2021 Gran Premio d'Italia di Vaffanculo

[Star]

Bottom post of the previous page:

That's a good looking car in my opinion.

If they did ban the wings, no one would be at a disadvantage as it would be the same for everyone. If it improves the racing too, surely the teams should jump at the chance to do that, or if they don't, the FIA should.

[erwin greven]

The Arrows A2 had way too much ground effect to handle. Just like the Lotus 80, the car suffered from lack of knowledge of how to make ground effect work. Also, they did not have the technology back then to get all the information to understand ground effect fully.
If Arrows, Ligier and Lotus had the technology to have active suspension, the cars might have worked. Ligies worked with valves in the venturi pods to get rid of too much low pressure under the car.

[Ruslan]

Maybe some lack imagination and are just too set in their ways. NASCAR banned wings. Why does an F1 car have to have wings?

Since when did it ban wings? It should ban side skirts.

Forget when they were banned. It was a while back.

[P. Cornelius Scipio]

Yea, I keep suggesting that we just ban wings. So far in all the various forums I have been on, I have had only one person agree with me.

There has to be a reason when only one agrees with you.

Maybe some lack imagination and are just too set in their ways. NASCAR banned wings. Why does an F1 car have to have wings?

The Arrows A2 did not have wings per se..... what it had was integral to the body / engine cover. That was back in 1979 in the ground effect era. (Not the most successful car on the planet, but others played with the idea.)

good point, but you could argue that the Arrows A2 was a wing with an engine strapped to the back and 4 wheels, those cars were called "wing cars" for a reason, and many were running with no front wings, for example, as they didn't really need them. As a matter of fact to my knowledge current F1 cars have front wings whose main objective is so clear the vortex around the wheels to allow for higher top speeds, not to generate downforce. What really mattered at the time of the Arrows A2 (and the same applies to many other car of that era from the Brabham B49 to the Ferrari 126C2) was what underneath the car.

[White six]

Maybe some lack imagination and are just too set in their ways. NASCAR banned wings. Why does an F1 car have to have wings?

Since when did it ban wings? It should ban side skirts.

Forget when they were banned. It was a while back.

It's the King!!

[White six]

How do we explain the drivers being penalised in Austria? Iirc Perez was ahead on the road? He wasn't allowed to take the racing line.

Is this substantially different to Sunday? Maybe, it is a question, not my answer.

Hammy wants a rule book. Hmmmm

[Ruslan]

Maybe some lack imagination and are just too set in their ways. NASCAR banned wings. Why does an F1 car have to have wings?

Since when did it ban wings? It should ban side skirts.

Forget when they were banned. It was a while back.

It's the King!!

Of course.... and they had homologation rules at the time, so they ended up building a couple of hundred of those cars with wings for street use.

[PTRACER]

So why are we still seeing cars with wings if we all know that wings is a fully developed technology that cannot be replicated in road cars and not only doesn't improve the show but rather it is probably the single biggest problem that prevents good old fashioned closed racing?

I'd love to know what you guy think of this, I am really struggling to find an answer to that question. The only answer that I can come up with is that wings are great for geeks, wings have become the triumph of engineers over racers, they are the proof that the balance of power inside F1 has shifted from racers to engineers and sadly IMHO engineers have lost sight of the main goal of F1, racing.

You could say the same about slick tyres. Slicks have no practical application to road cars, so why don't they all have fully treaded tyres? And why are F1 car tyres so wide, why don't they just use regular road car tyres? And why is there only one seat, when road cars have at least two seats with a gap in between them? And what about ride height, there isn't a road car out there which could practically run 30mm off the ground. You could keep going on and on about this.

The reality is that a car with zero downforce could corner at most 1.4-1.5G or so and that is not accounting for high speed lift. For a corner like Curva Grande at Monza, a car without wings couldn't get through there at more than 140mph.

Now the cars have 1000bhp, it would be difficult and quite dangerous for them to have that much power with no downforce at all. Highly impractical in fact. And the lack of drag would mean they could top out at probably 250mph+, which they would never achieve because they would be spinning the wheels in almost every gear.

The best F1 can do is shave some downforce off the wings to make them produce less turbulent air and it seems that is what they will achieve for 2022.

[jimclark]

Forget when they were banned. It was a while back.

Right off the top o' me head, I'm gonna say it was for the '72 season. They were allowed in '69 (only the Dodge Daytona, Torino Talladega and Mercury Cyclone Spoiler)) and '70 (Daytonas and the Plymouth Superbirds, 'Degas and Cyclones.) In '71, if you ran one, it could only be 305 c.i. max engine displacement (as opposed to the previous 426 hemis).
(Petty only had it in '70 as Plymouth wouldn't build 'em for him. (That's why he switched to Ford for '69 to use the Torino Talladega, Ford's aero version). Plymouth wanted him back so for '70 they did and he returned.)

[Everso Biggyballies]

It is a good thing to put more emphasis on ground effect principles as they have indicated.... ie the cars generating the downforce rather than relying on wings ...... much more relevant to road cars. Just look at any performance car nowadays and you will see all sorts of panels under the car , everything hidden inconspicuously so minimise disrupting airflow under the car, and always we see bigger more sohisticated diffusers at the back of road cars and more aerodynamic sills.

And re the Plymouth Superbird pics posted above, have you seen the value of those nowadays! Anywhere from $350,000 to a million for a collector version with original matching numbers engine gearbox etc.

[P. Cornelius Scipio]

So why are we still seeing cars with wings if we all know that wings is a fully developed technology that cannot be replicated in road cars and not only doesn't improve the show but rather it is probably the single biggest problem that prevents good old fashioned closed racing?

I'd love to know what you guy think of this, I am really struggling to find an answer to that question. The only answer that I can come up with is that wings are great for geeks, wings have become the triumph of engineers over racers, they are the proof that the balance of power inside F1 has shifted from racers to engineers and sadly IMHO engineers have lost sight of the main goal of F1, racing.

You could say the same about slick tyres. Slicks have no practical application to road cars, so why don't they all have fully treaded tyres? And why are F1 car tyres so wide, why don't they just use regular road car tyres?

the tyres are wide for safety reasons, when you're in trouble you spin your car and thanks to wide tyres it stops in a short space

[Everso Biggyballies]

Danny Ric was a popular winner on these ages here at TFL.

It was however even more passionate at Pubs in his hometown of Perth! Desite being in the middle of the night!

GO DDDAAAAAAANNNNN

The smile is back!

[SBan83]

Couple of points regarding this discussion:

1) The argument against ground effects has always been that should you damage a skirt and not know it, and enter the corner at the same speed you normally would, you'll skate off track. Well, at Monza, Kubica (think it was?) damaged his front wing and shot off the track when he entered Curva Grande. So, what's the point? Might as well have full ground effect rules and get rid of wings.

2) Why does F1 have to be relevant to road cars anyway? It's always been about doing the most advanced stuff possible and then maybe having some of the learnings filter down to passenger cars in the years or decades to come. Not the other way around...

[Everso Biggyballies]

Oh, and at the other end of the scale, Niki Temazepam is now officially no longer in contention for the WDC this year. A mathematical impossibility (along with Schu) after Monza. (Latifi Kimi and Gio are still a chance though.)

He currently lies 21st in a 20 car field! (Officially behind Robby K in the rankings)

[erwin greven]

Couple of points regarding this discussion:

1) Well, at Monza, Kubica (think it was?) damaged his front wing and shot off the track when he entered Curva Grande.

Pierre Gasly went off track at the Curva Grande.

[Mawerick]

at Monza, Kubica (think it was?) damaged his front wing and shot off the track when he entered Curva Grande.

It was Gasly and to be fair, the wing probably got stuck under the nose of his car for a bit (can't be bothered to look up the video right now) which meant he couldn't actually steer. So it wasn't really a downforce issue.