[MpNelQTU]

Everybody seems to agree on the hypothetical competitiveness of the Dallara chassis, and in fact I´d love it to be true. But the a priori weak driver lineup and the total lack of testing will send them to the back of the grid.

Regarding Virgin, I think they can do it reasonably well, and if they do so, CFD will become much stronger since other teams will also start to use and develop it. Maybe it´s the future or maybe it´s a fiasco (I don´t really have a clue), but I have the feeling of it being on the right path.

[fount_pirat]

Regarding Virgin, I think they can do it reasonably well, and if they do so, CFD will become much stronger since other teams will also start to use and develop it. Maybe it´s the future or maybe it´s a fiasco (I don´t really have a clue), but I have the feeling of it being on the right path.

Make no mistake, everyone else on the grid is making extensive use of CFD, this isn't new.

Believing that you can be competitive with using only CFD is the only innovation from Virgin/Manor, however there is and will always be a difference between theory (including mathematical models used in CFD) and real life (the wind tunnel and ultimately the race track).

CFD isn't new, in fact it has been used for many years now, and quite a few years ago Sauber and recently Renault have acquired computer clusters with with huge computing power for their own use of CFD, as probably did Ferrari and McLaren but without making a big fuss about it, still they have at least one wind tunnel at disposal, some even several ones. And some of them event went as far as building wind tunnels big enough to accommodate 1:1 scale models and 2 cars running in front of each other, simply because mathematical models can not, at least yet, be used to model reality, and there is still not enough computing power available to make it real time either.

[c-cialis]

I think we've got three pretty solid new teams, which is a bonus. They all seem to be securely funded, although obviously not to the same level as the existing teams, but won't be a complete embarrassment like some of the efforts in the early 90s.

I think Lotus is going to be best of the new boys though, followed by Virgin then HRT. Although they will definitely occupy 10th-12th in the constructors championship..

[freflellalafe]

Make no mistake, everyone else on the grid is making extensive use of CFD, this isn't new.

Believing that you can be competitive with using only CFD is the only innovation from Virgin/Manor, however there is and will always be a difference between theory (including mathematical models used in CFD) and real life (the wind tunnel and ultimately the race track).

CFD isn't new, in fact it has been used for many years now, and quite a few years ago Sauber and recently Renault have acquired computer clusters with with huge computing power for their own use of CFD, as probably did Ferrari and McLaren but without making a big fuss about it, still they have at least one wind tunnel at disposal, some even several ones. And some of them event went as far as building wind tunnels big enough to accommodate 1:1 scale models and 2 cars running in front of each other, simply because mathematical models can not, at least yet, be used to model reality, and there is still not enough computing power available to make it real time either.

All very valid points. As we all know the only reason Manor have gone down this route is financial.

Newey believes that the technology is 20 years away from being able to better Wind tunnel so -lm not gonna question him, but as I've said before if Wirth can take Virgin 99% of the way with CFD program alone then he's doing a small team a great service.

[Adfcvkdg]

CFD isn't new, in fact it has been used for many years now, and quite a few years ago Sauber and recently Renault have acquired computer clusters with with huge computing power for their own use of CFD, as probably did Ferrari and McLaren but without making a big fuss about it, still they have at least one wind tunnel at disposal, some even several ones.

There is only one thing I disagree with in your posts on this thread, and that is the number of teams using CFD and how long for. They all do, every single one of them except for Virgin.

When David Richards took over BAR in 2003 his remit was to return the team to competitiveness AND make it profitable. I remember even then he talked about using his CFD team to do work other than design the F1 car, he seemed particularly proud that the CFD team had designed an inhaler for asthma for a drug company. That was 7 years ago.

And no, Virgin doesn't have a fancy setup, they don't have a supercomputer. I'm not a computer expert but from the description I've heard its a series of affordable machines set up in parallel.

I suspect Virgin will be able to get a decent car going but the problem is when it goes wrong and an update doesn't work on track as CFD claimed it should. What are they going to do next? How do they figure out where things went wrong and why it doesn't work? I bet they'll have to rent a windtunnel to work things out or run the risk of not being able to trust their CFD anymore.

[fount_pirat]

I suspect Virgin will be able to get a decent car going but the problem is when it goes wrong and an update doesn't work on track as CFD claimed it should. What are they going to do next? How do they figure out where things went wrong and why it doesn't work? I bet they'll have to rent a windtunnel to work things out or run the risk of not being able to trust their CFD anymore.

There is another way, the flow vis and cages of arrays methods used by McLaren during recent times but it requires them to use their limited number of engines in order to get the data they need so at the end of the day it still isn't as convenient as a wind tunnel.

[QuidQuoPro]

Heeeeeeeeeeeee's Baaaaaaaaaaaack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Ioan.

[bobibnoxx]

In the case of Lotus I'm personally actually not that concentrated in comparing them to other new teams (although initially it's inevitable), but I'm going to follow the gap between them and established teams to see, if and how is this going to reduce. In Autosport.com Gascoyne has given a good explanation, why their car looks so outdated, especially sidepods. Due to lack of time they had no engine data and data from other suppliers, so they needed to play it safe and design a car they would be sure is reliable and has enough cooling. I'm looking forward to see their car being already visibly much-improved by the time of the Spanish Grand Prix. I hope that by 2011 they can already fight in the midfield and get a few points on merit.

In terms of Virgin CFD is an interesting gamble and so far one could say that they are not embarrasingly off pace, so a full-CFD approach for a struggling backmarker team may be acceptable if they are lacking cash. However, I suspect this factor and lack of funds is going to make their way in reaching the level of established teams more difficult and if they are capable of achieving that one day despite all disadvantages, then hats off! If they can start matching established teams with a full-CFD approach, this may raise some eyebrows from the experienced people in the paddock. But at the moment it may look like a long shot. However, Virgin Racing may have on trump-card in the long run if in the process of implementing cost-cutting measures wind-tunnels would be banned one day!

HRT - I'm not sure about their long-term prospects, which IMO is a bigger concern now than their car. The team might have been saved for now, but do they have the funds and businessplan to keep going for many years to come? So far the saving of the team has looked like a rushed emergency enterprise. Only time can tell, what will the future bring to them.