02/05/2022
FEATURE BY MAX NOBLE
Ross Brawn has stated that last year's car was not a racing car. So, to remedy this new rules have been crafted of which Mr. Brawn confidently stated there would be no double-diffuser moment, because he, and 'The Lads' had thought of everything.
Yet... Hello World! Size triple-zero Mercedes' side-pods. Oh, 'The Lads' didn't see that coming. Hubris thy name be ageing FIA Brains Trust... Now the concept is not working quite as planned... yet, but Toto assures us all that the concept is not wrong. The continuing flow of causality will no doubt reveal the truth.
Returning to Ross... Not a racing car? Really? Is it that we have non-racing humans? Those who do not, cannot desire to move swiftly, and on the other side of the track racing humans that desire, and do? Surely we call it the human race for a reason, for is racing not encoded within our DNA?
One can race an orange-box cart, a skateboard, or even a NASCAR if one so desires. Heck, some people even elect to race on foot, and do not use a vehicle at all, imagine that! Not a racing car indeed! I'm sure the fine pilots on this year's grid would cheerfully race electric scooters, ride-on lawn mowers and 1960's Trabants simply for the fun of the race. So let us consider the latest (overly) prescriptive rules now we have a few laps under our collective belts to consider.
As noted in my previous feline themed missive, if one splits the grid into thirds, being remarkably named segments of upper, middle, and lower, then the only movement of significance is Alfa hauling themselves into the middle, at the expense of Aston who have slid gracelessly into the lower.
While the colossal change in the upper tier is that of Mercedes releasing their terminator style grip on the top spot to glide with all the grace of a stuffed Elk to the bottom of the top.
My Lord! The plan must have been more cunning that Baldrick's greatest plotting for Blackadder to achieve such mighty changes in but a lone season break! My little grey cells flutter more than Poirot's moustache in a hurricane at the very idea of such intellectual mastery!
Yes, gentle reader, I jest...
Two years in the making, countless millions of dollars spent across companies not ring-fenced within the cost cap universe, plus all those frantic accountants inside the cost cap ring-fence, and here we are with the biggest rule change in generations delivering... well... delivering racing that for all the world looks just like last season.
DRS trains still steaming out the station? Check.
Drivers squabbling to not be the first over the DRS detection line? Check.
Any driver questioned still moaning about the tyres? Check.
Fans gazing in wonder as the safety car is deployed for lap after lap, when multi-million dollar digital TV cameras cannot detect a blade of grass out of place around the entire circuit? Check.
Overtaking at about the same rate as the last few seasons? Check.
Until finally, the Good Lord himself (no, the unseen one, not Bernie) deems for the rains to fall, kissing the blessed and unblessed in equal measure, and we finally have a race!
The ultimate Rain Maker gives us races, while Ross the Reign Maker changes champions for us. Actually not a bad double act to be honest. Vettel passes the Golden Chalice to Lewis on a rule change. It would now appear that Lewis is going to pass on the Holy Grail because of another rule change. Indeed, all hail Ross the Reign Maker for getting a new name on the driver's trophy. Yet, all due respect to the Rain Maker for actually crafting an interesting race, a skill which appears to elude Ross.
That chipper demi-God Bernie was a delightful mix of 1,001 characters currently trying to run F1. He made the suggestion of installing sprinklers somewhat in jest, yet it would have delivered drama and high tension for many a race. While most of his rule changes were for the better. Well, he and Max Mosley were the motor racing duet version of Lennon and McCartney, compared to whatsisname and the other guy who currently run the FIA and Liberty to such stunning effect.
Ross and his brain's trust, 'The Lads', have managed a minor shuffle of three teams within the pecking order. Jolly good show lads!
With all these rule changes Miss Physics is on a bus-person's holiday this year, with the delight of new prescriptive rules forcing designers across the paddock into rethinking how they get their love-child to dance on the edge of the possible with all of Miss Physics' little helpers maintaining immutable laws. From vortex swirl to tyre scrub it is all change this season for how to address Miss Physics and her immutable demands.
Or is it? The DeLoren is back out the garage as we dive headlong into the 1980's and return to ground effect. The four winds yawn at such 40 year old thinking.
The FIA banned active suspension, which would tame the porpoise effect in milliseconds. So now F1 must use non-adaptive suspension, last seen on a road car near you about twenty years ago, to solve the problem! I mean there is more software technology in the road going McLarens than the track ones these days! Not to mention, as dear Niki Lauda loved to highlight, it was only the stereo and the in-car phone one really need consider within a road car! With this season's continuing DRS trains I believe a number of drivers will be asking for both in their race cars to aid with passing the time.
Larger wheels! Gee!! Here in "I've never met a V8 I didn't love" Australia, a significant number of home-grown heroes have been rolling on 20, 21, and 22 inch rubber for, well, decades. Even the trusty Germans and Italians are now producing 20 inch as standard on many models with larger options for a similarly enlarged fee... So finally Formula One goes to 18 inches! Both my wife's and my son's cars roll on 18 inch rims, to the local pub, the gym and Costco no less. Both are considered "pleasing sporting sedans". Ummm. Looks like F1 is keen to impress the sports sedan buyer of ten years ago with their grasp of early 2000's tyre technology.
Miss Physics sternly reminds people it is all about unsprung mass, tensors (angular momentum), and whatever these beasts then do to mess with airflow, and are all an interrelated puzzle of subtle compromise. So not only are 18 inch rims very late to the party, they are also a size one cannot now specify on a spanking-new Porsche, Ferrari or Aston of any merit. And while watching on screen the initial races of this season, did any reader honestly find themselves endlessly drawn to the hypnotic beauty of the new wheels, which, being round, and shod by Pirelli, simply look just like last year's when viewed from a televisual distance?
No impact, and, one could argue no point, for this change. Yet I'm sure it has impacted the complexity of sorting the bouncy-bouncy issue with all revised suspension settings to cope with revised tyre-wheel combinations, and no doubt resized and re-weighted brakes.
Unsprung mass is that which is not carried by the vehicle's suspension, hence "unsprung" (as opposed to the members of AC/DC prior to the album jail break... but I'm really drawing a long bow on that musical reference). It has all sorts of impacts on just how the vehicle will react as it weights and unweights through corners, down valleys and over crests. Huge impact on feel and dynamics. So the variation in weight here would, for a normal car, make a huge difference.
Yet, two points to consider. On a bicycle lighter wheels are one of the greatest upgrades because a reduction in the spinning mass in the rims has a higher impact on effort required to move, and change direction, than shaving a few grams off the non-spinning weight of the frame. Second, as a Formula One car at speed is carrying more than its own weight in down force the relative percentage impact of the unsprung mass is reduced compared to a road car that produces minimal down force.
The biggest impact of the larger rims is on the suspension set-up which now needs to provide more give as the give of the old, tall tyre sidewalls has been lost. Net impact on the engineers? Huge redesign effort. Net impact on fans? Nothing at all. Net impact on Pirelli? Cost saving by using road going tyre moulds from the 1990's to generate F1 tyres aligned to standard Porsche issue 1992... Zero out of five rubber ferrets for this change.
Aero! Ah, laminar flow thy name be invisible temptress! Same old air, different hole punched therein. His minor deity, Adrian Newey calling on the Gods of Zephyrs past, and the goddesses of smooth flowing laminar curves, has unleashed a near blemish-free beast upon the tracks of the world. Subtle is the dark art of the Bernoulli effect, and boundary layer incantations which keep Miss Physics with eyebrows un-raised, and finger un-wagging.
V. Max and Charles are currently swapping, and re-swapping places. DRS remains a lamentable Mario-Karts trick, yet they could actually follow one another without leaving room to land a novice-piloted 747 between them. Your scribe awards a cautious 3 out of 5 rubber ferrets for the aero changes. It appears the new rules have partly worked well as addressed by Red Bull and Ferrari at least. Let us not be overly concerned with the other eight teams who earn "participant" badges each race weekend so far. We can only hope the Rain Maker elects to visit more races than he misses this year, while Ross, the Reign Maker, is assured of that new name on the trophy, the anticipation and excitement of exactly which name remains at least for now.
Finally moveable aero, rather than active suspension, might just be the bounce-tamer F1 and Mercedes, in particular, need right now before the chiropractor costs required at each team to keep their drivers mobile blow the cost cap. It is an aero problem causing the bounce, yet they only have static aero aids with which to address a dynamic problem. This is the point at which Miss Physics cannot help but crack a smile before most respectfully laughing her britches off at the antics of Brawn trying to outthink Newey, while Mercedes are chocking on hubris pie of their own baking.
She and the Nymphs of the air are high-fiving then chucking back a swift Vodka and Red Bull before those cheeky, slightly tipsy Nymphs return to bouncing all over those season 2022 F1 cars with all the joy and fervour of kittens on crack in a tuna factory.
It's a shame it hurts the drivers so, but Miss Physics will remind them most sternly that she, and the Nymphs, have been applying this rule on porpoise since the universe commenced.
Max Noble
Learn more about Max and check out his previous features, here