I used to really enjoy watching the Formula 1 race series and even went to a couple of Grand Prix but lost interest mainly due to the increasing number of restrictive, and in my opinion nonsensical rules.
Teams in F1 and other similar race series agree to adhere to strict rules and design criteria when creating their race cars, over the years various technologies have been banned:
I was wondering what would be the result using modern technology if all such restrictions were thrown out the window and teams could design and field whatever they like, perhaps with three categories:
1 - Must have a driver onboard that has direct control over the directional movement of the vehicle, steering, acceleration etc
2 - Must have a driver onboard but s/he can just be basically a passenger
3 - No driver onboard necessary
I realise this would quickly become incredibly expensive and probably dangerous but I was wondering what such a vehicle would look like, would closed wheels or open wheels be better etc?
What would be the plausible lap-times, for example the classic Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgian has a modern lap-record of 1:47.263 (min/sec/etc) how much could this feasibly be lowered?
Let’s assume you’ll still allow for basic size and weight restrictions, otherwise we get into silly scenarios where the cars are as wide as the track and passing is impossible.
In terms of general design, the cars would look a lot more like LMP cars than F1 cars, with closed cockpits and covered wheels/suspensions. Technologies that teams would immediately want to exploit would be active aerodynamics and traction control. With engine restrictions lifted, power levels would skyrocket.
Imagine a big, heavy car, loaded with fuel, pulling out onto a straight as all wings and other downforce producing devices worked in conjunction with a sophisticated traction control computer to slowly reduce downforce levels while maintaining maximum grip from the real wheels. The driver, for his part, would simply be holding the pedal down and pointing the wheel straight. 2000hp from a single turbo V8 would rocket the car to speeds of 270mph in a matter of seconds. At a carefully rehearsed point the driver would switch from gas to brake, wings would deploy to act as an air brake, and the driver would experience 9-10 Gs as the car shed its energy. But only for a moment, as the driver would quickly turn in, the active aero adjusting to the necessarily level of downforce and the traction control modulating the brake pressure on the outside front wheel, before releasing its grasp and slowly transitioning to power. The driver would be holding on for dear life, eyes locked on the next target, foot still planted to the floor.
Passing, it’s safe to say, would be exceedingly difficult. Mechanical failures would be catastrophic. Careers would span only a few years, at which point the body stress would become too great. It would be glorious and deadly.
As far as autonomous race cars, the ones that are out there now are impressive for what they are, but they’re not burning up lap records. It may be 5 more years before we start seeing man vs machine exhibitions, and even then it will be Formula E drivers late in their careers, not the best of the best. In 20 years, the notion that a human driver could be a robot will be as quaint as a human chess player beating a computer, and people will watch about as many robot races as we currently watch computer chess matches.
The series would look like a millionaires/billionaires club. Many of the regulations are there to allow everyone to play. If you could throw endless amounts of cash at the problem you’d be able to win most of the time, but you wouldn’t have as many teams as you have now. Also, the distance between 1st and 2nd place would be vast.
Your option 2 seems senseless but maybe I’m missing something. Why have precious meat in the car to get injured if he’s not contributing anything to the outcome?
I like option 3 and I hope to see that one day. I don’t want it to replace human-controlled racing but I’d like to see it, just the same.
It’s a bit as stereonz described; enclosed cockpit and wheels, but with a front wing and sidepods like an open-wheel car, too.
Yes, it’s fictional, but there’s some real-world talent behind the design. Within the game world, it’s 20 seconds faster around Suzuka than an F1 car (or it was 7 years ago, anyway).
You need at least some restrictions. For instance, you probably want to require that all propulsive force comes from the wheels. For “land speed records” that don’t explicitly require that, the winners are all rocket cars.
Thanks for the answer Steronz, it would certainly be impressive!
Well it would give people someone to identify with, even if his or her only real contribution is to press the ‘START’ button. It does raise the question of whether people in general would watch a race series with no humans directly involved, I would and so would you but I suspect we’re more interested in technology than the average person.
That’s brilliant thanks! Yes its something like I was imagining.
The Blackbird and rocket cars are fast in a straight line maybe, but not so much around a race-track. There have been some interesting race cars with unusual power plants like the turbine-powered Lotus though The Turbine-Powered Lotus That Was So Good It Got Banned | WIRED(although it seems it was better at American style ovals rather than the more twisty tracks found elsewhere).
If you don’t disallow rocket cars, then someone will make one that can take turns, too. That just means that you’re aiming your nozzle towards the outside of the curve, instead of straight back. You can still get much more acceleration, whether linear or centripetal, from a rocket than from a tire.
This would also mean that the limiting factor would be the G tolerance of the driver. Which would mean that the racers would all be pushing that limit as far as they could, which in turn would mean that some of them would push it too far.
Assuming a rule that the vehicle needed to touch the ground at least once every few seconds (so I couldn’t just call the local Air National Guard and rent an F-16 and pilot), the winning machine would be a whole lot dinkier and less safe in a crash than a normal racing car.
It’s a question of scale.
The limit of performance is the limit of longitudinal, lateral, and vertical acceleration tolerable by a human driver. All forces will be felt by the tires, all rotations and near-center-of-gravity accelerations felt by the driver. The more the vehicle must rotate to make it around the course, the less force is available to translate the center of gravity of the vehicle around the course. This is seen most easily with two street cars, one narrow and one wide, with sticky tires and a rental kart going through a slalom - with equal peak accelerations, the kart will be much faster.
Adequate downforce to get 6g+ in any corner over 90 MPH is available with a ground effect tunnel, and a powerplant making up less than 10% of vehicle weight is possible with either a two-stroke piston engine (<300 hp) or a gas turbine (>300 hp)
