'I Have Seen The Future of F1 - And It's a CFD'

The new Virgin VR01 has had a torrid time of it this week, running only a handful of laps and being anywhere from 10 to 17 seconds off the pace.

The car is the first of its kind in that it has been designed without reference to a wind tunnel. The entire process has been undertaken using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) which simulate the effects of air flow over a car's surfaces.

Other teams have CFD, Renault have a large CFD facility at their factory in Enstone and BMW have the biggest computer of all, named Albert II. But they use the process in conjunction with a wind tunnel to verify whether something works or not. After the first runs in Jerez this week, CFD was beginning to take on the initials of Complete ****ing Disaster.

Red Bull's technical genius Adrian Newey explained why it's best not to have all your eggs in one basket. "I think CFD is a very powerful tool, there is no doubt about it, and it is another way of simulating the real environment," he said at the Red Bull launch. "A wind tunnel is a simulation of the real world.

"CFD is an electronic simulation of a real environment, but it still has its pitfalls - not least that every single run in CFD for a given attitude of the car, or ride height, or whatever it might be, is a discreet (limited data) run. Whereas in the wind tunnel, a normal run will have 20 or more data points in it, i.e. the equivalent of 20 runs in the CFD.

"That is a limitation of size really, so your CFD cluster has to be that much bigger to do that many runs. And there are some areas that CFD physically doesn't capture as well as a wind tunnel - like basic aerodynamic properties.

Newey was speaking before the launch of the Red Bull and the VR-01's debut, but in his usual modest, self-effacing way was keen to emphasize that he didn't know for certain.

"So how well it turns out, we shall see. It is a different route, and my personal belief is that you still need to combine the two at the moment. But maybe their car will go very well and I will have to revise my opinion."

After the VR-01's launch, their main anticipated rivals, Lotus, were keen to chip in their opinion. Not surprising when technical director Mike Gascoyne's affectionate nickname is The Rottweiler (although a very small rottweiler).

"I think CFD is an integral part, but it is not a complete part. You look at BMW when Albert II was announced as one of the world's biggest supercomputers dedicated just to their CFD. If you look at Enstone, they built their environmentally-friendly CFD centre with a huge computing resource. I don't think these guys are stupid, and they also have wind tunnels.

"I know Bob Bell at Renault, he is a clever guy who gave me my first job in F1 and he is a trained aerodynamicist - and he thinks you need a wind tunnel. I think CFD is a very exciting technology and it is advancing, but is it an absolute? I don't think there are many people who think it is."

One of those people is obviously the VR-01 designer Nick Wirth, who had a bit of a temper tantrum last year when Williams old hand Patrick Head suggested that his team might be "heading for a fall" .

"Patrick is used to falling because he has fallen from winning," retorted Wirth, "which is probably why he is saying that. He has also unwisely invested in two wind tunnels which are a bit archaic.

"But we've done enough due diligence on this (CFD) programme, and there is no doubt it works, and no doubt the technology is right. We've 120 people in engineering and two simulators working on the F1 project, and a huge computational resource.

"I can tell you right now how fast our car will go around Barcelona - I won't, but I can."

On the fourth and final day of the Jerez test, Virgin finally got their dry laps in and the results were as impressive as the car is good-looking. Though few will imagine that Lucas di Grassi had much in the tank when he set his fastest lap; to go faster than one of the established F1 runners was a major achievement, especially given the adversity of the previous three days.

Now they need to make sure the thing doesn't fall apart on a regular basis. But the battle of CFD versus Aero is firmly underway.

Source: 'I Have Seen The Future of F1 - And It's a CFD' - Planet-F1 News from planet-f1.com