Why Formula 1's New CURVED Wing is GENIUS

now strap him for this one this new car design is properly genius so let's unpack it formula one unveiled a full-size version of the new car recently and it looks radically different to the current cars now a lot of this is about improving the looks of the cars but also thankfully a lot of it is about improving racing but despite the crazy livery the thing that caught my eye was the rear wing we have never seen anything like this before normally rear wings are boxy rather than curved like this and for good reason so is this new look just an aesthetic change or to do with actually improving overtaking well as it turns out the reasoning is genius but before we get into that we need to talk about the first step in constructing your business or growing your online presence and that's with our sponsor for this video squarespace squarespace is a complete all-in-one platform that you can use to grow your online presence and run your business a great website can be such a powerful tool and it was the first step i took when launching drive61 the website allowed us to host training videos material and even sell real-world coaching sessions and this is what squarespace is great for getting from an empty site to being live within just a few hours thanks to their award-winning templates and where other platforms require manual coding and extensive plugins squarespace has it all built in meaning you can pick which features you want and which you don't so if you want to start a business or grow your online presence you should check out the link in the description to get started the entire philosophy of this new car is about reducing dirty air the major factor that makes it incredibly hard to overtake and on the current car the hundreds of complex aero surfaces create lots of downforce but with the byproduct of incredibly dirty air and with this when driving behind another car your wings no longer work at the maximum efficiency and you have to take different lines and work your tyres harder to keep up the wind tunnel research says you can lose as much as 35 of your downforce when following a car within three car lengths and if you close that up to just one car length you can lose as much as 57 of your downforce when i've raced high speed and high downforce cars before this is incredibly frustrating as soon as you follow another car you get lots and lots of understeer and it makes it very difficult to overtake so let's look at the current rear wings they have two wing elements that are fairly uniform across the length then they have end plates that are typically square to essentially fence off the end of the wing this is so the air is forced to follow the contour of the wing the wings work by forcing this air upward which in turn forces the car downwards but the profile of the wing also generates downforce and we've covered this before but they essentially create a high pressure area on top of the wing and a low pressure one below but imagine if we removed the end planes the high pressure air would be able to spill over the side of the wing reducing this effect so how can the new rules have removed these elements and are the wings much less efficient now in a nutshell yes that is part of the philosophy of this car essentially the rear wing forms a smaller part of the overall downforce of the car so formula one made a load of changes to compact this dirty air problem things like simplifying the front wing using small winglets over the wheels to manage the tyre wake as well as bringing back wheel covers but the clever bit about this car is how the downforce is produced put simply over body downforce so the wings and the body of the car is less efficient and creates more dirty air so formula one have leaned into under body downforce it's more efficient and is far less harmful to the car behind the underbody downforce is mainly the floor of the car which takes a new role in this car it actually creates the large majority of the car's downforce by using a clever ground effect system it has these massive tunnels that run the length of the car they can accelerate huge amounts of air which creates massive suction under the floor so this means that formula one can remove the complex aero surfaces things like the barge boards the little strikes all over the car as well as simplifying the wings without losing too much down force on the hole and this explains the removal of the end plates as they are one of the worst culprits for dirty air whilst they improve the efficiency of the wings on the current cars the sharp edges create huge vortices this happens as the high pressure on the wing flows out into the open air and the two streams mix now at this point we have high pressure air mixing with air atmospheric pressure and as they mix they create these vortices at this point of the car these vortices are very much a bad thing and the teams try to reduce them as much as possible as they create a lot of drag but ultimately they are a natural side effect of having wings and the additional downforce outweighs the drag when considering speed over a lap but they also really hurt the car behind this swirling air will disrupt the flow over the car that's following so removing them reduces some downforce but also dramatically reduces the dirty air which is a trade-off that makes sense for better racing but that doesn't entirely explain this strange curved shape for the current breed of cars a lot of the components directing the airflow like the barge boards aren't actually there to create downforce they are there to push the turbulent harmful air like the messy flow that spills off the wheels outwards away from the rear of the car essentially stopping the rear of the car being hurt by its own dirty air now to combat this the teams use vortices that seal off the floor and push the wake outwards this protects the car but really hurts the cars following behind of course these new cars will still produce some dirty air as it is moving through the air so this clever new design is there to manage that as much as possible now this is a really clever bit the new rear wing does exactly the opposite this curve forces the air to the center of the car just behind the diffuser but why does it do this well remember this new floor that accelerates air to create downfalls this air will exit the diffuser and is expanded upwards and taking the overbody airflow with it so that means the diffuser is used to push the dirty air up and over the car behind literally lifting the dirty air out of the way so the car behind is able to follow closer that's actually why this new lower wing element is here it creates a low pressure area just above the diffuser that sucks more air through the diffuser and increases this effect and what's brilliant is that the wind tunnel tests say the dirty air has been massively reduced taking the downforce loss from the 57 to only 18 meaning the cars can follow closer for longer you should watch this video where i explain how f1 engineers learn to use these vortices to their advantage leading to the incredible cars that we have now thanks very much to squarespace for sponsoring this video you can check them out with the link in the description thanks very much for watching check out these videos which i think you'll love and i'll catch you in the next one

Channel: Driver61

Views: 889,881

Rating: 4.9200816 out of 5

Keywords: Formula 1, Driving, Coaching, Motorsport, Engineering, F1, Racing, Incredible Motorsport, Driver61, F1 2022, Formula 1 2022, F1 Regulations, Rear Wing, aerodynamics, FIA, Mercedes, Red bull, Aston Martin, Chain Bear, Autosport, The Race, auto racing

Id: t0-wXT12wgw

Length: 6min 57sec (417 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 29 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/thphnts]

The ad for a website building website ends at 1:29 for those wanting to skip it.

[u/0oodruidoo0]

clickbait title is due to rules, sorry, it's not what I'd have chosen but the rules are the rules.

[u/WillSRobs]

I have really been wondering what happens when they get floor or underbody damage in these new cars

[u/PM_ME_CHEESY_1LINERS]

"You see those 2022 cars? They've got curved wings! Curved. Wings."