Formula One Racing Just a Matter of Crunching the Numbers

Si24601 writes "Sauber Petronas Formula 1 team have launched Albert, their new supercomputer. With aerodynamics contributing a claimed 75% of the performance of the current bread of cars, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) calculations have become increasingly important. Dalco's 530 AMD Opteron processor, 2.3 Tflop/s Supercomputer, with 1 TB RAM and 11 TB of storage, may just be up to the task." Other readers submitted links to stories on F1 Live and Formula1.com.

Comments

See?

[the_mad_poster]

For a long time, everyone made fun of the "NASCAR families" for being a bunch of dumb hicks. I'll bet this is very similar to the sorts of things they do.

Guess you have to be a little smarter than the average bear to race a car around in circles after all. Not that I expect the yuppies will give up their sense of superiority (yea, golf takes brains) to admit that.

So much of it comes down to science.

[Sheetrock]

It's almost scary that they leave the human element in there at all when you think about the amount of money they sink into these cars. Granted, win or lose you've got a ton of sponsors, but it's very nearly to the point where they might as well do everything with robots.

From complex wind shear modelling to the amount of flour to throw in the composite, almost all of the attention is paid to the machine -- it makes me wonder if they're shaving less time off the total than if they put this kind of focus on the driver (proper diet, reflexive training, etc.) Gran Turismo 3 demonstrates quite well the types of skills necessary to take on the track.

Too much tech?

[Tom Bombadill]

On Fifth Gear recently (11/22) Jackie Stewart was saying that Schumacher makes more mistakes every Gran Prix weekend than any GP racer he has ever know.

Reliance on tech, whether track data or ASR and ABS in race cars has arguably reduced the ultimate skill levels demanded of racing's elite.

Re:how about for bikes

[homer_ca]

The MotoGP bikes put on a great show, but compared to F1 the machines are simpler and the engineering budgets are smaller. Motorcycle racer Eddie Lawson probably put it best when he said,

"The truth about racing cars is that if a competent driver is in a great car, he will win. Yet a great driver in a bad car has no chance. On motorcycles, maybe a good rider on a bad bike won't win, but he definitely has a chance. In cars, you have no chance without the best machinery." (Interview is in the Dec '04 Motorcyclist mag. Not online yet.)

Does that sound like F1?

Re:Still a sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

Drivers are athletes because it takes a lot of physical stamina to drive those cars. If you could even get within 60% of the limit in one of those cars, you would be physically exhausted in three laps.

With racing, the part that is the most physically demanding is not turning the wheel, or pushing the pedals, it is actually keeping your body stable. When a professional driver drives a car of that calibre, his/her entire upper-body is tense almost all the time, so he/she can be ultra-precise with the steering wheel and pedals. In a lot of those cars, not only is your upper-body tense, but it does actually work out your arms a lot too. Also, with cars like that, the entire underside of the car is shaped to suck the car to the ground. They can corner at 4 G-forces. The drivers can't wear regular racing suits... they need them tailor-made because their necks need to be so strong. Also, beyond all that, the mental strain is immense. Imagine going through a corner flat-out at 300 km/h (185 mph), and having to not only steer the thing, but also feel every movement of the car. Is it understeering at turn in? Does it seem to slide sideways in the middle of the corner? Does it push wide on the exit? Did the last change to the wing help or hurt the aerodynamic balance of the car? If I tap the brake lightly mid corner, will it help give the front more grip, and make it turn better? You have to think about so much when you are racing, that the act of driving the car NEEDS to be 100% on reflex and second nature. By the end of the race, not only will the driver have gone through all that mental strain, but he/she will have had their heart-rate at about 160-180 bpm for 1.5 to 2 hours (which is a hell of a workout).

I know a lot of this first hand. I haven't been behind the wheel of an F1 car, but I have been behind the wheel of some very fast cars, where after I got out, my arms were getting tired, and I was covered in sweat. This particular car (Radical SR3 Supersport... google it) generated a lot of downforce, and gave me an excellent work out!

Malcolm Strachan
www.malcolmstrachan.com
autoquest_racin g@yahoo.ca

ps. it's not likely that I'll come back here (a friend sent me the link to this), so I won't bother making an account.

Re:Don't forget the drivers, too.

[swiftstream]

Of course, when given identical cars to race in, Schumacher loses.

Yeah, he may be world class. But other drivers are, too. There's a lot to be said about the cars.