use motorsport.com without any advertising banners, personalized tracking and commercials for a small fee. Once all the parts are manufactured and ready to put together, the first actual car build takes about a week, with the car assembled in the race bay. The chassis monocoque is the central section, and all sub-assemblies are bolted onto it. Alongside the carbon fibre process, there is also a large amount of metal manufacturing, much using ‘exotic’ metals.

Mercedes

For the 2005 championship, they were required to last two full race weekends, and if a team changed an engine between the two races, they incurred a penalty of 10 grid positions. In 2007, this rule was altered slightly and an engine only had to last for Saturday and Sunday running. In the 2008 season, engines were required to last two full race weekends; the same regulation as the 2006 season. However, for the 2009 season, drivers were allowed to use a maximum of 8 engines per head over the season, meaning that a couple of engines had to last three race weekends. This method of limiting engine costs also increased the importance of tactics, since the teams had to choose in which races to employ a new or an already-used engine.

Newey has worked at Red Bull since 2006 and been a central figure in their subsequent rise to become an F1 superpower, leading the design of the cars that have taken the team to all 13 of their world titles. Red Bull showed with its one-off, Honda-inspired livery at the Turkish Grand Prix last season that it still has a flair for creating beautifully decorated F1 cars, making this year's uninspired effort even more disappointing. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Haas has severed ties with Uralkali and its Russian driver Nikita Mazepin. The team completed the first pre-season test in a plain liveried car but has yet to release an update since parting company with Uralkali. Innovations on this car included an extremely efficient use of DRS that made the car glide on straights and a floor that proved a work of art, and due to a crash for Perez in Monaco, the whole world got a view as his RB19 got airlifted to safety. The move to Pirelli tyres, the ban on double diffusers and the confidence bestowed upon him by winning his first title appeared to elevate the German to another level in 2011, and the RB7 proved to be a more than worthy successor to what came before.

Red Bull RB9 (

His recent designs have absolutely dominated the sport since the current ground-effect regulations were introduced in 2022, with Red Bull winning 25 of the last 27 races. This pushes the car onto the track, providing better traction and allowing for higher cornering speeds. At the same time, minimizing drag is essential to achieve maximum straight-line speed.

Whereas a road car tyre has a useful life of up to 80,000 km (50,000 mi), a Formula One tyre does not even last the whole race distance (a little over 300 km (190 mi)); they are usually changed one or two times per race, depending on the track. This is the result of a drive to maximize the road-holding ability, leading to the use of very soft compounds (to ensure that the tyre surface conforms to the road surface as closely as possible). That includes setting specific dimensions for wings and bargeboards, defining no-go aerodynamic areas and banning certain high-cost alloys in engines. From 2022, cars must run certain ‘standard’ parts and ‘prescribed’ parts such as wheel aerodynamics, wheel hubs and the front floor tea tray, which teams must build to a set design. There are also ‘transferable parts’ such as gearboxes and clutches, which can be bought and sold between teams. Sitting in the middle of the track and still in the driver’s seat, the British driver began calling over the radio for a red flag, which would have suspended the race.

The minimum weight permissible is 740 kg (1,631 lb)[3] including the driver but not fuel. Cars are weighed with dry-weather tyres fitted.[4] Prior to the 2014 F1 season, cars often weighed in under this limit so teams added ballast in order to add weight to the car. The advantage of using ballast is that it can be placed anywhere in the car to provide ideal weight distribution.

Aston Martin is one of the cars that has changed the most compared here to last year, implementing part of the Ferrari/Alpine concept with a flare in the upper edge and doing a great job with regard to all aerodynamics. The AMR23 is certainly a car that contains innovations compared to the old lacklustre AMR22. This trend already began during last season when teams like McLaren, Williams and Aston Martin completely mutated their initial aerodynamic concept with development packages. Only world champion Red Bull Racing is missing, so far showing only the livery and sponsors that will colour the RB19.

Therefore, in addition to the above changes outlined for the 2009 season, teams were invited to construct a KERS device, encompassing certain types of regenerative braking systems to be fitted to the cars in time for the 2009 season. The system aims to reduce the amount of kinetic energy converted to waste heat in braking, converting it instead to a useful form (such as electrical energy or energy in a flywheel) to be later fed back through the engine to create a power boost. However, unlike road car systems that automatically store and release energy, the energy is only released when the driver presses a button and is useful for up to 6.5 seconds, giving an additional 60 kW (80 hp) and 400 kJ.

In an effort to reduce speeds and increase driver safety, the FIA has continuously introduced new rules for F1 constructors since the 1980s. Since the force that creates the lateral acceleration is largely friction, and friction is proportional to the normal force applied, the large downforce allows an F1 car to corner at very high speeds. Most set-up work done on an F1 car will be to the suspension and teams can make changes to the camber, toe, spring rates, ride height and a whole host of other properties to suit a certain track. Together with the rear wing, these pieces are responsible for creating as much downforce as possible for the car. It is imperative that teams maximise the gains on offer from the diffuser, and understand how the airflow leaves the diffuser area in order to minimise the trailing drag produced by the car. The diffuser has to be carefully shaped to ensure no separation of airflow as it exits the space under the car, which can significantly reduce the effectiveness of the overall floor.

The aerodynamics have to provide a consistent and predictable amount of downforce at all times and in all these conditions, without sudden changes one way or another. This takes a great deal of analysis and number crunching using complex computer programmes and simulation in wind tunnels. How many times a team can go through the upgrade cycle during the season is limited either by the speed with which parts can be designed, or the pace at which they can be manufactured. To make sure that the teams and fuel suppliers are not violating the fuel regulations, the FIA requires Elf, Shell, Mobil, Petronas, and the other fuel teams to submit a sample of the fuel they are providing for a race.