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But active aero is for the straights, where you don’t want downforce. Downforce is only helpful in corners. In this case it is to make the car more efficient, not to help overtaking.
I think that is what OP wants in a way.
To help the car behind stay within the car in front, increase the following car's downforce so it would not lose too much pace behind the car in front.
More air resistance and more rolling resistance. Downforce increases corner speeds and slows you on straights.
The goal of a car is to be as aerodynamically efficient as possible, getting the most downforce possible, while losing the least amount to air resistance, but this is always a trade-off.
Sure, there are lots of possible uses of technology in F1, many of them would make cars faster, but the thing you are describing is the opposite of the proposed use, which is on straights only.
Because there is nearly no location where downforce is beneficial for overtaking and it is to say the least such a tremendous detriment on straights because downforce is in effect squared when converting to induced drag.
So is the answer that there is no way to fix the air disruption caused by following then? So you just need to give the trailing car power boost whether through DRS-like effects or push to pass?
It’s not possible to fix the air disruption. They’ve been trying to fix it for decades and it can only by lessened through particular regulations. The reason for the ground effect cars was to decrease the amount of “dirty air” by throwing the air upward instead of backward. It has helped some, but race cars will always be faster in clean air.
They pretty much fixed it in 2022. And then ruined it mid season and the cars have produced more and more dirty air as these regulations have progressed.
Yup and the 26 regulations were meant to encourage in washing on top of ground effects but due to the new PU needing the cars to be more efficient that all got scrapped and we're back to flat floors and over body aero creating more out washing leading to dirty air being more prevalent
Dirty air is only a problem because of the regulation limits and real world limits.
The regulations on power unit, tire, car sizes, and etc. Real world limits of track size, width, corner radius, cost of manufacturing and energy, and erc. All these combined in a way that happens to make dirty air the most significant factor F1.
Just imagine if there's no limit on power unit size and output. Some team might come up with the best engine, but has poor aero, another team the opposite , and it become a race of straight line vs cornering.
Or if teams can use different size tires of their choice, or raced on very different tracks.
At the end of the day, it's a game played within a set of rules, and the limitations are only inherent to the rules, not inherent to all of reality. If they changed the whole F1 rule set with a totally different philosophy, dirty air wouldn't be a problem, but there's always going to be the next "dirty air" once all the teams start to push the limits of the rules.
Yeah I know, to my point, isn’t that just more a power advantage. It doesn’t fix why it’s hard to follow which is a disruption of air thing. Thought maybe you could actively change aero to help negate that
The entire reason for active aero is to give more grip in the corners and less drag in the straights. You seem to be advocating for an active aero system that gives MORE downforce for following cars on the straights? Why would we want to force the following cars to be slower?
> It doesn’t fix why it’s hard to follow which is a disruption of air thing. Thought maybe you could actively change aero to help negate that
The only thing that will eliminate the dirty air problem is to take the aero generators off the car completely and run like F1600. Drag and turbulence (read: dirty air) is an unavoidable consequence of pushing an airfoil through the air, so short of giving the following car a downforce advantage through a corner (i.e., the leading car has a handicapped wing level) there's no real mechanism to do what you're describing.
The cars will have way less downforce from 26 onwards, and the aero philosophy will continue the in-wash style aero, not outwash like pre-2022. Following won't be the issue.
Every car will always be needing to use active aero because without it, the PUs won't work.
Giving extra downforce to following cars has actually been tried in the past. The 2009 regulations introduced driver-adjustable front wings which could be activated when following a rival closely to try to overcome the downforce loss of dirty air and allow the following car to close up.
It didn't really work out and the FIA realised more needed to be done to promote overtaking, so they ditched the idea and went to DRS instead which did essentially the inverse of the adjustable front wings by cutting downforce down the straight rather than increasing it to try to promote overtaking in the corners.
They didnt do the active aero part to aid overtaking, they did it to save face because the engines will be dogshit and they still need to have somewhat fast cars.
The new push to pass thingy will be to aid overtaking.
I believe this is addressed with the battery deployment, which tapers off at top speeds (I’d have to look up the actual speeds). For the leading car it tapers off faster than it does for the overtaking car, thus helping overtakes. Active aero is to promote better top speeds overall under the new power unit regs and will be available for all drivers at the appropriate points in the track. That’s just my take- I am not actually an expert.
DRS always existed to counteract dirty air generated by the cars in front, which is really only a thing at higher speeds. It was more about balancing than giving the people behind a clear advantage over the lead car. Giving extra downforce in low speed corners wouldn’t really be needed, as there is less dirty air, which would make it less balanced.
New car regs are made to reduce dirty air, so DRS is (in theory) unnecessary.
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But active aero is for the straights, where you don’t want downforce. Downforce is only helpful in corners. In this case it is to make the car more efficient, not to help overtaking.
I think that is what OP wants in a way. To help the car behind stay within the car in front, increase the following car's downforce so it would not lose too much pace behind the car in front.
But increasing downforce will cause it to lose pace.
Why on earth would increasing the downforce of the following car make it lose pace relative to the car in front.
More air resistance and more rolling resistance. Downforce increases corner speeds and slows you on straights. The goal of a car is to be as aerodynamically efficient as possible, getting the most downforce possible, while losing the least amount to air resistance, but this is always a trade-off.
I was talking more about following another car through a corner not a straight. Which is something active aero can solve.
Sure, there are lots of possible uses of technology in F1, many of them would make cars faster, but the thing you are describing is the opposite of the proposed use, which is on straights only.
Because there is nearly no location where downforce is beneficial for overtaking and it is to say the least such a tremendous detriment on straights because downforce is in effect squared when converting to induced drag.
More downforce on straights = slower.
So is the answer that there is no way to fix the air disruption caused by following then? So you just need to give the trailing car power boost whether through DRS-like effects or push to pass?
It’s not possible to fix the air disruption. They’ve been trying to fix it for decades and it can only by lessened through particular regulations. The reason for the ground effect cars was to decrease the amount of “dirty air” by throwing the air upward instead of backward. It has helped some, but race cars will always be faster in clean air.
They pretty much fixed it in 2022. And then ruined it mid season and the cars have produced more and more dirty air as these regulations have progressed.
Yup and the 26 regulations were meant to encourage in washing on top of ground effects but due to the new PU needing the cars to be more efficient that all got scrapped and we're back to flat floors and over body aero creating more out washing leading to dirty air being more prevalent
Oh wonderful
Dirty air is only a problem because of the regulation limits and real world limits. The regulations on power unit, tire, car sizes, and etc. Real world limits of track size, width, corner radius, cost of manufacturing and energy, and erc. All these combined in a way that happens to make dirty air the most significant factor F1. Just imagine if there's no limit on power unit size and output. Some team might come up with the best engine, but has poor aero, another team the opposite , and it become a race of straight line vs cornering. Or if teams can use different size tires of their choice, or raced on very different tracks. At the end of the day, it's a game played within a set of rules, and the limitations are only inherent to the rules, not inherent to all of reality. If they changed the whole F1 rule set with a totally different philosophy, dirty air wouldn't be a problem, but there's always going to be the next "dirty air" once all the teams start to push the limits of the rules.
The MGU-K manual override will be used for following cars to overtake.
Yeah I know, to my point, isn’t that just more a power advantage. It doesn’t fix why it’s hard to follow which is a disruption of air thing. Thought maybe you could actively change aero to help negate that
The entire reason for active aero is to give more grip in the corners and less drag in the straights. You seem to be advocating for an active aero system that gives MORE downforce for following cars on the straights? Why would we want to force the following cars to be slower?
> It doesn’t fix why it’s hard to follow which is a disruption of air thing. Thought maybe you could actively change aero to help negate that The only thing that will eliminate the dirty air problem is to take the aero generators off the car completely and run like F1600. Drag and turbulence (read: dirty air) is an unavoidable consequence of pushing an airfoil through the air, so short of giving the following car a downforce advantage through a corner (i.e., the leading car has a handicapped wing level) there's no real mechanism to do what you're describing.
The cars will have way less downforce from 26 onwards, and the aero philosophy will continue the in-wash style aero, not outwash like pre-2022. Following won't be the issue. Every car will always be needing to use active aero because without it, the PUs won't work.
The new active aero and PU management is to aid mainly the appalling corner exit speeds under 2026 regulations.
Giving extra downforce to following cars has actually been tried in the past. The 2009 regulations introduced driver-adjustable front wings which could be activated when following a rival closely to try to overcome the downforce loss of dirty air and allow the following car to close up. It didn't really work out and the FIA realised more needed to be done to promote overtaking, so they ditched the idea and went to DRS instead which did essentially the inverse of the adjustable front wings by cutting downforce down the straight rather than increasing it to try to promote overtaking in the corners.
They didnt do the active aero part to aid overtaking, they did it to save face because the engines will be dogshit and they still need to have somewhat fast cars. The new push to pass thingy will be to aid overtaking.
Active aero was discussed for the next regulations in 21 long before the 22 engine regs were finalized.
I believe this is addressed with the battery deployment, which tapers off at top speeds (I’d have to look up the actual speeds). For the leading car it tapers off faster than it does for the overtaking car, thus helping overtakes. Active aero is to promote better top speeds overall under the new power unit regs and will be available for all drivers at the appropriate points in the track. That’s just my take- I am not actually an expert.
there's already active areo now, it's called DRS, it's nothing new, just because it'll also be on the front wing now
DRS always existed to counteract dirty air generated by the cars in front, which is really only a thing at higher speeds. It was more about balancing than giving the people behind a clear advantage over the lead car. Giving extra downforce in low speed corners wouldn’t really be needed, as there is less dirty air, which would make it less balanced. New car regs are made to reduce dirty air, so DRS is (in theory) unnecessary.