Форум истории автоспорта > Современный автомотоспорт
2005 - "Формула-1"
Владимир Коваленко:
Это всего лишь тупое копирование материалов из журнала "Атласа Ф-1" без перевода - уж не обессудьте.
2005 Technical Preview
By Craig Scarborough, England As the FIA try to reduce performance and cut costs, some radical technical rules will come into play in 2005. Atlas F1's Craig Scarborough analyses the changes and reviews how they are likely to affect the performance of the cars
The FIA often introduce new rules as part of a three pronged goal of improving safety, cutting costs or improving the "show". During the summer and partly as a result of Ralf Schumacher's crash at Indianapolis the FIA made moves to improve safety and this was best achieved by cutting speeds. This speed cutting is only a secondary safety improvement, as in fact the cars are only safer as they are travelling slower. There have been some primary safety changes, but these are quite specific and restricted in their application.
All the teams run simulation software: this helps the team both predict a set-up for the car over the course of a Grand Prix and also helps predict where development input at the design stage will yield the greatest improvement in laptimes. This latter work on simulation has aided the FIA and the Technical Working Group (TWG) decide on what impact various changes will have on laptimes. Contributions to a laptime were broken into easily quantifiable elements: aerodynamics, tyres and power. By seeing what a 5% gain from any of these would bring, the FIA have found where is it best to cut to reduce laptimes.
5% power gain = 0.7s laptime gain
5% aerodynamic gain = 0.5s laptime gain
5% tyre improvement = 1.2s laptime gain
From these results the FIA have pinpointed some quite accurate and effective changes, which will see a real reduction in laptimes for 2005, then again in 2006 in order to curb the annual improvements catching up with the initial changes. These rules were not a small revision, but a major slashing of grip both aerodynamically and from the tyres.
In addition, regulations to prolong the life of the engine to two races were brought in to help reduce the rapidly rising power outputs, in addition to this was the mandating of 2.5 litre V8 engines in 2006. Somewhat confusingly these rules could also be seen as having the opposite effect of the FIA's other goals of cost and spectacle. In this article we will detail the changes, the impact they will have the speed of the cars and any impact on costs or the show.
We can split the rules into three sections, bodywork changes, engine changes and strategy changes, plus some simple safety changes.
Bodywork Changes
The most visually striking and, in the age of aerodynamics, an effective method to cut laptimes is to reduce aerodynamic grip. Aerodynamic restrictions have been implemented since wings first appeared in F1, but since the flat bottom and later stepped bottom rules for the 80s\90s most changes have been only to cut downforce by making wings smaller. This has the first effect of cutting corner speeds, but the downforce cut has often gone hand in hand with cuts in drag, potentially allowing straight line speeds to rise.
Instead the teams trade drag to create more aggressive wings that have similar downforce to those that went before, resulting in no major shift in corner or straight line speeds. The ratio of downforce versus drag is known as the lift\drag ratio, or commonly termed aerodynamic efficiency in F1 circles. Recent changes to reduce rear wing elements have seen better designed wings with the same efficiency as the previous multi-element wings, negating the effect of the rule change.
The FIA\TWG have been clever with the new rule changes to cut only downforce and not drag, so consequentially preventing the teams from regaining the lost downforce without major drag implications, this will limit both corner and straight line speed. In achieving this, the FIA have mandated the same size and number of wing elements but placed them in less effective locations. Hence drag is maintained (as the wings are the same size) but downforce is reduced. The front wing has been raised to reduce its interaction with the ground, known as ground effect. The rear wing has been moved forwards where it is disturbed by the flow over the roll structure.
A cars' downforce is produced equally in three areas: front wing, rear wing, and diffuser, yet the drag is produced largely by the wings alone, leaving the diffuser free to make 30% of the downforce for almost no drag. The diffuser has been left untouched by the regulations since the mid nineties and for 2005 has come back in for attention. Now the FIA have restricted its design, enforcing straight edges to the outer channels and limiting their height to almost half of what was allowed previously.
This change will account for a large part of the downforce reduction and leaves the teams with little scope to claw back the losses from the diffuser alone. Compounding this change is a small change to the floor around the rear wheels, which now requires a clearance between floor and rear tyre, preventing the seals and upsetting the airflow to the already crippled diffuser.
Most designers will accept that these changes have cut efficiency by around 25-30%; getting the downforce back will have to involve a drag penalty. The big unanswered question will be how much of it they got back by Melbourne? Everyone is playing their cars close to their chests, no one is willing to release their estimates as the team that have won the most back will be best placed at round 1 in March at Australia.
So how will the new cars look? Several teams already run revised cars with raised front wings, forward placed rear wings and cut down diffusers. The visual effect is subtle with the larger rear wing endplates and greater view of under the front wing. However what the teams will try to regain this lost efficiency will probably appear more dramatic in some cases.
The most influential aerodynamic part on the car is the front wing. This has to be raised 50mm either side of a 500mm centre section. The centre section is allowed to be as low as the floor of the car (as with last year). As the centre section is allowed to be lower it can generate more ground effect and produce more efficient downforce. But tying the raised outer sections to the lower middle span will prove difficult.
When the current front wing rule was introduced in 2001 some teams ran three-part stepped wings. These placed the lower central span in an ideal space, but the intersection between upper and lower spans upset the flow to the rest of the car, putting unwanted vortices into and taking energy away from the flow over the sidepods to the rear wing. Their trade off for producing the best efficiency at the front was costing at the rear of the car. Another design tried at this time was cascaded front wings, where a third element was added just above the main two elements, this is similar to the design run on the rear wing until recently. But again this has the unwanted effect of sending messy airflow over the rest of the car.
No doubt some teams will try these designs again and may race them at the high downforce tracks, where drag is less important than downforce. Other teams will want to run simpler curved wings maintaining the most homogeneous flow off the front wing, getting this wing to produce the right level of efficient downforce will see several workarounds, adopting the maximum of three elements will allow the wing to be steeper with out leading to drag inducing separation.
The other criterion for making a front wing work is not just the wings profile itself, but where its immediate wake is formed. One of the results of the 2001 front wing change was the fashion to raise the nose of the car. This didn't mean the tip of the nose cone, but the whole front of the monocoque from the nose all the way back to the driver's hips.
The extra space created under the nose\monocoque allows the front wing create its low pressure wake all the way back to the front of the sidepods. This raised nose design also spawned other design details such as keel mounted lower wishbones, bargeboards and sculpted sidepod fronts. Teams have already optimised these areas to quite high levels, so they are restricted in what they can achieve with in the rules. The dimensions of the nose\monocoque area are fixed in length and cross section, as is the cockpit opening. But these two areas are not tied together; it would be possible to create a larger space under the nose\monocoque if the whole nose was raised.
This would have impacts on centre of gravity height and suspension mounting, but provides an area for exploration. Ferrari's Monza test saw a fairing added to the top of the cars nose\monocoque, this could have been the first test of such a design, testing its effect on driver visibility and rear wing performance.
One area that has raised far too much importance from the media is the keel arrangement. Since Sauber, then latterly McLaren and Williams have adopted this format, it has been accepted that twin keel is best for aerodynamics and worst for weight\stiffness. But the aerodynamic gains are smaller than some believe and their adoption is almost certainly a secondary result of the general aerodynamic shape of the car, than a primary design goal to go for single or twin keel. For 2005 don't expect one design to have a huge benefit over the other. How the team works its front wing and bargeboards, in addition to the amount of tuning ballast they prefer to run will decide on twin over single keels.
An impact of the front wing being raised is its effect on the flow over the rest of the car; already we have discussed some complex wing designs hampering good flow regimes. Also the higher wing tips see their flow heading straight to where the brake ducts used to sit and the flow under wing will see some dirty air heading into the sidepod inlets and potentially over the top of the sidepods.
Most technical directors suggest brake or engine cooling won't be a problem, as the development of new shaped front wing endplates will direct the flow to where it's needed. Bargeboard design and the shape of the front wishbones will need to be subtly altered to make sure the engine cooling flow and flow over the sidepods is controlled.
The rear wing change sees the two upper elements moved forwards while the rear edge of the endplate remains in place. The resulting large endplates are an ugly result, but do not harm the wings effectiveness too greatly. The change will see the rear wing in greater proximity to the untidy flow off the roll structure and further away from interacting with the diffuser, the net result will see a sizable loss in efficiency.
To recoup the losses, teams will need to work harder with the flow straighteners such as the mid and shelf wings that appeared in droves last year. Also as the wing will need to be run at more aggressive angles, detailed work will be required to manage the flow at the wings intersection with the endplate to form smaller vortices keeping drag at a minimum.
One factor adopted by many teams and left largely unchecked by the FIA was the use of flexing wings. BAR were caught out by a protest following on-car footage showing the rear flap flexing at speed. What BAR had done was to allow the flap to deflect under load at high speed, this closed the slot gap and partially stalled the wing, cutting downforce and also drag.
At higher speeds where the driver didn't need downforce and hence drag to keep increasing, the stalling effect capped drag and allowed greater straight line speed. BAR were not alone in using flexible aerodynamics, but the protest was upheld and this lead to a revised deflection test for the rear flap. Many teams' front wings also adopted similar approaches with the flap flattening with speed. Agreement between the teams has seen some of these practices dropped for 2005 with potentially new deflection tests introduced to police the problem.
The diffuser is one area where some true innovation will be required to salvage the lost downforce. The outer channels have developed into very three dimension tunnels; with round edged steps between the floor and tunnel, compound curved fences and curved exits. All these shapes are introduced to pull as much air from under the floor as possible and direct it into the larger longer middle tunnel.
For 2005 the outer tunnels must have straight edges, no undercuts and lower exits, now only 125mm tall over the 220mm allowed previously. Teams will lose the tunnel's ability to pull air efficiently from under the car, as a result sidepods may need to be abbreviated to shorten the floor, and the middle tunnel will need to be worked even harder and the shape of the rear wishbones will need to be optimised to interact with the lower outer channels.
Making matters worse is the enforcement of a gap between the rear tyre and floor; this will send higher pressure air from over the floor, spilling under to towards the diffuser and upsetting its effectiveness. We can expect to see fences and strakes around this area to prevent to the flow going where it's not wanted, fortunately this area is largely unregulated and the teams should find solutions quite easy to come by. The dark black carbon fibre moulding of the diffuser will see some of the greatest unseen development in 2005, as the teams work to recapture the lost drag-free downforce.
All these changes were introduced at the last minute in comparison to the timescales for developing a new car. Teams were already well advanced in the layout of their originally planned 2005 cars. Instead they had to evaluate the new regulations and go back to their wind tunnels and CFD programmes to see the impact of the revised aerodynamics. Most teams have admitted discarding the initial concept for their 2005 cars and redrawing the aerodynamics. This is far from a cost cutting exercise, nor one to equalise the rich and poor in F1, as the well funded teams have plenty of wind tunnel time in hand over the lesser resourced teams.
This leaves the teams in the difficult position of rushing an all-new car out, that is optimised to the new regulations in time for Melbourne, or take more time to understand the problems and race an interim car for the opening races. It seems the majority will plan to race new cars, but final winter testing will need to the see the new car faster than the adapted 2004 chassis.
One last question is, will the changes that will cost the teams more, and slow the car actually improve the show? Will any of this improve overtaking? That is doubtful. At only 85mph an F1 car can produce its own weight in downforce, so following another car in corners will still see the second car disadvantaged, braking distances will not be stretched out by more than metre or two and speed differential and slipstreaming on the straights will be at similar levels. So there will be no instant improvement in the show.
Engine Changes
Last year saw changes to make engines last a whole race weekend with penalties for engines failing before the race. This was aimed to be a cost cutting exercise. The added development costs needed to make the engines more reliable was undoubtedly greater than the material cost saved in producing fewer engines. Also, any effect on capping performance was ineffectual, most teams claimed they had exceeded their 2003 power outputs by the end of the season, some even declaring their power output at Melbourne was greater than in 2003.
Broadly unpopular with engine manufacturer the rule has been extended for 2005 with engines now needing to last two race weekends, again with penalties for engine failures leading up to the second race. Most of the manufacturers have set to work on the ruling and are less boastful of the impact on power output while retaining reliability. Yet again we can expect to see power outputs drop initially, only to rise and probably exceed those from 2004.
Even before the one-per-weekend rule the teams managed the engines life, in races detuning it to ensure it's reliable to the finish. In 2004 the managing of engine life was carried out over the full weekend, with practice sessions and quiet spells in the race seeing different revs and maps run to ease the load on the engine.
This year the managing will go yet further, it is up to the engine manufacturers to have engines that allow the team to run the engine as fast as it needed over the two weekends. There will be a point where risking running the engine to higher revs late in the first race to gain a place will be offset by the risk of the engine not making it through race two.
Conspiracy theorists will see the teams being left responsible for taking their engines away and bringing them back two weeks later untouched as an opportunity to cheat. The engine manufacturers do not see this as a problem, they are in touch with the FIA and the sensible conclusion will be made on how to police the engines.
Then in 2006 the V10 era will be over, the 3-litre units being usurped by 2.4 litre V8s. This will have a major impact on power outputs and laptimes. From around 900-950bhp by the close of 2005, we can expect nearer 750bhp. While the V8s will share a lot of the internal dimensions of the V10s, these engines will be all new designs owing little in practice to them. Yet more complication and with many undecided details these new engines will be subject to new design rules, with things like fixed bore size, bore spacing, crankshaft height and mounting points.
These limit scope for individuality and development, but also a rule to specify centre of gravity height has drawn criticism from the engine manufacturers. For an engine designer CofG is not a criteria that can be designed in, primarily the engine is designed for performance and the CofG is a secondary concern, it is not a finite figure that must be achieved. How the 155mm CofG height will be measured and enforced is not clear, together with how the designers will go about designing it is also less than clear.
Strategy Changes
The third major element to reduce laptimes is the tyres. When grooved tyres were introduced, the idea was to introduce more circumferential grooves or other tread patterns to restrict grip. Instead the FIA have decided to go with long life tyres. Grooved tyres run relatively soft compounds and are changed frequently in a race in order to maximise grip.
But, the soft rubber soon starts to throw off balls of rubber and creates gripless areas of marbles off the racing line, inhibiting overtaking. To force harder tyres that are less prone to marbles, the FIA will now demand tyres last the whole of second qualifying the entire race, effectively making them last up to four times longer. To prevent teams switching tyres in the qualifying\race period, drive through penalties will be handed out to cars stopping for another set, plus that set will need to be the ones used from first qualifying and not fresh rubber. This extends to tyres with punctures.
Should a car require tyres changing, this cannot be done at the same time as a fuel stop. So no longer will we see cars stopping for tyres in a race. Instead the stark site of the refuellers going to work and no action going on around the wheels will be the "show" the FIA has set out for TV audiences.
At first this prompted the thought of less fuel stops and as a result bigger fuel tanks would be required to go longer between stops in the race. But there is the problem of making the tyres and brakes last. The heavy fuel load tends to wear tyres and brakes faster, so at tracks with big loads on tyre and brakes, lighter fuel loads will still be needed to last the race. Races that tend to have a small penalty on heavy fuel either because of the power characteristics or limited overtaking such as Monza or Monaco may see vastly different strategies for those that can preserve the tyres\brakes.
Added to this fact the qualifying layout will alter this year. Qualifying will still be split into two one-lap sessions, but one run on Saturday afternoon and the other one will be on Sunday morning. The time from the first deciding the order for the second and times aggregated to decide the grid. Again the first session is allowed to run any fuel load and fresh tyres, the second will follow an overnight Parc Ferme procedure and needs to be run on race tyres and fuel loads.
While making the layout of the grid unclear until Sunday morning, little will change in most circumstances. However when conditions are unpredictable, teams will have to assess weather risking a strategically slow first session will repay any gains from running faster in the second session, for example as with Silverstone last year teams ran slow in the first session as the second session was expected to see rain in the latter stages. Also as the two sessions will be run so far apart, if the conditions are very different i.e. one wet - one dry, and then the team must push in both to get the best grid position.
Safety Changes
As is common for most new seasons the impact tests have been tightened yet further in 2005. As has the strength of the wheel retaining tethers. To ensure the driver is safe and to restrict imaginative interpretation of the cockpit padding dimensions, the thickness and uniformity of the side impact padding has been increased. Lastly the problem of shards of carbon fibre littering the track after even quite minor incidents has been eased, with the teams expected to wrap the front wing endplates and wishbones in Kevlar skins to contain the debris. All of these rules were agreed unanimously by the teams.
Other Changes
Two clarifications have been issued to resolve yet more imaginative interpretation of the rules adopted by some teams in 2004.
Renault and other teams have been using various clever control systems to provide a launch control system with in the wording of the 2004 regulation. Teams both use a locking mechanism on the clutch paddle to hold the biting point and the controlled release of the clutch itself. These do not constitute any form of illegal launch control but do not fit in with the spirit of the rules. The FIA have now said the clutch must be under the control of the drivers paddle at all times during the launch phase. Hence the clutch must react to the position of the paddle under the control of the drivers fingertips, not locked into position and the gradually released by hydraulics.
Since gearshifts were mandated to be solely initiated by the driver in the ban on automated shifts for 2004, some teams have again found workarounds to this wording of the rules. This clarification has been widely and incorrectly reported as a restriction on minimum shift time in order to prevent super fast gearshifts, it is in fact the opposite. When a driver is shifting down the gearbox he had to ask for each change in turn, no longer having a button to shift down to a specific gear. So in theory he has to time the downshift to match the engine speed to road speed to stop the rear wheels locking up.
However the gap between the driver asking for the shift (flicking the paddle) and the gear selecting is not specified, teams could have the driver select a lower gear long before the speeds are matched and the electronics will say when the actual shift is completed. This still sees the driver initiating the shift, but not with any degree of control of the actual timing, which is legal but outside of the spirit of the rules. The FIA have asked for a maximum shift time, so that from when the driver initiates the shift to the when the gear is engaged must fit with in that timescale or the driver has to ask for the gear again.
BAR fought the FIA on the legality of the front torque transfer system introduced in Germany and raced in revised form from Monza. BAR dubbed their system Front Clutch Pack (FCP) and in its original form used electro-hydraulics to control the action of the differential between the linked front wheels. This was used not so much as an anti-lock brake system, but a control system to induce a turning effect under braking. Geoff Willis commented at the start of 2004 that corner entry stability was the restriction to a F1 cars speed.
The electronically controlled moog valve upset the other teams and the FIA upheld protests and asked to BAR not run the set-up. When BAR got FIA approval at its appeal to run FCP with out the electronic control, they raced it at Monza in a mechanical mode and lost around half of its improvement in laptime, but it still yielded a gain. As the TWG discussed the systems legality and suitability for F1 it was agreed initially to ban it for 2006, but BAR offered to shelve it for 2004 and not start a pointless race with other teams to develop Similar systems. Hence the FCP set up will not be seen in 2005.
Team by Team
Ferrari
As has been the case for several years, the season will start with an interim car, while the new car is launched in February and tests away the opening races. Aldo Costa has been the principal designer, with Rory Byrne taking a back seat to his likely successor. While making predictions for any new Ferrari is fraught with errors, the raised chassis option probably won't be as high as the Monza test car if at all. Increasing use of carbon in the gearbox would make an all carbon set up for 2005 a good prediction.
BAR
Unclear if the interim "concept" car will race at Melbourne, BAR have been one of the few teams to run a full 2005 spec test car. Still restricted in the tunnel while their new one is designed, the team should have a good handle on what's required for the new aero rules. A rumour of twin keels was even mentioned, while an even lighter gearbox is expected...
Renault
The first full car from Bob Bell's team will see a greatly revised engine that has had the development time denied to the narrow angle RS23. With an engine on par for power and weight, the team will be diverging from the enforced rear weight biased R24, while the controls departments get to grips with the loss of some of the launch strategies. 2005 could see a very different type of performance from Renault.
Williams
After problems with every part of the chassis and aero on the FW26, the FW27 will have a hole to dig itself out of. With Antonia Terzi split from the team and the new wind tunnel all but ready to produce new parts for the car, changes are expected from the team. It is widely predicted to head away from twin tusk and twin keels concepts, while not trying to go too conservative. The resulting lighter chassis should also mate to a revised BMW engine and a gearbox cured of its problems from 2004. Most likely to race with the new car at Melbourne, the team need to get a car on the pace immediately and with the potential to develop through the season
McLaren
After the MP4-18/19/19B debacle McLaren need to get to a stage where they have a new car ready, reliable and on the pace. Still no news on the new car launch date or their preferred car for Melbourne. The first versions of the 18 and 19 were markedly different from anything else in the pitlane; the 19B brought them back to convention; will the new car head even closer to convention or can Adrian Newey find a new tangent to gain the team an advantage?
Sauber
With the development results of their new tunnel visible on the 2004 car and the new car developed entirely in the new tunnel, Sauber have some promise to deliver on in 2005. While the team are once more designing their own gearbox and heading to Michelin for tyres, they are also establishing their independence despite the purchase of 2005 Ferrari engines.
Red Bull
With a winter of uncertainty, now offset by the Red Bull ownership and only Dr Mark Gillan departing the teams, there is some form of stability at the team. How much the uncertainty and budgets over the winter affected the new car's development remains to be seen. Cosworth equally have had a future in doubt and need to produce a new engine with good power and reliability.
Toyota
First to release their car and the first car under Mike Gascoyne's technical management. The potential of Toyota is increasing, but the car has been admitted to be largely based on the pre-rule change design, so hopefully there aren't too many compromises in this. Yet, Gascoyne tried with some success a similar new car roll out at Renault in 2003, releasing the chassis and mechanicals early, with the aerodynamic update arriving for testing before Australia.
Jordan
With the team's funding still subject to speculation, the design team, with such limited resources, has a huge job to do. Fortunately the supply of Toyota engines and Mark Smith from Renault heading the design team will improve their chances. No news on the car's first test, but without Cosworth engines and no plans to design an interim car for the Toyota engine, we can expect the team to arrive in Melbourne with an all new but little tested car.
Minardi
Having evolved the PS02 over three years, the new rules do not appear to favour another redesign. Whether the team has the resources to design a fresh new car with the pace to keep up with the field is the challenge only Minardi could take on. Expect an interim car to race in Australia.
Владимир Коваленко:
Technical Analysis: Toyota TF105
By Craig Scarborough, England
After three years in Formula One and with technical director Mike Gascoyne fully behind their 2005 car, Toyota Racing face crunch time this season. The TF105 must perform - and the Japanese owned, cologne-based outfit spared no efforts in the design process. Craig Scarborough attended the Toyota launch at Barcelona last weekend and spoke to Gascoyne and the technical staff. He offers a full analysis of the changes and features of the new car
After three seasons in Formula One and four years since they began working on their F1 programme, Toyota have failed to live up to their potential. The 2004 car exhibited the same aerodynamic and mechanical failings of its predecessors, squandering a fantastic engine in the process.
A Year ago, Mike Gascoyne joined the team from Renault and started to rectify the chassis problems and take Toyota to the same level of process and performance as other F1 teams. This year's car shows some of the results of the team's reorganisation and is clearly a step forward for the team. As the first car launched to the new 2005 regulations, it shows some of the visual changes to the wings and displays some of the workarounds the teams will find in regaining the lost downforce.
Toyota in 2004
Last year was not a step forward for Toyota on track; the car lacked speed, and this compromise in reliability lead to too many midfield incidents forcing retirements. Engine reliability was very good, with a single failure at Spa during the Belgian Grand Prix - put down to an unforeseeable early failure of an otherwise reliable part.
On a positive note for the team, new technical director Gascoyne, fresh from his success at Renault, was onboard. He was, however, too late to influence the TF104's design and soon set about a "B” spec car - the project team initially meeting even before the first race in Melbourne. Gascoyne had pinpointed failings in most areas of the chassis, from aero to suspension and the structures. Without time to redo the whole chassis, an aero step and rebuilt monocoque were the changes possible in the timescales.
The TF104B debuted in July, with a much lighter monocoque and revised wings and sidepods. These changes provided the increase in downforce and lower centre of gravity essential to improve the car's performance. Left uncompleted were the suspension and gearbox - the former in particular was again an Achilles heal of the car.
Heading into the development of the new car, the mechanical elements would come in for more scrutiny while aerodynamics is a never ending avenue of development, especially with the new rules introduced for 2005.
New Approach
With Gascoyne's experience and the corporate policy named "The Toyota Way” making changes to the team, an understanding of the team's procedural failings were identified. Almost ironically, Toyota's huge resources at the Factory in Cologne and across the group may have contributed to the team's problems. The huge weight of expectation for Toyota to succeed led the design team to use these resources to seek big gains with every redesign. Every new Toyota was a completely new design, throwing away a lot of the parts that worked in exchange for new parts designed from scratch.
In both mechanical and aero departments, the car lacked the detail work to bring a concept up to speed with a series of small steps. As Gascoyne told Atlas F1: "it's my job as technical director is to prioritise what you do, and sometimes you can make bigger gains from changing less bits.”
As an example, the rear suspensions failings were analysed to understand where the problem was, as Gascoyne explain: "the rear has changed significantly. We did a lot of testing on the test rigs and identified areas where it needed to be significantly improved. We did some good scientific investigation of it - rather than redesign everything and hope. We understood where the problems where and this allows us to fix in detail.”
In the windtunnel, the strife for big gains, which were needed to improve the car's pace, was masking the more numerous smaller gains that would have reaped the same reward. "It was inaccurate, it wasn't methodical, and it wasn't down to the required level of accuracy and repeatability," Gascoyne summarises the wind tunnel's procedural faults.
"This meant that you lost a lot of things that would have given us small improvements, and the overall improvement rate wasn't good enough. They were looking for big steps to catch up, but big steps come from lots of small steps. It took us six to nine months to do that - to have a tool that I felt was capable of developing as the top teams do.
"The frustration of doing this work is that while you are doing it, you are not catching them up. Which is why when the regulations came along, for us it was a great opportunity, as it does level the paying field and also it meant we could make the easy decision to say forget the TF104 and concentrate on the TF105.”
Equally, Gascoyne's approach to releasing a new car sees an approach previously adopted at Renault resurface: namely, releasing a mechanical package early with interim aerodynamics, then updating the aero before the first race.
"You can make it reliable mechanically, which of course you need to do," Gascoyne explains. "The downside, though, is that you need to freeze some parts early. That's why we are saying this car is going to be very different to Melbourne; we will put a new bodywork package on it. This means we have the most time for aerodynamic development.”
Once the conceptual work was done on the aerodynamics, it proved the moving of the front bulkhead wasn't necessary and that the old nose cone/front wing assembly would suffice for interim testing. These parts were frozen to allow the designers to focus on other areas. Also, with the monocoques structure receiving attention during the TF104B project, little work was necessary to make additional gains. So it was the priority areas of aerodynamics and mechanical set-up that received the most development.
There have been some winners and some casualties in this process; the previous head of aerodynamics, Rene Hilhorst, has left the team. On the other hand, Gustav Brunner – who was previously juggling designer and director roles, along with engineering the car at the track during the team's infancy – is now able to focus his energies on future development, heading the rework to the TF104 and conceptual work on the TF105.
Perhaps the unsung and biggest winner in all this is the engine department; headed by ex-Ferrari man Luca Marmorini, the department has produced an engine with excellent power and driveability, with the reliability record to match Ferrari. His department has been working effectively to produce these competitive engines only to be hindered by an unwilling chassis. Should the Gascoyne influence correct this situation, the team have an excellent base to realise their potential.
Aerodynamics
A caveat to the car's aerodynamics is that they are only interim versions - the nosecone, wings and sidepods will change before Melbourne. The Melbourne changes are described as "substantial” but will probably not be radically different in concept to what's seen on the interim car. As mentioned, the nose cone and front wing are from the TF104, with just the mounting pillars being shortened to meet the new regulations. And, since the front bulkhead has not been raised, the nose is not higher than the T104's.
"Aerodynamically, I don't think it's fundamentally changed," Gascoyne comments. "There are detail changes due to the new downforce regulations”
The car retains a neat single keel and the area under the monocoque has been raised slightly to meet the dimensional regulations. Again, the bargeboards are interim items matched to the front wing, but they follow a BAR design of a small simple board and horizontal fin between the wishbones.
The sidepods are a departure for Toyota. Although keeping the square fronts and large chimney of the TF104B, the coke bottle area is now fashionably slim and the shape is almost straight-lined from the sidepod shoulders to the gearbox. This necessitates some bulges in their sides to accommodate the exhaust system. This slimming of the rear forces the small winglet behind the chimney to dog-leg slightly to reach out to the widest allowable position.
The exhaust outlets are placed very close to the centre line and are quite low firing up underneath the rear wing. The upper part of the engine cover is also much narrower, now requiring a bulge to clear the airbox, but the neater damper installation has removed the large blister to cover the third damper.
The rear wing itself must be close to the final production item, as this is the most unconventional item on the car. Gascoyne believes this may be a common sight in 2005, stating: "with the elements moving forward, the interaction between the lower wing and the top wing changes - in fact the car's lower beam is very three dimensional shape and sweeps very far forward. This makes it very difficult structurally to take the required load and have the required stiffness for the new regulations."
Normally the load from the rear wing is passed down the endplates and through the lower beam. This cantilevered load makes the beam very difficult to mould to the ideal aerodynamic shape without adding undue weight. Toyota have gone back to the old method of a vertical strut to accept the upper wing's load in compression. This ends up being a lighter structure and the load path is straighter.
As the strut is quite short, it probably doesn't contribute much to the aerodynamics, which may prove useful as the regulations do not normally allow bodywork in this area. No doubt, Toyota has had this design agreed with the FIA.
As a result of the lighter loading on the lower beam, Toyota have twisted its profile making the centre higher and the outer ends moved forward and as low as the regulations allow. This makes the beam's interaction with the diffuser more effective; Gascoyne also adds that the regulation to move the upper wing forward reduced its ability to interact with the lower beam.
Also a novelty on the endplates is the stepped shape around the upper wing. As the lower portions are now nearer the rear tyres, they are spaced further away from the wheels' disturbance. Also, the way the step sweeps up behind the upper wing, suggests some method of flow management has been found to ease vortex production along with the three slits in the endplate.
The floor is also an interim item, made in two pieces with the front splitter being detachable, which will be useful for trying different layouts and accessing the ballast mounted in the splitter. The splitter also features near full length fences mated to the horizontal fins in front of the sidepods.
At the rear, the lower outer diffuser channels are on display, and Gascoyne says the lower tunnels were easy to optimise – although it required severe initial steps and a large gurney to make it work. "By limiting the absolute height, it means you've got to make the first portion of the diffuser work as hard as you can,” the Briton says.
Where the floor has to be cut back around the wheels, a quarter rounded section was added ahead of the wheel and the half rounded section was added along the side of the wheel to prevent the higher pressure air above the floor finding its way underneath and upsetting the diffuser.
Chassis - Tyres
Unseen on the launch car was the underlying mechanical layout. This area had great attention during the design process. "There was nothing wrong with the fundamental layout - it was the detailed implementation that needed to be improved on, and I must say Gustav and his team did an excellent job on that,” Gascoyne comments.
The gearbox is still made in cast titanium with seven speeds, and the spring/dampers follow a similar layout. It is clear the rear torsion bars are pointing down at a greater angle and the dampers which set into the top of the gearbox are much tidier.
Gascoyne describes the new layout as "fundamentally the same, just improved in the details area. That means the overall package is one I'm much happier with - if you put them side by side you'd struggle to tell which is which. When you look at the things that we know from an engineering point of view, the characteristics we needed to have, this car has much better characteristics than last years did”.
All this detail work had shed 8 kilogrammes off the chassis' weight, along with the initial improvements made to the TF104B. As a result, the team are happy that the stiffness, centre of gravity and weight are more competitive this year. Gascoyne even boasts that the car is now "state of the art in terms of packaging and Centre of Gravity location.”
Gascoyne goes on to tell Atlas F1 about traction control's effect on tyre wear: ”the trick is to have ultimate performance with traction control. The ultimate performance is actually allowing some degree of wheel-spin, but that causes tyre degradation. So now because you've got to keep that tyre for the whole race, you have to be more careful on how close you get to the limit of ultimate performance, trading that with degradation. Especially with reduced downforce, where you're sliding more, that's where you also get degradation.
"You can be quick with traction control, giving you ultimate performance, as you had last year. Or you can be sliding around and you can be quick, but your tyres are going to go off. If you've got to keep them on for another fifty laps that's going to be a key area."
This element of pace versus longevity excites Gascoyne, who says he loves the challenge of race strategy. "Managing the rear tyres is going to be a real skill,” he says. And, this in mind, he mentions that "Ralf [Schumacher] is one of the best guys on the grid at actually maintaining a good pace while managing the tyres."
Engine
As the team had a successful engine in 2004, they were already well into the development of the RXV05 engine, this project starting back in November 2003. As with the 2004 RXV04 engine, the development work to make the unit last the required mileage was complete by the previous season's end. Hence Toyota already have an engine able to last the two-race weekend totaling around 1,500km, some 700 more than the 2004 engine.
Repeating their claims from last year Marmorini's said that the engine was making the same peak power and revs as the late season version of the RXV04. The common belief that making an engine more reliable means making components heavier to cope, is in fact incorrect. Marmorini would not state an engine weight but said the new engine was two kilos lighter than in 2004.
7He also added that there were two factors preventing an even lighter engine. Installation stiffness, where the chassis would be compromised if the engine was lighter and less stiff, plus next year some materials are being banned within the engine, so they made this year's unit without them. Even common engineering materials like magnesium are banned, with the focus on steel and aluminium alloys. So impressively, Toyota have achieved their goals on power output, revs and weight already, and with an eye on the future.
Luca took the time to explain the engines design process. "As a target we took last year's engine, we started step by step to purely make the engine life longer, not changing parts in advance. At the end we have an engine very similar to last year, if Ralf tests our last engine it will look the same. He added Toyota are "not giving up performance, we are expecting to go to the first race with something higher than the best engine we assembled at the end of last year. "
To achieve this increase in mileage and maintaining performance, Marmorini commented quality control was critical, as small problems in components that would not occur at 800Kms would do so nearer 1,500km. Design wise the piston is not the limiting factor in reliability, but the bearings and their lubrication, finding a balance between thicker oil viscosities for reliability over thinner oil for performance.
"A Partner like Exxon gave us a big help for the longer reliability, in this case their contribution was going much beyond the normal percentage performance improvement for oil, and the oil supply was a huge part of the development"
Marmorini publicly explained that "the lower part of the engine has been optimised, but the concept is very similar to the older engine. The upper part of the engine has been completely redesigned." When speaking in detail about his work, he added the top end rework was to do with the inlets and variable length inlet trumpets. "This has been completely designed, we wanted to be even more extreme in the usage of short port and very long trumpet strokes."
In developing this engine through the year Marmorini warned the V8 project would not slow the V10 engine: "We will go on developing the V10 until the end of the season, at the end of the year to have the best V10 we can."
Владимир Коваленко:
Technical Analysis: BAR 007
By Craig Scarborough, England
The BAR-Honda team unveiled their challenger for the 2005 season with just one goal in mind: scoring their first Grand Prix victory. Having being very close in 2004, this year there will be no excuses. Atlas F1's Craig Scarborough analyses the changes and features on the new 007
Coming out of a season where the team finally stepped up to take podiums and second position in the Constructors' Championship, their new car was eagerly awaited to see if it is capable of making it up the next step of the podium.
Now with additional financial support from Honda's buy in, as well as their supply of engines and chassis projects, the team have the resources to match their rivals. The consequence of this input, and the teams own technical direction, is a car that is the first to be truly optimised to the new rules. Only the release of their rivals' cars will see if BAR have met the challenge of a second season towards the front of the grid.
Last year BAR launched the 006, which was an outwardly conservative car. Around the same time the interim 2002/2003 concept car was leading the times in testing; the subsequent pace of the 006 in testing and the opening races showed the new car allied to Michelin tyres was living up to its promise. Early season problems were largely down to engine failures caused by an imbalance in the oil system, causing oil starvation to either the top or bottom of the engine; these failures were almost all on Takuma Sato's car, and it is Honda's opinion that this was bad luck rather than any difference in engine spec or driving style.
Their use of Michelin tyres also harmed their race performances, which saw a lack of grip, a detail development ironed out the problems by the seasons end. Matched to their visually simple car were a number of technical innovations, such as the carbon gearbox and Alcon supplied brakes.
There was also an aggressive development strategy which adopted Renault's lateral thinking style to solutions. First of these was a three element rear wing with 20 slats to bypass the two element rule introduced for 2004; this was not deemed legal by the FIA. Then came a flexible rear wing flap, eventually protested and removed after on-car footage belied its existence. Finally came the torque biasing FCP (Front Clutch Pack) system linking the front wheels; this was initially protested and upheld on appeal, but the revised mechanical system was raced with some success from Monza onwards. The eventual second place in the Constructor's Championship was well deserved based on their consistency over the full season in comparison to their other rivals.
Geoff Willis summarised last year as "a very good year - we were able to keep our car developed to keep pace with Ferrari", but he was aware there was still a performance gap to Ferrari which needed to be identified. "Last year's car didn't have any individual problem at all, it just needed to be better in every area; aero, weight reduction, centre of gravity, and power characteristics. It's those areas we will develop."
With this in mind they started the initial work on the new car. "We carried out analysis early last season in how we make the step to Ferrari," Willis stated, " and clearly we needed to make a challenging step forward", which resulted in the plan to have a brand new engine and brand new chassis. Yet the detail of the plan was interrupted: "we started with some very new aero concepts; we were part way into that design when the regulations changed. It all started to snowball, and we started to see better benefits".
With the development of this year's car originally halted by the new rules, some of the new directions the team wanted to take were shelved, although some of the planned developments were unaffected by the regulations and have appeared on the 007. With a new chassis and engine, Willis told me how much was carried over from the 006: "very few parts; there are only a handful of parts that are exactly the same", later explained to be parts like the steering wheel and pedals. The result was "the whole car is much more tightly packaged."
The car is still being developed in the open jet windtunnel at the back of the factory; the team have worked hard to operate this to the limits of its capabilities and transpose those results accurately to the track. They now have a project underway to create a new state of the art windtunnel to allow them to grow. Allied to this is the CFD team, which also forms a separate division for customer projects, allowing the team to bring in extra resources when needed from the external group. This methodical approach implemented by Willis works across all areas of the design and production departments, allowing otherwise complex projects to be delivered with few problems. The carbon gearbox was a clear example of this, when many other teams have struggled to make one sufficiently reliable.
Aerodynamics
Catching most of the attention at the launch was the heavily curved front wing. The entire front end is more optimised to the new rules than any other new car seen so far. While Willis suggests this is a front wing format that will be adopted by many other teams, BAR have got the design out and testing long before their rivals. At the press conference he noted this about the changes at the front: "the problem is getting front downforce without damaging the flow underneath the rest of the car. This is the start of our solution. I am sure it is an area with a big rule change. The front wing will see a lot of development through the year, and I think we will be interested to see where other people's solutions are." In essence the whole front end is an aggress! ive approach to clawing back as much downforce as they can from the raised front wing, while trying to retain as cleaner flow to the rear as possible.
Following on from the principle adopted in 2001 when the front wing was first raised, the centre section of the wing curves to meet the lower allowable height. As it is lower the wing is working in ground effect, which is more effective than a conventional wing, increasing its potential to create downforce.
Geoff Willis had previously explained the potential problems of the lower middle section: "you have to be careful; you can't load the middle part of the wing too much without lowering the overall downforce of the car." The problem of the flow going under the car is not so critical: "not a lot of the flow goes under the shadow plate. There aren't a lot of complex flow structures coming off the middle part of the wing; it's the outer part of the wing that has most of the complex flow structures because there's a tip vortex coming off it."
But it's the flow that parts around the car that is the more critical area: "if you've got too big a flap section in the mid span, or you had too big a gurney on the mid span flap, you can sometime find that affects cooling". BAR have used a very long chord for the middle span of the wing, but have contoured the profile to be much less cambered, making the wing less aggressive and providing a cleaner wake; this wake gets picked up by the new bargeboards and sidepods fronts as explained later.
The other issue with wings of vastly different shapes across their span is the point where the profile twists to meet the higher and lower sections. BAR's aerodynamicist Willem Toet enlightened me on the problems in this area: "they're big structural bits, so you've got drag and you've taken all the energy out of the air. It's not working for you, because it's working sideways, so it's not giving you downforce." He added that a move towards a smoother transition will evolve over time as the wing design develops.
BAR's detail design work shows the transition to have a very flat profile; the main plane even being flicked up slightly at this point to make the cross section flatter. Once again the differing flows between the middle and outer section of the wing are effectively split by the new bargeboards.
Another feature of the front wing is the relationship of the wing to the endplates; as the wing has such a deep profile the main plane is only just above the endplate, while the highest part of the flap is meeting the top of the endplate. This loses some of the sealing effect of the endplate, but maximises the angle the wing can be run at. The endplates themselves are not as swept inward as those on last year's car, and the concave section on the lower trailing edge is less marked, as the endplate is now so much nearer the front wheel.
With such a large front wing the management of the flow trailing from it creates problems, for instance the brake ducts are now pointed downwards and pick up their cooling from under the front wing, a slightly less effective position than last year. The front of the monocoque has a larger clearance underneath, now heading all the way back to the sidepods with a clean sweep. Only the single keel mounting the lower wishbone obstructs this area.
Picking up and shaping all this flow are the bargeboards. These are fundamentally the same format as last year, with a fin at the top (termed a tool tray by BAR staff) and a small turning vane, leading back to the wide fins in front of the sidepods. This year the tool trays and vanes are carried over, with the vane now being much more curved and mounted closer to the car's centreline in order to split the flow off the front wing. An extra vane has also been added to turn the flow acutely outwards. To stop this flow heading under the floor there is a section of floor trailing from the vane (termed a hammer head by BAR). The sidepod fins have now adopted a Williams design from late last year where they sprout from the outer edge of the sidepod, with the missi! ng inner section is partly replaced by a V shaped fin near the shadow plate.
As the flow tumbles back to the sidepods their front edges are gently undercut to ease the flow's path to beneath the flip ups. The sidepods are packaged with subtly angled and shaped radiators to allow the new front end shape. Thoughtfully, the team have split the bodywork from the sidepod fronts in a novel way, by creating the split around the circle of the lucky strike logo, leaving the logo fully visible on the detached bodywork to impress their sponsors. Beyond the leading edge the sidepods are largely following last years cooling format, with the exhausts moved inwards to narrow the coke bottle area.
The floor ahead of the wheels and the diffuser layout are strangely devoid of fences and shaping, which may appear in a revised form before Melbourne. Perhaps a trend for 2005 is the rear wing now being mounted on central struts as seen on the new Toyota, albeit with BAR preferring two thinner struts over Toyotas single thicker one. The lower beam is now narrowed at its middle span, but wears a large gurney strip running all the way across the span of the wing.
Mechanics
Mechanically the car has been revised only in detail; the dampers supplied from Showa are still telescopic types at the front, and the wishbone geometry follows last year's BAR practice and not Williams drooped upper wishbone format. At the rear the gearbox is a development of the 2004 carbon fibre case with Honda internals; work has been completed to make it lighter and easier to manufacture as Willis noted: "we have been working together with Honda on the internals development, and we are constantly working at ways of improving; shift performance, lighter weight and lower loss on gearbox internals. Also the carbon main case we launched last year is now a second generation version; it is significantly lighter again, but also just as important considerably ea! sier to manufacture. As we launch the car now we have 7 or 8 gearboxes available to test, so that's a big improvement both technically and in terms of operation."
Another notable partner is the NTN Corporation, who specialise in CV joints and angular contact bearings; as with their partnership with Alcon, BAR through Honda are finding new suppliers to find advantages.
Mechanics
After suffering innumerable failures in the first year of the new engine reliability rules, the two weekends per engine rule should worry Honda. Yet they were boasting incredible power outputs for last year, and feel the spate of unreliability was down to two specific issues with the valve train and in the oil system. In their preparation for 2005 they have focussed less on outright power output and focussed on reliability and drivability. The latter comment from Takeo Kiuchi was telling, as most accept the Honda as one of the most powerful engines; its drivability was often cited as a weakness, Kiuchi stating he was "disappointed at the situation where our driver takes a few laps to overtake our competitor."
In preparing the new engine, Kiuchi told us about the aims for the engine under the new rules: "it was our hardest challenge that we try to remain at top power. Normally in this position the engine designer prefers to select a safer way, which is to add some extra weight or reduce engine performance, but our position is to challenge that; we selected another way which is to take more advantage and maintain top power. Fortunately we also have a lighter engine and maintain top power", with the engine coming out as "more compact, with a lower centre of gravity to improve chassis performance."
The team have admitted some initial power loss will have occurred; this may be rectified by Melbourne from the results of the pre-season tests.
Владимир Коваленко:
Technical Analysis: Sauber C24
By Craig Scarborough, England
After nearly a full year working with their state-of-the-art wind tunnel, the Sauber team are ready to take another stop towards the front with their new C24 car. Atlas F1's Craig Scarborough offers a full analysis of the changes and features found on the new car from the Swiss squad
Sauber appears to be a team gaining confidence and asserting their independence from the perception of being linked to Ferrari for more than just engines, having released a quite progressive design for 2005. In 2004 the team had a mid season surge in form, resulting from aerodynamic gains aided by their own wind tunnel and CFD group; these resources have provided visual changes on the new car, while the mechanical side sees Sauber setting out on their own once more with their own gearbox after using a Ferrari supplied unit in 2004.
Sauber were due to launch their car in Malaysia, home nation of sponsor Petronas, but the terrible aftermath of the Asian tsunami put an end to that; instead a few press shots of the car were released, and the car was rolled out quietly at its first test in Valencia. AtlasF1 spoke to Technical Director Willi Rampf late last year before the car's launch, which has provided some insight into the some of the changes seen on the car.
Sauber launched their 2004 car amid a hail of controversy surrounding its design similarities to the previous year's Ferrari; the team maintained the design was all their own work, developed in the aging Emmen windtunnel in Switzerland, some distance from the team's factory. The car's lack of rear downforce and pace in the early races supported their claim. Soon the team's new tunnel was up and running, with the Silverstone race debuting dramatically shrunken rear bodywork; this cured the downforce issues and allowed the team to maximise their use of the Bridgestone tyres. By season's end their pace was pressing most of the midfield and top four teams.
Over the latter part of the season development on the new car went ahead in the new windtunnel, and the team announced during the winter that Michelin tyres would be mounted to the wheels in 2005. Having found the gain in sidepod and engine cover design during 2004, this was clearly an area of development for 2005, and was made possible by the two new resources available to the team; the windtunnel and new supercomputer for CFD studies. The massive increment in Sauber's design capabilities has aided team enormously.
Technical director Willi Rampf explained the way the new windtunnel affected the way the team works thus: "the largest single benefit is no doubt geographical. Our aerodynamics engineers no longer have to travel to Emmen in canton Lucerne, the site of our old wind tunnel; now they can just go downstairs one floor to work on the model. Moreover, the wind tunnel yields very precise results, which is important in a field where small changes can have a large effect." He added the design aims of the car were to be "even more compact and harmonious."
Aerodynamics
After releasing the launch images of the car with last year's wing, the first tests of the new car had a cascaded (or bi plane) arrangement. This format works to the same principle as the stacked arrangement on rear wings used up until last year. The upper element creates its own downforce and partly shapes the flow off the lower part of the wing. This design is not new; in 2001 both Prost and Ferrari tried similar arrangements. When speaking to me before the launch of the new car Rampf explained that stepped wings were an option but were compromised: "a wing which has a flat main plane produces the most homogeneous flow behind it; the more steps and kinks in the wing, the more vortices you are creating, which then passes to the floor and over the car, costing downforce."
In the build up to the season I also spoke to BAR's aerodynamicist Willem Toet about cascading front wings; he described the issues were with such wings as "whenever you have a wing one above the other you get a bit of interference between them, and at the front of the car in particular the floor is the most efficient part of the car, even with 2005's rules. If you take a load of energy out of the air with the front wing then you are hurting the most efficient aero device you've got, so you've got to be really careful." Rampf has perhaps found a way of running the cascaded arrangement with smaller losses to the rest of the flow over the car. One point to note is the retention of a single keel chassis, after Sauber had pioneered the use of twin keels up until last year's change in direction.
The other dramatic element to the car is the sidepods, benefiting as they do both the rear and, to a lesser degree, front wing efficiency. Since the advent of the F2003GA small sidepods with undercut front edges have been one direction to manage flow under the raised nose; the undercuts create a smoother path for the flow to find its way around the front of the sidepods. The sidepods have tall, wide fronts due to the crash structures that lie beneath the bodywork, but there is largely a void between the outer bodywork and the radiator duct within. Ferrari realised this area could be slimmed down, leaving the lower impact spar protruding at floor level. This has since been adopted by Sauber and Renault, and then McLaren and Williams on their B mo! dels in 2004.
What Sauber have now done is to take the design to its logical conclusion, blending the undercut with the shape of the chassis above the front splitter. This now routes the flow that comes off the front wing and has been split by the single keel, passing through the straightest, narrowest channel possible before being trapped under the flip up and routed between the rear wheels, all the time keeping the flow well clear of interrupting the rear wing's efficiency, with the two layer bargeboards routing the flow spaced further along the car's centre line. The main bargeboard features a curious angle to its strake, pointing acutely upwards, suggesting the direction of the flow across the board at that point.
The revised shape to the inlet sees a similar cross sectional area to the C23, arranged in a wider shape to keep the radiators cooled efficiently. To make the very slim packaging of the sidepods Sauber have probably kept the folded radiators debuted on the C23. To remove all the heated air from the sidepods the upper surface has been heavily louvered, and an optional panel on the sidepod's shoulder allows for more cooling. Beneath the sidepod's bodywork last year were folded radiators on both sides, allowing such tight packaging of the aerodynamics; although no pictures have emerged of the new car without bodywork, it's a reasonable assumption that some form of folded cooler arrangement exists this year.
Going back towards the gearbox the Sauber has again slimmed and lowered the sidepods to extremes; as the sidepods pass the engine the limitation on width is in fact the packaging of the exhausts. Sauber have wisely moved the whole exhaust collection forwards within the wider part of the sidepod, allowing a slimmer and lower rear end, resulting in the exhaust outlet being very far forward. Being this far forward may see the blowing effect of the exhaust on the rear wing minimised, but this might also bring some improvement in sensitivity. During initial testing the exhausts were burning the bodywork around the rear suspension, and some hastily produced heat shields were installed to ease the problem.
As the sidepods are so low the engine cover feature the usual bulges to fair in the cockpit padding and around the engine and airbox. Equally the gearbox follows the C23's Ferrari-inspired faired in gearbox.
Sauber have been uncharacteristically flamboyant in the design of their winglets, making the edges quite angular for little apparent reason. The painting of the floor in the same blue bodywork is also unusual, but it is very effective at obscuring the detail of the diffuser. The paint cannot, however, hide the immense amount of work that has gone into the floor around the rear wheels. After an initial rounded over section in front of the wheels a curved floor is formed, resulting in a wavy edge to the rear of the floor forming a 2 shape with the diffuser tunnels. Above the floor is a conventional looking rear wing, still using the endplates and lower beam to transfer the downforce to the chassis.
Engine and Mechanics
With regards to the gearbox Sauber has returned to a design of its own, which has been once again made lighter, stiffer and more compact. Rampf explaining the new unit "will not be a very different concept", adding it was a Sauber design but had learned "from our experience from this year's (2004) gearbox". Work was well advanced last year, with Rampf proudly stating that "the internal components were tested during the season, to be sure they have the required strength and reliability".
As far as the casing material, Rampf was more reticent: "you will see" is all he would note. So far no images have been releasing exposing the casing from beneath its fairing, but a titanium case would be a fair prediction. The gearbox will be mated to the Petronas 05A engine, which is the same unit Ferrari will be racing with, and designed in accordance to the two weekends per engine rule.
Владимир Коваленко:
Technical Analysis: Williams FW27
By Craig Scarborough, England
A poor start to their 2004 season saw the Williams team playing catch up for most of the year, only to finish on a high with their only victory in the final race. Now the BMW-powered squad want to keep their momentum going and start 2005 strongly with their new FW25. Atlas F1's Craig Scarborough offers a full analysis of the changes and features found on the new car
Despite being in close contention for the 2003 World Championship Williams haven't produced a car that has been competitive from the start to the finish of the Championship for some time.
Last year a radical aerodynamic approach was tried to leapfrog the opposition: this and other areas of the car failed in this respect. For 2005 the team have gone back to basics and worked hard to set ambitious targets to release the most competitive car possible. While the car uses many conventional designs, it still bears a family resemblance to other Williams and abounds with detailed touches proving the team have been hard at work.
Last Year
Williams suffered a bad year from the first initial tests through to the B specifications released in the latter part of 2004. The initial twin tusk arrangement, along with many areas of the car, from gearbox to structures, were disappointing to the team. This failure of the team to set themselves the right targets resulted in a car on spec but off the pace of its competitors. A characteristic fightback started, backed up with staff changes: long time technical director Patrick Head assumed a new role and allowed Sam Michael to step up to the technical heads role.
Head defined the new roles: "Sam is the front line decision maker for things affecting the design and the operation of the car and I've mainly concentrated on what we call advanced development and the supporting activities i.e. the structure of the factory and the facilities we have".
Soon the sidepods were replaced with more F2003-GA style sidepods, with large chimneys, louvered outlets and undercut fronts. Then the twin tusk wing went too, saving weight and opening up scope for new wings. By the season's end the car was on the pace, but the team were far behind in the championships. Also gone by the season's end was the aerodynamicist credited with the twin tusk nose, Antonia Terzi.
Replaced by Loic Bigois, the ex Prost\Minardi aerodynamicist, who had been commissioning the new wind tunnel (Williams' second). Yet there were still problems in the car only major redesigns could cure and these weren't possible in the heat of a season.
New Approach
Having had several years with cars not performing out of the box, Williams' first aim was to produce a car that would be competitive from the season's start. To achieve this "High targets were set," according to Frank Williams and the team have approached these "aggressively". With Sam Michael managing the project and Gavin Fisher actually heading the design team, work progressed not only on the car's design but also working practices at the factory and wind tunnel.
In planning the new car, the problems of the old car and many of its concepts were dropped, but many familiar Williams trademarks have been retained: the old nose shape, the low sidepods, and the floor treatment. Albeit these are now very different in detail, but their philosophy has carried over despite the staff changes. What Williams have ended up with by the time of the cars launch is a car with the right level of attention paid to everything on the car, from the structures to the aero and the engine to the gearbox.
Aerodynamics
Williams have adopted a highly raised nose tip, featuring a reflex angle similar to the FW25 to blend it back into the line of the front of the monocoque. This has been done to allow the maximum height possible over the wing to allow fork steeper wing profiles be run at a later date. Sam Michael outlined that the front wings deeply curved profile was because the raising of the outer sections of wing in the new rules move the wings "away from ground effect", adding "so the more you can work the centre part of the wing the main plane and the flap the more downforce you can generate on the front axle to make sure you can the get the aero balance required."
The resulting wing hangs from long drop plates and features a deep centre section and flicked up sections near the wing tips. Unlike BAR they haven't attempted to go for long chord in the centre section, but the wing has a large surface area and at its deepest section is as cambered as the height of the endplate allows. As far as the endplates themselves are concerned they are derivatives of shapes seen last year, but mounting the flap lower down instead to allow the steep wing angles seen at the launch.
Although the front bulkhead is at the same height, the region directly behind it is now very different, gone are the twin keels. Sam Michael's explains the reasoning behind the change: "The twin keels that showed small amounts of downforce gain but ensuring you had enough stiffness wasn't sufficient for us, we decided we would return to a single keel." So again Williams returned to a familiar single keel mounting only the front of the lower wishbone, with the rear pickup being mounted directly to the corner of the chassis.
Williams have then created new bargeboards, following a Jordan format of one piece boards featuring splits to form three vanes, one lower vane, then a long middle vane and lastly the shorter but taller upper vane. Sitting between the new boards is a revised shadow plate, this now features a curved fence and fins at floor and step level to direct the flow off the plate and around the sidepods, the outer edge retaining the floor fin seen on the car late last year. Just as with the McLaren the whole treatment around the front of the sidepods is very integrated and intricate.
The sidepod fronts themselves are undercut as with the FW26B seen last year. This flow is collected up and passed either side of the rear wing by the flip up flanking the sidepod. Unusually this flip up doesn't feature a vertical section on between the rear wheels. Then Williams have aggressively lowered and shrunk the sidepods, making the rounded leading edge profile taper to the wrap the exhaust pipes, while the top surface of the sidepods is low in typical Williams' fashion.
Within the sidepods the radiators remain vertical but perhaps stretch longer in the sidepods to create the required surface area. Michael described the philosophy of the new sidepod arrangement: "The main thing we tried to do there was reduce the size of the body the height of the leading edge of the sidepod. Compared to most other teams is about two inches lower. We've managed to keep that as low as possible, helped of course by the new direction of the engine with the temperatures it can run at and also there by being able to run all of the area at the top of this chimney instead of out the back."
And indeed the chimney is huge, so much so the launch version required a "V" cut out of the winglet mounted behind it to clear the teardrop shaped duct. Yet, the duct sits on a large panel that could allow additional vents or the larger chimneys in hot conditions. The exhaust outlet is low and close the cars centreline, but does attach to a panel that can also be enlarged to suit hotter conditions.
As the floor curved up to form the diffuser, Williams have adopted a steep initial ramp and have used their trademark ramped floor to the side of the outer diffuser tunnel. Unusually, this piece of floor has a window cut in the first section of its sidewall limiting its effectiveness to produce downforce but probably acts to divert some of the floor gong over the floor to around the wheels.
In order to regain the lost efficiency of the rear wing Williams have installed two mid wings some way down the engine cover; they are supplemented by the shelf wing now mounted to the rear wing endplates on small extensions rather than on the (now deleted) vertical sections of flip up between the wheels.
The rear wing endplate still takes the wing loads and the FW26B detailing of a vertical slot and small slits on the top edge is still carried over. The lower beam is the simplest seen this year, the span is straight and hardly curved. Lastly the cockpit detailing has been changed, with a more pronounced snorkel on the roll structure and the cockpit side padding now sloping back down before the fin (there to meet the dimensional rules).
Engine and Mechanicals
Unlike most teams BMW have decided to evolve their 2004 engine for the new rules. Mario Theissen speaking at the launch was far from pleased with the late rule change: "We were not happy about the short period of notice, which lead to a cost increase initially instead of a cost reduction. I would say to totally design and develop an engine you would need a period of notice of 18 moths and we didn't have that this time. One of the factors leading to BMWs unhappiness was because of an aggressive engine under development called p85 which was aimed at 800km" (one engine per week end rules).
This engine was scrapped and the decision made last summer to develop the P84 and rename it as P84-5. Confusingly the team called this an all-new engine: perhaps the detail has changed but the concepts employed are retained. From the projected image of the unit on stage at the launch, the engine did look similar externally to the old unit. Over the winter Mario Theissen insisted he thought the 2004 P84 was the benchmark engine in F1 for top end power, at the same time stating it lost power at the art of 2004 only making up the deficit towards the end of the season.
Again BMW are stating power loss and reduced revs for the art of the season. This is at a time when other manufacturers are confirming their engine outputs and speeds are rising.
The gearbox was cited as one of many weak points on the FW26; this year the gearbox has been reworked fixing the "four or five" problems with it that could not be solved last year. The unit is a co-operative effort between Williams and BMW with the internals and casting being provided by BMW. It has since run extensively in a test car with out problems for around "13,500km".
Навигация
Перейти к полной версии