This may mean that the following car will not experience a reduction in drag and so the slipstream will no longer be as effective. However, there is a side effect on the straights the wake now comes onto the following car in a teardrop shape. In this way, cars should be able to follow each other more closely and overtake in the corners. The aim of the F1 2022 regulations is to suck the rear wake up and over the following carĪs mentioned earlier, for 2021 (now 2022), the aero regulations aim to not only reduce the size of these wakes, but also suck this turbulent air inboard and then eject it up and over the car behind. This combination of deep aerodynamic optimisation and turbulent tyre wakes are why ‘dirty air’ is so much more detrimental to Formula One cars.īelow is a SimScale CFD simulation illustrating total pressure on a 2016 F1 car, highlighting the disruptive tyre wakes. But this wake left behind by the lead car further exasperates the problem of dirty air for the following car. This is a very turbulent and destructive air flow so it is often pushed away from the car. ‘In F1 everything is so finely tuned and finely honed that any dirty air can affect these devices greatly because they are so finely balanced to work in harmony together,’ explains Chilvers.Īdditionally, unlike saloon car racing, Formula 1 is an open-wheel concept and thus requires the management of the tyre wake. While it may be curious that F1 cars are so drastically affected by this change in onset flow conditions, it can largely be explained by the level of aerodynamic optimisation that F1 teams are now able to achieve. This is why F1 have worked hard to develop a revolutionary ruleset that will come into force in 2022 so that future cars are less affected by this phenomenon. While the term ‘slipstreaming’ is often mentioned in many forms of racing from NASCAR, GT, even to two-wheelers, it is less common to hear ‘dirty air’ mentioned in other forms of racing than Formula One. ‘Dirty air’ reduces the downforce and disrupts the aero balance of the car behind, causing the driver to slow down to make the corner. And that’s why you get that hit in performance,’ says Chilvers. So, as the car starts to lose aero balance, the driver has to back out. ‘Typically, the driver will drive to the aero balance set up to make them feel comfortable and have the confidence to turn into a corner. A loss in aero balance can occur as disrupted onset flow will affect the front wing first and causes a significant loss in performance and efficiency. Aerodynamically, this means the aero balance,’ explains Chilvers. ‘One of the biggest things that will upset the driver is the change in the ‘feeling’ of the car. However, it is not just the pure loss in downforce that makes overtaking tricky under these conditions. Due to this disruption in the onset flow, the following car has reduced aerodynamic performance. The lead car effectively uses up the energy of the oncoming air and leaves behind air with low total pressure, or ‘dirty air’. Dirty air on the other hand occurs in the corners, where the cars are already in a grip limited condition.
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