Gary Anderson: Overweight? Remove unnecessary details!

The new generation of cars turned out to be quite heavy and almost all drivers, team engineers and experts complain about their overweight. Gary Anderson, a former race engineer and now The Race critic, shares how to reduce that weight.

Just before the start of the season, the minimum weight of the cars was increased by another 3 kg and reached 798 kg – they have never been so heavy in Formula 1, and even if from the outside it seems that they have become lazy and clumsy , what can we say about the sensations experienced by riders.

But the changes seem even more radical when you consider how this parameter has increased in recent decades: in 2000, an unfilled racer car weighed only 625 kg. At the same time, it should be understood that the heavier the machine, the stricter the safety requirements should be. In this case we are mainly talking about power, and it can be increased mainly by making certain elements more massive. That. these processes are interrelated and essentially lead nowhere.

Since it is approximately known how much heavier the 18-inch tires and wheels have become compared to the 13-inch, how much the weight of the power plant with all its elements has increased compared to the old naturally aspirated engines, and also how many other machine systems have added weight, it is easy to calculate that the weight of the new generation machine should be about 718 kg, and not 798 kg.

And here is the most interesting one. Although the weight dependence of the wheelbase is not linear, it can still be calculated: in 2000 this base was within 300 cm with a car weighing 625 kg. It is possible to determine some conditional specific value, let’s call it “weight efficiency”, and in this case we get 2.08 kg/cm.

If we take into account the weight increase prescribed by the 2022 technical regulations, we get the same 718 kg discussed above, and with the same 300 cm wheelbase, the weight efficiency coefficient would increase to 2.39 kg/cm.

Since the wheelbase of cars in 2022 will reach 360 cm and the weight of the car with driver is 798 kg, it turns out that this coefficient is now at the level of 2.22 kg/cm.

In terms of weight efficiency, the teams performed better than they could have done in 2000, as this conditional coefficient is now 0.17 kg/cm lower.

Not if we take a coefficient equal to 2.22 kg/cm, and build a car with a wheelbase of 325 cm, then it weighs the same 718 kg.

The wheelbase length of 360 cm is the maximum allowed limit according to current technical regulations. The car can be made shorter, but most teams in the pursuit of speed preferred a chassis with a base approaching the upper limit, but in the end it turns out that the cars weigh too much.

Since every 10 kg of weight is known to add 0.3 seconds to the lap time, it appears that the advantage of the longest wheelbase is almost completely eaten up.

But teams are dominated by aerodynamic efficiency, and when wind tunnel research shows that lap times will improve by making the bottom longer (longer venturi tunnels, respectively) or increasing the distance from the front wheels to the start of these tunnels, everyone will bet on a raise. of chassis efficiency. Assuming they will somehow solve the problem of the increased weight later on.

When teams create a new car, they work with 3D models that show the location of each of the components on the chassis, as well as inside, and sometimes something literally can be added at the last minute during the car’s build. , so the final weight is already determined at the very end of this process, when it’s too late to change anything.

During the process of creating the car, the team can only roughly estimate what results the new technology will be capable of on the circle, for this purpose computer modeling technologies and simulators are used. As we see this year, when ground effect returned in Formula 1, the situation became more complicated with these calculations because everyone was faced with such an effect as the car lurching at high speeds on the straights.

All given coefficients are very approximate, but they allow to understand that some conceptual decisions engineers make in the early stages of chassis making can backfire for a long time, and their consequences should be at least at the first stage. races are considered from season, and even throughout the championship.

In addition, as the teams will fix some minor reliability issues, the cars will only get heavier, so it’s important to develop a special plan to reduce their weight to avoid any deterioration in the results on the circle. Trying to lighten only a few parts of the car can increase the risk of new reliability problems.

The easiest way to lose weight and avoid these problems is to simply give up some unnecessary components, although this method is the most difficult to implement. However, I am convinced that if a detailed analysis of the design of one of the machines is carried out, several such components can be found. Not that they are completely redundant, but the logic of their appearance is this: theoretically, they may one day prove useful.

But it’s clear that about a year ago or even earlier the teams should have been concerned about the overweight of cars, and not now lobby for the adjustment of the regulations to legitimize this very overweight.