7 ms·

The most famous fan car was the Brabham BT46, which used a skirt and fans to suck itself to the ground, leading to a ban of fan cars in F1. "when the drivers b

by sdfjkl 4y ago

The most famous fan car was the Brabham BT46, which used a skirt and fans to suck itself to the ground, leading to a ban of fan cars in F1. "when the drivers blipped the throttle, the car could be seen to squat down on its suspension as the downforce increased" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46

causi 4y ago
An F-1 race with no rules other than "go around the track the fastest without wrecking other drivers" might actually be worth watching.
- justin66 4y ago
  The problem is that you'd immediately have wrecks.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Many of the rules are there for safety, it’s not that hard to make a car so fast that the limiting factor is the driver and then the race becomes a contest of how willing to die your driver is.
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    I would love to see those rules removed along with the drivers. I expect it would be amazing to see the self-driving version of these races.
    - dharmab 4y ago
      It was tried with Roborace, but was unsuccessful. The racing was unimpressive and unprofitable.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        Even with humans driving remotely, it's not very profitable. Drone racing is about as successful as RC racing has become. People don't take sports seriously without humans being directly involved.
    - amenghra 4y ago
      Self-driving race car crashes straight into a wall from the starting line during the world's first autonomous race series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4fdUx6d4QM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4fdUx6d4QM
  - causi 4y ago
    Exactly. Modern F-1 is like watching a footrace where nobody is allowed to exceed a heart rate of 150bpm, i.e., boring as hell.
    - TomVDB 4y ago
      F1, cycling, soccer, NASCAR, cricket, … They all have their fans and their critics who think it’s a boring sport. I don’t follow F1, but based on a bunch of people in my Twitter feed, they finished one of the most exciting seasons in years.
    - mhh__ 4y ago
      And if their heart rate drops below 149bpm they get sacked. Boring is subjective but you're watching it wrong if you didn't find the last championship exciting.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    And people who want a contest of how willing to die your driver is can already just watch motorcycle racing.
    - crubier 4y ago
      More specifically, Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. 250 dead pilots and counting.
      - schoen 4y ago
        Wow! > Since 1937, the only year in which races were held but no fatalities occurred was 1982. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Isle_of_Man_TT_Mountain_Course_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Isle_of_Man_TT_Mountai...
- Syonyk 4y ago
  That was the 1980s Group C cars. Turns out, it's fairly straightforward to build a car that rather radically exceeds the physical limits of the driver. I would love to watch the autonomous version of that, though, with "no restrictions" (or nearly none - melting the nose of the car behind you with a flamethrower isn't quite in the spirit). You want to have a driver in a sim booth drive it over wireless? Great. You want to have a self driving algorithm? Great. You want to generate gobs of downforce with upward firing jets? Great. Just define some basic fan safety based limits, or... don't, and have a closed track. I would love to see what some of the race teams could come up with, unrestricted from all the various "Hey, let's keep drivers and fans alive!" limits out there.
  - Someone 4y ago
    If you’re going to race, rather than time-trial, you probably want limitations on car size, too. Also, formula one for years has cars leave a so highly turbulent wake that they had to introduce a system that gave cars close behind other cars some leeway as to their aerodynamics to make overtakes possible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_reduction_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_reduction_system) I guess you’d need something similar, too.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      You could also "golf" it where each contestant runs on the track with nobody else present, and you compare times.
      - maigret 4y ago
        That’s basically called Qualifying and is a part of almost all race weekends.
      - nikanj 4y ago
        That's not as entertaining to watch, so it won't have the same amount of funding
    - evandijk70 4y ago
- aerostable_slug 4y ago
  Some years ago Racecar Engineering magazine had an excellent editorial that touched on the rising costs of F1, the technological benefit to consumers these programs can have but also the rising difficulty of keeping up with the Joneses and that perhaps we might be reaching the budgetary limit of what racing teams can realistically finance. The author proposed "Formula Zero," where teams would be national rather than purely sponsor-oriented. Team America (cue music) vs. Team Japan vs. Team Italy etc. Note that this was years before the zero-emissions effort of the same name. Cool idea, and one might imagine what could emerge from efforts where NASA helps with aerodynamics for Team America, DLR for Germany, etc. (and/or DOE's combustion engineering experts consulting on Team America engine design: the potential collaborations run long). Fun fact: a major limiting factor for racing speed is the allowed size of the brakes. Let F-1 cars have titanic wheels with low profile tires and lap speeds would shoot way up. Of course, brake too little or too late and the resulting wreck will almost certainly be fatal — it's pretty tough to protect against coup-contrecoup injuries no matter how energy-absorbent the car may be when speeds get really high. Scrambled brains are good for breakfast, bad for drivers.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  The issue is: the drivers would die. In large quantity.
- whartung 4y ago
  Actually, it's not. It's been tried in all sorts of endeavors and eventually falls apart. Back in the day, there was a motorcycle series "Formula USA", with rules essentially "must have 2 wheels, no alcohol", and it was all well and good with folks running their hand crafted, bored out Superbikes until Kenny Roberts showed up with a pair of factory Yamaha Moto GP 500cc two stroke machines (which is, essentially, "unobtainium"), and, in time, dominated the field. Things like that lead to rule changes in F-USA. Also, consider the origin of modern MMA. The "Ultimate Fighter Championship", which was a "no rules" bout. Royce Gracie dominated those events early on. I will never forget UFC 4. Dan Severn, a very powerful wrestler, was dominating his bouts (3 as I recall). His fights were over very quickly. Meanwhile, Royce, who was a skilled grappler, while winning his bouts, they were taking quite a bit of time. At the end, Royce had just finished his 3rd bout and then had to stand up to Severn, with very minimal rest. Combining Severn's fast bouts, with Royce long bouts gave Severn a lot of time to rest and recover between fights. Royce was obviously quite tired going in to the final round. Severn dominated that fight, but it drew on...and on...and on. Over 15 minutes. In the end, Gracie prevailed, upside down, pinned against the fence, with Severn bent over him. It was an extraordinary encounter. But in the end, it led to rule changes. 15m fights don't really work with the broadcast schedule. Seeing two guys tangled in knots for 10m straight with minimal movement isn't very interesting to watch, either. And now we have modern MMA with combined striker and grappling skills. Turns out competition is only fun when it's fair. While its technically interesting to see folks exploit the rules, and even dominate, it's more interesting when they have to work within them. In the end, you (most folks, I know I do) want the man behind the wheel to be the deciding factor, not the machine beneath him.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  My take on it is: For the driver, keep safety requirements: "safety cell", driver+seatBallast minimum weight (G-force maximums?) For the car: - regulate tyre contact patch minimum-at-all-times. NB: not number, placement, manufacturer or compound - regulate other safety stuff like brake light(s) and mirrors/mirror-equivalent-screens etc. - physical size and minimum&maximum-at-all-times weight limit IE mass window. - design wise go nuts. Do whatever you want. Then, when they go too fast. Reduce the size or mass or both for the car. Make them do more, with less. Eventually, you'd end up with gokarts doing current F1 speeds with ridiculous tech. But the driver would be largely a passenger as perfect traction electronics take over and AI driving etc. So then you make the passenger a lottery for those who attend the races... obviously minimum physical requirements.
- mhh__ 4y ago
  Any series regulated or not will converge in performance eventually, after that the racing would be awful because of all the dirty air
bwanab 4y ago
Jack Brabham was an amazing innovator. Constantly, just ahead of the rule makers.
pengaru 4y ago
The Chaparral 2J [0] is the one that comes to my mind as most popular, but I wasted years of my life playing GT3/4 on PSX where the 2J was the only thing I had unlocked as ridiculously fast as the turbocharged 787B. The other thing that was really exceptional about the 2J, at least as simulated in GT4, was how tall the 3-speed automatic gearing was. Between the car seemingly never changing gears, barely varying RPMs despite accelerating like a rocket, and essentially not needing to brake for turns, it just seemed like the epitome of buggy arcade physics. Through a 2022 lens that description sounds apropos to an EV, despite it being a rather old ICE machine. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_2J#2J https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_2J#2J
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by sdfjkl 4y ago

causi 4y ago

An F-1 race with no rules other than "go around the track the fastest without wrecking other drivers" might actually be worth watching.

justin66 4y ago
The problem is that you'd immediately have wrecks.
colechristensen 4y ago
Many of the rules are there for safety, it’s not that hard to make a car so fast that the limiting factor is the driver and then the race becomes a contest of how willing to die your driver is.
- voakbasda 4y ago
  I would love to see those rules removed along with the drivers. I expect it would be amazing to see the self-driving version of these races.
  - dharmab 4y ago
    It was tried with Roborace, but was unsuccessful. The racing was unimpressive and unprofitable.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      Even with humans driving remotely, it's not very profitable. Drone racing is about as successful as RC racing has become. People don't take sports seriously without humans being directly involved.
  - amenghra 4y ago
    Self-driving race car crashes straight into a wall from the starting line during the world's first autonomous race series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4fdUx6d4QM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4fdUx6d4QM
- causi 4y ago
  Exactly. Modern F-1 is like watching a footrace where nobody is allowed to exceed a heart rate of 150bpm, i.e., boring as hell.
  - TomVDB 4y ago
    F1, cycling, soccer, NASCAR, cricket, … They all have their fans and their critics who think it’s a boring sport. I don’t follow F1, but based on a bunch of people in my Twitter feed, they finished one of the most exciting seasons in years.
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    And if their heart rate drops below 149bpm they get sacked. Boring is subjective but you're watching it wrong if you didn't find the last championship exciting.
- michaelt 4y ago
  And people who want a contest of how willing to die your driver is can already just watch motorcycle racing.
  - crubier 4y ago
    More specifically, Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. 250 dead pilots and counting.
    - schoen 4y ago
      Wow! > Since 1937, the only year in which races were held but no fatalities occurred was 1982. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Isle_of_Man_TT_Mountain_Course_fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Isle_of_Man_TT_Mountai...
Syonyk 4y ago
That was the 1980s Group C cars. Turns out, it's fairly straightforward to build a car that rather radically exceeds the physical limits of the driver. I would love to watch the autonomous version of that, though, with "no restrictions" (or nearly none - melting the nose of the car behind you with a flamethrower isn't quite in the spirit). You want to have a driver in a sim booth drive it over wireless? Great. You want to have a self driving algorithm? Great. You want to generate gobs of downforce with upward firing jets? Great. Just define some basic fan safety based limits, or... don't, and have a closed track. I would love to see what some of the race teams could come up with, unrestricted from all the various "Hey, let's keep drivers and fans alive!" limits out there.
- Someone 4y ago
  If you’re going to race, rather than time-trial, you probably want limitations on car size, too. Also, formula one for years has cars leave a so highly turbulent wake that they had to introduce a system that gave cars close behind other cars some leeway as to their aerodynamics to make overtakes possible (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_reduction_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_reduction_system) I guess you’d need something similar, too.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    You could also "golf" it where each contestant runs on the track with nobody else present, and you compare times.
    - maigret 4y ago
      That’s basically called Qualifying and is a part of almost all race weekends.
    - nikanj 4y ago
      That's not as entertaining to watch, so it won't have the same amount of funding
  - evandijk70 4y ago
aerostable_slug 4y ago
Some years ago Racecar Engineering magazine had an excellent editorial that touched on the rising costs of F1, the technological benefit to consumers these programs can have but also the rising difficulty of keeping up with the Joneses and that perhaps we might be reaching the budgetary limit of what racing teams can realistically finance. The author proposed "Formula Zero," where teams would be national rather than purely sponsor-oriented. Team America (cue music) vs. Team Japan vs. Team Italy etc. Note that this was years before the zero-emissions effort of the same name. Cool idea, and one might imagine what could emerge from efforts where NASA helps with aerodynamics for Team America, DLR for Germany, etc. (and/or DOE's combustion engineering experts consulting on Team America engine design: the potential collaborations run long). Fun fact: a major limiting factor for racing speed is the allowed size of the brakes. Let F-1 cars have titanic wheels with low profile tires and lap speeds would shoot way up. Of course, brake too little or too late and the resulting wreck will almost certainly be fatal — it's pretty tough to protect against coup-contrecoup injuries no matter how energy-absorbent the car may be when speeds get really high. Scrambled brains are good for breakfast, bad for drivers.
jeromegv 4y ago
The issue is: the drivers would die. In large quantity.
whartung 4y ago
Actually, it's not. It's been tried in all sorts of endeavors and eventually falls apart. Back in the day, there was a motorcycle series "Formula USA", with rules essentially "must have 2 wheels, no alcohol", and it was all well and good with folks running their hand crafted, bored out Superbikes until Kenny Roberts showed up with a pair of factory Yamaha Moto GP 500cc two stroke machines (which is, essentially, "unobtainium"), and, in time, dominated the field. Things like that lead to rule changes in F-USA. Also, consider the origin of modern MMA. The "Ultimate Fighter Championship", which was a "no rules" bout. Royce Gracie dominated those events early on. I will never forget UFC 4. Dan Severn, a very powerful wrestler, was dominating his bouts (3 as I recall). His fights were over very quickly. Meanwhile, Royce, who was a skilled grappler, while winning his bouts, they were taking quite a bit of time. At the end, Royce had just finished his 3rd bout and then had to stand up to Severn, with very minimal rest. Combining Severn's fast bouts, with Royce long bouts gave Severn a lot of time to rest and recover between fights. Royce was obviously quite tired going in to the final round. Severn dominated that fight, but it drew on...and on...and on. Over 15 minutes. In the end, Gracie prevailed, upside down, pinned against the fence, with Severn bent over him. It was an extraordinary encounter. But in the end, it led to rule changes. 15m fights don't really work with the broadcast schedule. Seeing two guys tangled in knots for 10m straight with minimal movement isn't very interesting to watch, either. And now we have modern MMA with combined striker and grappling skills. Turns out competition is only fun when it's fair. While its technically interesting to see folks exploit the rules, and even dominate, it's more interesting when they have to work within them. In the end, you (most folks, I know I do) want the man behind the wheel to be the deciding factor, not the machine beneath him.
_carbyau_ 4y ago
My take on it is: For the driver, keep safety requirements: "safety cell", driver+seatBallast minimum weight (G-force maximums?) For the car: - regulate tyre contact patch minimum-at-all-times. NB: not number, placement, manufacturer or compound - regulate other safety stuff like brake light(s) and mirrors/mirror-equivalent-screens etc. - physical size and minimum&maximum-at-all-times weight limit IE mass window. - design wise go nuts. Do whatever you want. Then, when they go too fast. Reduce the size or mass or both for the car. Make them do more, with less. Eventually, you'd end up with gokarts doing current F1 speeds with ridiculous tech. But the driver would be largely a passenger as perfect traction electronics take over and AI driving etc. So then you make the passenger a lottery for those who attend the races... obviously minimum physical requirements.
mhh__ 4y ago
Any series regulated or not will converge in performance eventually, after that the racing would be awful because of all the dirty air

bwanab 4y ago

Jack Brabham was an amazing innovator. Constantly, just ahead of the rule makers.

pengaru 4y ago

The Chaparral 2J [0] is the one that comes to my mind as most popular, but I wasted years of my life playing GT3/4 on PSX where the 2J was the only thing I had unlocked as ridiculously fast as the turbocharged 787B. The other thing that was really exceptional about the 2J, at least as simulated in GT4, was how tall the 3-speed automatic gearing was. Between the car seemingly never changing gears, barely varying RPMs despite accelerating like a rocket, and essentially not needing to brake for turns, it just seemed like the epitome of buggy arcade physics. Through a 2022 lens that description sounds apropos to an EV, despite it being a rather old ICE machine. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_2J#2J https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_2J#2J

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]