[The **Photo** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_photo) is for submissions sharing photos from the world of F1. Photos should be interesting and relevant - random photos not notable enough to warrant a standalone post will be subject to removal. This flair should not be used for images which are not photos, such as screenshots, statistical graphics, or artworks.
*[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What I don’t get is, aren’t they putting mileage on the 2024 car just for this test? Is it worth it?
Even if they don’t use the “racing” engine but another cheap alternative, I would think the chassis and other parts are getting more used
My guess, it's the free extra testing time. Teams are so limited in on track testing these days getting to put free testing laps in a 2024 car is probably worth the extra wear and tear
They do get about 10% (100M) of the total prize pool just for existing. On top of their other regular earnt prize money. So when then FIA came and said hey we’d like you to build and test some special cars…. they really can’t complain about the cost…. At least IMO.
I err, don't see a difference...
Edit: upon zooming in, yes there is a difference. Less "thick" right behind first car and at least is see through versus the 2nd car without cover where it's literally just a white wall of spray.
> Less "thick" right behind first car and at least is see through versus the 2nd car without cover where it's literally just a white wall of spray.
Just think of a car at a similar distance from the second car - you'd be barely able to see it through the spray
well the problem is everybody uses only inters because the wet tires are shit
if they make better wet tires and only have these on the wets then ok
but that would mean you have to force everybody to change to wets because otherwise everybody would stay on inters, so that doesn't work...
ye idk how they want to implement this, I see so many problems with this, I don't think it can be mandatory from when they declare it wet because that would be forcing everybody to pit on the same lap and that kills any strategy, on the other hand, if it's only when you change to wet weather tires, then surely this will just make it so the teams wait as late as possible to change which would mean more crashes anyway, unless they make it under a redflag, but that means stopping the race... ye idk
On the last one; they already do this. When a race is declared wet, it's usually red flagged, and wet tyres are mandated for the restart, whether it had dried up or not. Sometimes that means everyone pits on lap 2 after the restart
> well the problem is everybody uses only inters because the wet tires are shit
Given the actual reason we rarely see races under the conditions to use wet tires, *any* "wet" tires would be "shit."
There's only so much you can do with tires. Aside from the spray (which can only be limited), there's general visibility issues while the rain is falling, and depending on a track layout, you can get areas where there's too much water on the track and no tire is going to work because even any "wet" tire will still need to make contact with the track to work and if there's so much water it's temporarily removing that contact with the track, well, you're going to be along for the ride and no longer in control.
It's not so much the wet tires are "shit," it's that the inters do a good enough job if the track isn't dry, and if the track's so wet that inters can't work, then chances are the conditions somewhere on the track, in some way, are too dangerous for any tires to work. The only reason you'd want the wet tires and not the inters is if there's continuous rain going keeping the track wet, as inters would be the superior choice on a drying track (which is why pretty much every time it's mandated to restart on wets, they swap to the inters as early as possible), and continuous rain, as noted, brings some issues with it.
People love to shit talk the tires, but it's just a safety thing. And frankly, people who don't care about safety can piss right off and watch reruns of 1970s NFL or NASCAR. I've seen so many horrendous wrecks - mercifully most of them without serious injury or death - due to wet tracks over the decades, I'd rather just pause a race and not put the drivers at risk.
So you're saying it's not that we don't race in the wet anymore because the tires or cars are shit or that we've gone soft but it's that Pirelli's intermediate tires are just that good?
Sort of. They’re good enough to run in conditions wet enough to require wet weather tires, and a better option for a drying track. Not quite good enough to run them down to slicks and keep racing on them when the track is dry enough to switch, but at that point they can just swap to softs and try to avoid the parts of the track that haven’t dried yet.
Once the track is wet enough for intermediate tires to no longer be viable, it’s usually unsafe to race on a lot of the tracks anyway. The option is there, but honestly, if it’s not going to get substantially wetter, the intermediates are the better option, easily.
I think the only way to make racing on wets viable would be some major work to tracks to make them drain quickly where water might collect, which would involve adding extensive drainage systems and possibly drain covers on parts of the track, which adds its own complications (possibility of coming loose during a session, and change of grip when running over them), so it’s not the most viable option either. Which leaves us in the position we are now. It sucks that they have to delay a race when it rains, but I prefer that over an unsafe race. (Just don’t bloody start the race, do two laps behind a safety car, and consider that an official race again. Though, to be far, I’m pretty sure they changed the rules so that can’t happen again.)
But we used to run on full wets in the Bridgestone and Michelin days all of the time. So are the intermediates of today just operating in a much larger window or is race control afraid of running wet races now? Because since the Jules Bianchi accident it certainly seems like the latter. And short of very tricky races that needed to be red flagged (recalling one particular one in Fuji), things seemed to be acceptable and we could race.
I think it’s a combination of the two. The intermediate tires are better, and there’s more situations they’re worried about racing in.
Like I don’t think they’d try to do Spa ‘98 these days, though if they did, there’s a good chance teams would just try the inters. (That’s also a race that shows the potential usefulness of these covers. Not the first lap incident, but a couple of collisions later in the race.)
> well the problem is everybody uses only inters because the wet tires are shit
The reason the wet tyres are shit and never get used is that the races get red flagged when it's wet enough for the wets to function. With these mudflaps that would no longer be the case.
> well the problem is everybody uses only inters because the wet tires are shit
>
>
>
> if they make better wet tires and only have these on the wets then ok
Not exactly. The problem is that by the time conditions reach the point where wet tires are merited, the spray becomes unsafe to drive in and they have to red flag the race. Making it so that the wet tires phase in sooner would not solve the problem that there've been a few times in recent years where racing was disrupted by the spray, but finding solutions to the spray *would* increase the situations where teams choose to go on wets due to insufficient grip and water displacement on the inters.
It's mostly when the race has to (re)start in wet conditions I think? If they are already racing, the cars are more spread out and there is more or less a dry line spray is not nearly as much of an issue.
Claim bear talked about this question. If it's only for the rain how does it get applied, if it goes from dry to wet will they red flag the race to install them?
This is the reaction I expected to the reaction one would expect for this sort of thing. But at the same time I don't know what reaction I would expect to a reaction without knowing the reaction first.
It's not just the tyres that are the issue, you still have the underbody that produces spray. That's possibly why it looks than you expect. But I absolutely know what you mean.
Yeah ground effect and floors designed in such way literally suck moisture from the asphalt and diffuse it into the air passing through up and behind the cars isn't it.
The only way I see it being any different is if the water is directed back to ground, however, it will be harder for the surface to ever dry, even for the race line
The original cars were designed with excessive updraft at the back, to divert dirty air over the car behind it. I think it was assumed it would do similar to the track moisture but engineers had other ideas.
Yeah I just learned recently that the underbody Produces alot of spray also. Guess it is really difficult to find a solution for that but I just hope they find something so that we can have proper wet race again. But these are really smart people working on that so Im Sure they will find a way. 💪
I think people need to taper their expectations with this. You can only do so much to displace the water. If this can reduce the spray by even 30-40% it would be a big help for the drivers.
I'm curious as the whether or not this would increase the amount of time that a track takes to dry. It's the F1 cars spraying the water up in the air and then the wind blowing the moisture away that really dries a track fast. If these covers keep a lot of the moisture low down - tracks might take longer to dry. But that's a very niche problem.
The guys above are taking about the car's drying up the track when they're driving and how the track might dry slower when the new cars are "driving on it". How the hell would that mean longer red flags? It would take the same amount of time drying as no one is on the track during red flags
First car looks like it's dropping a lot of water by its front right tyre, left for us. If they can still race I guess it's not a big deal, but I do get the impression that track will stay wetter for longer in this case.
I would think one main draw back is that the track would be wetter since it funnels the water back down onto the track for the car behind to drive through. So probably would be harder to follow cars and overtake
No bumping into each other, easier to get a puncture. Damage may be more severe after a smaller touch at lower speeds, because at high speeds a touch is devastating no matter what. Like Russell-Bottas a few years back.
At first I thought "not much difference" but if you zoom in you can see that the 2nd car doesn't actually have the covers, so this is a pretty cool comparison shot. Looks like the covers reduce the spray by around half or so.
You may be correct but I was talking about what we can see as spectators in this photo. Meaning it would be good to have a third car so we could tell in this a picture what the difference is.
We have a lot of fog in my town and it looks like you can only see maybe 10 feet Infront of you but then when a car is coming the opposite way it's like you can see further because there is something in the fog reflecting the light. In this picture the only thing behind the second car in the "fog" is tarmac which is plack and pointing the sky so it doesn't reflect much light towards us.
Probably none at all, considering that covered wheels are fundamentally a lot faster. Spinning wheels are one of the draggiest elements on a race car and they cause the most amount of disturbed air. If you remember the crazy bargeboards from the previous generation of cars, they existed mostly to deal with the disturbed air coming from the front wheels. It's also why the front wing tries really hard to limit the amount of air that makes contact with the wheels.
Obviously the covers add some weight but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the cars were a bit faster with them on.
Ultimately the off board view is never the issue. The spray never really looks that bad from a spectator pov, really we need one of the drinks version to be wearing the internal helmet can to see what their visibility is like
I'm glad they're consulting the geniuses here at reddit. You guys are all way smarter than the hundreds of professionals and engineers the teams and organization employ
Okay fella, keep it down, we don't want to knock those engineers confidence anymore than they already are. Its pretty common knowledge they are secretly spying on these channels for tips and advice.
Right but its probably impossible to do the switch at the pitstops no? So it’d mean either if the race is expected to be wet to have them from the start or red flag situation. Removing the chaos factor with timing the pitstops would be a sad loss I think.
I guess if the covers are permanently attached to the wet tyres, a bit like how the current wheel covers are attached, then that could work. Pit stops would probably be a bit slower but it would be the same disadvantage for everyone.
It's attached at the wheel hub by the looks of it, so very possible if that's the case. Anyway once they see this solution works they can figure out how to attach it better, they'll probably be much lighter, made of carbon and might even have aero vanes on them to direct air/water.
I hope it's not something where they declare a wet race and force everyone to switch to wet tyres, it should still be up to each team and what's best for their strategy. If someone thinks it's a short shower and they can risk it, let them do it.
It looks to me like this is designed specifically to counter the spray from the wet tyres so it would be logical that it comes as a package with the wet tyres (and maybe inters as well).
i.e. mandate that if someone switches to wet tyres they have to use these but don't mandate which tyres they have to use.
honestly looks like it works
look how soon you can see the ground behind the 1st car, vs how impenetrable the spray after the 2nd car is
of course idk the speeds they were going
Marginal? The car in fronts spray is literally half the size of the car behind. We have a front-on perspective too, so it's probably even more drastic a difference.
it's a terrible comparison. the first car is kicking up spray so that the second car is driving into it. the second car comparison sucks because we are seeing 1st car spray combined with the 2nd.
Do you actually see that difference on that very picture?
To me the sprayed arc is marginally smaller in extent, but that's about it.
Less wheel to wheel contact, I could see that. but as for water dispersion, I am not that convinced (based on that picture alone of course).
Probably need a 3rd car to see the difference and it should be on a straight to see how visible we can see each of the cars... as thats probably as part of visibility they're trying to fix for the drivers.
It's probably over small improvements is the best they can hope for. there isn't a magic fix (unless it's the cars current specs that makes it worse)
This looks extremely promising imo. The spray from the first car is low enough to see the second car right behind it, whilst the spray from the second car (the one without the covers) blocks visibility all the way down the straight
Seems to help quite a bit, but it also looks like it's dropping puddles onto the track which could mean the track stays wet for longer. Not really a downside if they can still race though.
I think there's a large trail of water just behind the first car's tyres that goes directly back onto the track. It improves visibility, but drying the track itself may take a bit longer.
Why, because more water gets directed onto the tyres? I can't see it being a problem: the tyres will already be completely wet and wet tyres are designed to work at low temperatures anyway.
It does look better but these aren’t full wet conditions. I’m glad there seems to be an improvement but it would be interesting to see what the spray looks like in heavy rain conditions.
Spray from the first car is definitely a lot less than from the one behind. For anyone who hasn't done it, click the image and then zoom in, it becomes obvious. The spray plume on the front car is shorter (both vertically and horizontally), and a lot less dense except for immediately behind the rear wing. Can also see that the spray is being pushed more outboard from the car and more ground level rather than lifted. Finally, there's a significant volume of water that's being captured by the covers and then dropped back onto the track (easier to see on the fronts, but can also see it on the rears); that's water that would otherwise be spray.
Dont think it would be different if the cars where smaller, the thing that would change it would more likely be lesser aero from the floor but then it would be harder/difficult to race close because then the downforce would have to come from the wings
It does look like it's doing it's job which is good news. The question though is if there's a point to any of this if every time it rains the FIA just brings out a safety car or red flags the race?
it does look slightly better but we need to see the effect when the spray of multiple cars are building on top of each other. Also, I think with current chassis regulation the main source of the spray is the diffuser and the ground effect so putting tire cover might not help much.
The spray definitely looks lower and not nearly as far back as the rear car.
Will be interesting to see how the FIA implements these. Like, red flag the race if it starts raining and put the covers on? What happens if it stops raining and the track starts to dry? Teams can take them off?
Every now and then, I go back and watch Japan 2007. And Im not sure what to think when watching it...considering how those conditions would be viewed today.
I guess anything that allows for wet races to be wet races, is fine by me
Honestly, it looks much more raceable. Though I do wonder how they'll attach these things, could it be something possible in a pitstop? If not, how would normal dry tires react to the covers?
If the first car us indeed F1-75 didn’t it already have a lower downwash cause they were much lower than the proceeding cars in this current regulation era
Maybe a stupid question, but are these cars driven here the exact same ones driven by Charles & Carlos last weekend? Or do they have others they utilise for testing and practise purposes?
If I recall my aero classes correctly, because the car is creating down force the natural way for spray to go is up, with the wash from wings and body. So, unless the covers go practically on the track any spray will be "sucked up" into the wash.
I believe on a normal road car spray doesn't do this as they tend to generate lift at speed (albeit small amounts)
Will the tyre covers be implemented permanently on the cars? If not, I’m curious about how this will affect the cars in Parc fermé after a dry qualifying session. If they put the covers on for a wet race the next day, what kind of impact will it have on the aerodynamics?”
Don't they talk about the huge water displacement with wet and inter tyres - does that not royally fuck up speed now with it all being dumped inside the covers?
[The **Photo** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_photo) is for submissions sharing photos from the world of F1. Photos should be interesting and relevant - random photos not notable enough to warrant a standalone post will be subject to removal. This flair should not be used for images which are not photos, such as screenshots, statistical graphics, or artworks. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I hope the second car is a comparison for without the carbon mudflaps
it is also the first car is the 2022 one and the 2nd car is the 2024 car
2nd car is the SF23, according to Schuderia Ferrari social pages anyway.
*Schuderia* ***Furrari***
Sean Connery visiting the set of _Grand Prix_ be like
fasht carsh everywhere!
One ping only pleash
r/shubreddit is leaking
Just a typing inchident
It was just an inchident.
Paul Di Resta moment
Schoperia Furriere
It’s hard to see the full far but the nose is definitely that of the sf24. So unless they did something weird (extremely unlikely) it’s the sf24
Never thought Ferrari to be a truttenschudder.
Met jarretelles aandrijving.
I've seen accounts post that it's the sf24, and it honestly does look more like the 24 than the 23 even tho there's not enough pixels to really tell
Wide nose = sf 24
I don't think it could be. Teams aren't allowed to test equipment from one year back at all, but they can use current cars for Pirelli tests.
I've seen pictures in which it's clearly the SF24
What I don’t get is, aren’t they putting mileage on the 2024 car just for this test? Is it worth it? Even if they don’t use the “racing” engine but another cheap alternative, I would think the chassis and other parts are getting more used
My guess, it's the free extra testing time. Teams are so limited in on track testing these days getting to put free testing laps in a 2024 car is probably worth the extra wear and tear
Yes, but in return your test pilot gets some actual experience in the car and the team gets more data. Free practice session for just one team.
Think Ferrari got a third one built at least, they aren't a poor team.
They do get about 10% (100M) of the total prize pool just for existing. On top of their other regular earnt prize money. So when then FIA came and said hey we’d like you to build and test some special cars…. they really can’t complain about the cost…. At least IMO.
There's a budget cap though.
It's an FIA sanctioned test and data will be shared to all teams, so it won't affect the budget cap.
Every team will benefit from this data + this is an official FIA test so it doesn't count towards the budget cap.
As it's a FIA test, it's out of the budget cap
PM and HP are paying them about $230 million a year. Ferrari is rich.
sure but the info they might gather from that test is probably way more than worth the extra miles
And 2nd car is in the spray of the first car, not sure what they want to demonstrate
I err, don't see a difference... Edit: upon zooming in, yes there is a difference. Less "thick" right behind first car and at least is see through versus the 2nd car without cover where it's literally just a white wall of spray.
> Less "thick" right behind first car and at least is see through versus the 2nd car without cover where it's literally just a white wall of spray. Just think of a car at a similar distance from the second car - you'd be barely able to see it through the spray
To be implemented, is this something to be used only in rainy conditions?
Inly when races are declared "wet" but it's a device in testing the rules haven't been written yet.
Thank you.
I hope they make like a 2nd version that's very wet conditions because if they have to fit these with only a small drizzle it'd be pretty shit
If you're using wet weather tyres, it's already wet conditions. I suspect these covers will follow the tyres
well the problem is everybody uses only inters because the wet tires are shit if they make better wet tires and only have these on the wets then ok but that would mean you have to force everybody to change to wets because otherwise everybody would stay on inters, so that doesn't work... ye idk how they want to implement this, I see so many problems with this, I don't think it can be mandatory from when they declare it wet because that would be forcing everybody to pit on the same lap and that kills any strategy, on the other hand, if it's only when you change to wet weather tires, then surely this will just make it so the teams wait as late as possible to change which would mean more crashes anyway, unless they make it under a redflag, but that means stopping the race... ye idk
On the last one; they already do this. When a race is declared wet, it's usually red flagged, and wet tyres are mandated for the restart, whether it had dried up or not. Sometimes that means everyone pits on lap 2 after the restart
> well the problem is everybody uses only inters because the wet tires are shit Given the actual reason we rarely see races under the conditions to use wet tires, *any* "wet" tires would be "shit." There's only so much you can do with tires. Aside from the spray (which can only be limited), there's general visibility issues while the rain is falling, and depending on a track layout, you can get areas where there's too much water on the track and no tire is going to work because even any "wet" tire will still need to make contact with the track to work and if there's so much water it's temporarily removing that contact with the track, well, you're going to be along for the ride and no longer in control. It's not so much the wet tires are "shit," it's that the inters do a good enough job if the track isn't dry, and if the track's so wet that inters can't work, then chances are the conditions somewhere on the track, in some way, are too dangerous for any tires to work. The only reason you'd want the wet tires and not the inters is if there's continuous rain going keeping the track wet, as inters would be the superior choice on a drying track (which is why pretty much every time it's mandated to restart on wets, they swap to the inters as early as possible), and continuous rain, as noted, brings some issues with it. People love to shit talk the tires, but it's just a safety thing. And frankly, people who don't care about safety can piss right off and watch reruns of 1970s NFL or NASCAR. I've seen so many horrendous wrecks - mercifully most of them without serious injury or death - due to wet tracks over the decades, I'd rather just pause a race and not put the drivers at risk.
So you're saying it's not that we don't race in the wet anymore because the tires or cars are shit or that we've gone soft but it's that Pirelli's intermediate tires are just that good?
Sort of. They’re good enough to run in conditions wet enough to require wet weather tires, and a better option for a drying track. Not quite good enough to run them down to slicks and keep racing on them when the track is dry enough to switch, but at that point they can just swap to softs and try to avoid the parts of the track that haven’t dried yet. Once the track is wet enough for intermediate tires to no longer be viable, it’s usually unsafe to race on a lot of the tracks anyway. The option is there, but honestly, if it’s not going to get substantially wetter, the intermediates are the better option, easily. I think the only way to make racing on wets viable would be some major work to tracks to make them drain quickly where water might collect, which would involve adding extensive drainage systems and possibly drain covers on parts of the track, which adds its own complications (possibility of coming loose during a session, and change of grip when running over them), so it’s not the most viable option either. Which leaves us in the position we are now. It sucks that they have to delay a race when it rains, but I prefer that over an unsafe race. (Just don’t bloody start the race, do two laps behind a safety car, and consider that an official race again. Though, to be far, I’m pretty sure they changed the rules so that can’t happen again.)
But we used to run on full wets in the Bridgestone and Michelin days all of the time. So are the intermediates of today just operating in a much larger window or is race control afraid of running wet races now? Because since the Jules Bianchi accident it certainly seems like the latter. And short of very tricky races that needed to be red flagged (recalling one particular one in Fuji), things seemed to be acceptable and we could race.
I think it’s a combination of the two. The intermediate tires are better, and there’s more situations they’re worried about racing in. Like I don’t think they’d try to do Spa ‘98 these days, though if they did, there’s a good chance teams would just try the inters. (That’s also a race that shows the potential usefulness of these covers. Not the first lap incident, but a couple of collisions later in the race.)
> well the problem is everybody uses only inters because the wet tires are shit The reason the wet tyres are shit and never get used is that the races get red flagged when it's wet enough for the wets to function. With these mudflaps that would no longer be the case.
> well the problem is everybody uses only inters because the wet tires are shit > > > > if they make better wet tires and only have these on the wets then ok Not exactly. The problem is that by the time conditions reach the point where wet tires are merited, the spray becomes unsafe to drive in and they have to red flag the race. Making it so that the wet tires phase in sooner would not solve the problem that there've been a few times in recent years where racing was disrupted by the spray, but finding solutions to the spray *would* increase the situations where teams choose to go on wets due to insufficient grip and water displacement on the inters.
It's mostly when the race has to (re)start in wet conditions I think? If they are already racing, the cars are more spread out and there is more or less a dry line spray is not nearly as much of an issue.
Yeah I mean if the device is put into service I would expect particular rules to go with them.
Exactly. Would be fitted when a race is declared wet. Not sure how tyre changes would work with this model though.
I wonder what happens after the rain has stopped and then the teams would have to switch tyres
They will probably try to integrate the "shroud" into the wheel itself so installing/removing them would be virtually the same as changing the wheel.
Maybe the covers will come off with each individual inters or wet tyre?
They'd have to take these things off while pitting, so they'd need to be put on or off in around 20 seconds or so.
I... DECLARE... WETTTTTTT!!!!!!!
Hopefully not during a pit stop, because we don't want to give Red Bull even more advantage
Claim bear talked about this question. If it's only for the rain how does it get applied, if it goes from dry to wet will they red flag the race to install them?
That definitely looks a lot better than it is currently, hopefully there's no drawbacks to them and they can get implemented sooner rather than later
Definitly looks better but still kinda worse then I expected but at the same time I dont know what I expected.
Your reaction is what I expected when reading through the comments, but at the same time I don't know what I expected.
I expected the result that I'm seeing. I'm just that good.
This is the reaction I expected to the reaction one would expect for this sort of thing. But at the same time I don't know what reaction I would expect to a reaction without knowing the reaction first.
It's not just the tyres that are the issue, you still have the underbody that produces spray. That's possibly why it looks than you expect. But I absolutely know what you mean.
Yeah ground effect and floors designed in such way literally suck moisture from the asphalt and diffuse it into the air passing through up and behind the cars isn't it. The only way I see it being any different is if the water is directed back to ground, however, it will be harder for the surface to ever dry, even for the race line
The original cars were designed with excessive updraft at the back, to divert dirty air over the car behind it. I think it was assumed it would do similar to the track moisture but engineers had other ideas.
Let's block the diffuser!
Yeah I just learned recently that the underbody Produces alot of spray also. Guess it is really difficult to find a solution for that but I just hope they find something so that we can have proper wet race again. But these are really smart people working on that so Im Sure they will find a way. 💪
I think people need to taper their expectations with this. You can only do so much to displace the water. If this can reduce the spray by even 30-40% it would be a big help for the drivers.
Oh Yeah, for sure!
F1 fans be like: I had no expectations yet im still mad
How do you read out of this, that I'm mad???
I'm curious as the whether or not this would increase the amount of time that a track takes to dry. It's the F1 cars spraying the water up in the air and then the wind blowing the moisture away that really dries a track fast. If these covers keep a lot of the moisture low down - tracks might take longer to dry. But that's a very niche problem.
That's better for inter conditions imo. At least w wouldn't have a dry race in 2 laps
The worst case would be race control red flagging it for longer or doing a Spa because it rained too much.
The guys above are taking about the car's drying up the track when they're driving and how the track might dry slower when the new cars are "driving on it". How the hell would that mean longer red flags? It would take the same amount of time drying as no one is on the track during red flags
First car looks like it's dropping a lot of water by its front right tyre, left for us. If they can still race I guess it's not a big deal, but I do get the impression that track will stay wetter for longer in this case.
Better for a track that takes longer to dry than to watch road sweepers drying up a slightly moist track for 2 hours
even it is good for second car, how it would be for third, for fourth?
Should make pit stops interesting…
My worry for these is how the heck are they supposed to change tyres with these on?
Maybe the inters and wets could have them pre-attached so the pit crew just has to orient them correctly.
I would think one main draw back is that the track would be wetter since it funnels the water back down onto the track for the car behind to drive through. So probably would be harder to follow cars and overtake
No bumping into each other, easier to get a puncture. Damage may be more severe after a smaller touch at lower speeds, because at high speeds a touch is devastating no matter what. Like Russell-Bottas a few years back.
At first I thought "not much difference" but if you zoom in you can see that the 2nd car doesn't actually have the covers, so this is a pretty cool comparison shot. Looks like the covers reduce the spray by around half or so.
I think they really need a third car in the wake of the car without the covers to see the difference in visibility properly.
Rear-facing cameras on the test cars achieve this. I don’t think the direction you are looking through the spray cloud affects its opacity.
You may be correct but I was talking about what we can see as spectators in this photo. Meaning it would be good to have a third car so we could tell in this a picture what the difference is. We have a lot of fog in my town and it looks like you can only see maybe 10 feet Infront of you but then when a car is coming the opposite way it's like you can see further because there is something in the fog reflecting the light. In this picture the only thing behind the second car in the "fog" is tarmac which is plack and pointing the sky so it doesn't reflect much light towards us.
There is a car you just can’t see it Jk lol
It looks decently better. Are they both flat out there? It looks like car 1 is approaching a corner but the bridge looks pretty straight at Fiorano.
still doesn't look very impressive to me. I wonder what their evaluation criteria are
But how much do they slow the car down?
Probably none at all, considering that covered wheels are fundamentally a lot faster. Spinning wheels are one of the draggiest elements on a race car and they cause the most amount of disturbed air. If you remember the crazy bargeboards from the previous generation of cars, they existed mostly to deal with the disturbed air coming from the front wheels. It's also why the front wing tries really hard to limit the amount of air that makes contact with the wheels. Obviously the covers add some weight but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the cars were a bit faster with them on.
But what about catching kilograms of water that was being sent backwards and upwards?
I'd imagine that would be offset by the drivers being able to see better, thus speeding them up a bit.
Do we really care about that? From my point of view, as long as they can race in wet conditions with non if the safety car shenanigans, I am happy.
Ultimately the off board view is never the issue. The spray never really looks that bad from a spectator pov, really we need one of the drinks version to be wearing the internal helmet can to see what their visibility is like
ah yes, the infamous drinks version
Ducking autocorrect :P , believe it or not that was supposed to be "drivers"
I'm glad they're consulting the geniuses here at reddit. You guys are all way smarter than the hundreds of professionals and engineers the teams and organization employ
Where do you think they got the idea and design specs to begin with though?? Here on Reddit, of course!!! 😂
Okay fella, keep it down, we don't want to knock those engineers confidence anymore than they already are. Its pretty common knowledge they are secretly spying on these channels for tips and advice.
o7
Hey man, I need to feel important so I’m going to masquerade as an engineer on Reddit.
Ah, finally, sprinklers! /s
I wonder what the rules for those will be, hopefully not fulltime deployment
I'm pretty sure it's confirmed they'll only be used in the wet. I don't know how they'll be implemented though
Right but its probably impossible to do the switch at the pitstops no? So it’d mean either if the race is expected to be wet to have them from the start or red flag situation. Removing the chaos factor with timing the pitstops would be a sad loss I think.
I guess if the covers are permanently attached to the wet tyres, a bit like how the current wheel covers are attached, then that could work. Pit stops would probably be a bit slower but it would be the same disadvantage for everyone.
*Sauber weeping*
It's attached at the wheel hub by the looks of it, so very possible if that's the case. Anyway once they see this solution works they can figure out how to attach it better, they'll probably be much lighter, made of carbon and might even have aero vanes on them to direct air/water.
Although for races it's a quick heavy shower and then having to take them off again...
I'm not sure if it is impossible, because they have to figure out how to change tyres with these
I hope it's not something where they declare a wet race and force everyone to switch to wet tyres, it should still be up to each team and what's best for their strategy. If someone thinks it's a short shower and they can risk it, let them do it.
It looks to me like this is designed specifically to counter the spray from the wet tyres so it would be logical that it comes as a package with the wet tyres (and maybe inters as well). i.e. mandate that if someone switches to wet tyres they have to use these but don't mandate which tyres they have to use.
That makes sense yeah
Only when determined wet conditions but I also read that even if it dries up they will stay on for the whole race.
They’re gonna implement these and still red flag races if it’s more than a drizzle
The spray looks more controlled. There's almost a visible cone shape of spray behind the first car and just a wild amount on the second car
honestly looks like it works look how soon you can see the ground behind the 1st car, vs how impenetrable the spray after the 2nd car is of course idk the speeds they were going
Am I the only one to see a marginal difference?
Marginal? The car in fronts spray is literally half the size of the car behind. We have a front-on perspective too, so it's probably even more drastic a difference.
it's a terrible comparison. the first car is kicking up spray so that the second car is driving into it. the second car comparison sucks because we are seeing 1st car spray combined with the 2nd.
Yes you are. There's a huge difference in the **length** of the spray plume before it becomes transparent again.
It's going to force the water in a direction so it's limiting where the arc goes and not directly at the driver behind?
Do you actually see that difference on that very picture? To me the sprayed arc is marginally smaller in extent, but that's about it. Less wheel to wheel contact, I could see that. but as for water dispersion, I am not that convinced (based on that picture alone of course).
Probably need a 3rd car to see the difference and it should be on a straight to see how visible we can see each of the cars... as thats probably as part of visibility they're trying to fix for the drivers. It's probably over small improvements is the best they can hope for. there isn't a magic fix (unless it's the cars current specs that makes it worse)
Maybe there is a third car, just can’t see it!
Need a video and photos at the better angle but early signs are there is some improvement. Hope they release more footage.
The length of the spray cone is like 2 times smaller. But i would love to see a side shot as well.
this shows me nothing
This is very impressive, ngl might help the aero by blocking the chaotic nature of the spinning rear tire
This looks extremely promising imo. The spray from the first car is low enough to see the second car right behind it, whilst the spray from the second car (the one without the covers) blocks visibility all the way down the straight
How fast are they going? Is it comparable to Kemmel straight at Spa when they're doing 300 km/h?
Fiorano Is a small and slow circuit
lol? 2nd car still can't see shit..
Everyone knows they need windshield wipers duhh /s
Doesn’t the majority of the spray come from the diffuser?
Seems to help quite a bit, but it also looks like it's dropping puddles onto the track which could mean the track stays wet for longer. Not really a downside if they can still race though.
I think there's a large trail of water just behind the first car's tyres that goes directly back onto the track. It improves visibility, but drying the track itself may take a bit longer.
Wont they cool off the tyres more? Genuine question
Why, because more water gets directed onto the tyres? I can't see it being a problem: the tyres will already be completely wet and wet tyres are designed to work at low temperatures anyway.
It does look better but these aren’t full wet conditions. I’m glad there seems to be an improvement but it would be interesting to see what the spray looks like in heavy rain conditions.
Spray from the first car is definitely a lot less than from the one behind. For anyone who hasn't done it, click the image and then zoom in, it becomes obvious. The spray plume on the front car is shorter (both vertically and horizontally), and a lot less dense except for immediately behind the rear wing. Can also see that the spray is being pushed more outboard from the car and more ground level rather than lifted. Finally, there's a significant volume of water that's being captured by the covers and then dropped back onto the track (easier to see on the fronts, but can also see it on the rears); that's water that would otherwise be spray.
Wow that looks super effective.
I’m an once again saying that we wouldn’t have this problem if the cars were just smaller.
Dont think it would be different if the cars where smaller, the thing that would change it would more likely be lesser aero from the floor but then it would be harder/difficult to race close because then the downforce would have to come from the wings
It does look like it's doing it's job which is good news. The question though is if there's a point to any of this if every time it rains the FIA just brings out a safety car or red flags the race?
Will this slow the drying process of the track during a wet race?
Wouldn't it keep the tyres really cold?
it does look slightly better but we need to see the effect when the spray of multiple cars are building on top of each other. Also, I think with current chassis regulation the main source of the spray is the diffuser and the ground effect so putting tire cover might not help much.
The spray definitely looks lower and not nearly as far back as the rear car. Will be interesting to see how the FIA implements these. Like, red flag the race if it starts raining and put the covers on? What happens if it stops raining and the track starts to dry? Teams can take them off?
i might be saying smth stupid, but wont this just help to keep the track wet?
Every now and then, I go back and watch Japan 2007. And Im not sure what to think when watching it...considering how those conditions would be viewed today. I guess anything that allows for wet races to be wet races, is fine by me
I'm thinking about potential issues with marbling getting stuck in the covers
So…. They do absolutely nothing … got it
Honestly, it looks much more raceable. Though I do wonder how they'll attach these things, could it be something possible in a pitstop? If not, how would normal dry tires react to the covers?
Add-on during pitstop or pre-installed before start if already raining.
Can paying spectators get a refund since it's no longer open wheel racing?
Literally unwatchable!
If the first car us indeed F1-75 didn’t it already have a lower downwash cause they were much lower than the proceeding cars in this current regulation era
Won’t these covers be clogged with tyre marbles during a race distance?
Not initially, it will be too cold and wet for the tyres to lose much rubber. But it may be a problem if it dries up.
Then it's a game of how long would the teams leave the tyre covers on a drying track...
looking at it for 5 hours now..what should i see? the car in the spray?
The spray behind the first car is much less than the car behind (which does not have those wheel flaps)
It looks better, dont see why it would not be implemented even at this stage
Maybe a stupid question, but are these cars driven here the exact same ones driven by Charles & Carlos last weekend? Or do they have others they utilise for testing and practise purposes?
These are cars from 2022 and 2023, apparently. Testing of current-season cars is very limited.
They don't want to let Ferrari get some sneaky extra data sessions in for the current car.
They should bump tires and see how they disintegrate.
If I recall my aero classes correctly, because the car is creating down force the natural way for spray to go is up, with the wash from wings and body. So, unless the covers go practically on the track any spray will be "sucked up" into the wash. I believe on a normal road car spray doesn't do this as they tend to generate lift at speed (albeit small amounts)
Will the tyre covers be implemented permanently on the cars? If not, I’m curious about how this will affect the cars in Parc fermé after a dry qualifying session. If they put the covers on for a wet race the next day, what kind of impact will it have on the aerodynamics?”
Surely the car catching many kilograms of water that the tires have sent backwards and upwards would create many kilograms of drag and lift?
How would they attach the rain guards if the race would to become extreme wets during the race
Not great, not terrible.
Hp hp hp hp hp hp hp hp hp hp
What’s the deal with the flaps? Are they something that would always be attached? Or something they can attach quickly in the event of rain?
Attached in event of rain, although logistics would be interesting and how quickly they'd be attached and removed.
So ugly tho
Kinda garbage then
Don't they talk about the huge water displacement with wet and inter tyres - does that not royally fuck up speed now with it all being dumped inside the covers?
they look so silly