[Closed] no no no my eyes

Not liking this dropped nose on the caterham and now this 🙁

This really isn't going to be a classic year for beautiful F1 cars, is it? The McLaren looks good but I suspect that the high noses of most other cars from last year will necessitate a lot of very ugly cars...

Will be interesting to see what Newey's done on the RedBull. The McLaren may be prettier, but if it aint quicker then we can expect it to go all Alain Prost on us too.

Has that already been in a front-end shunt??

My mate just emailed me a link to the original design model for this years ferrari

[url= http://yfrog.com/ocdcpzij ]Ferrari[/url]

[img] [/img]

I quite like the high-nose designs but that step down over the front axle is hideous, wonder if it's for downforce or to change the airflow around the cockpit.

Good for Lego though.... easy to make out of standard bits!

I notice the Force India has the same thing.......what is the purpose of that step in the nose?

[i]I notice the Force India has the same thing.......what is the purpose of that step in the nose? [/i]

apparantly it's so the cars comply with the [url= http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/2012-nose-height-regulations/ ]new regulations[/url]

New regs are to blame...

The idea is to lower the nose to decrease downforce. I'm sure that in concept, the cars resembled F1 cars from the late 80s/early 90s, however we've ended up with something that looks like a badly matched Airfix kit.

We've come a long, long way from the Ferrari 640 unfortunately.

I predict that the nickname for this year's cars will be "Joe Bugner's nose".

sobriety - Member

My mate just emailed me a link to the original design model for this years ferrari

Ferrari

Looks like the new Pirellis too.

Quite a fussy front wing:

[img] [/img]

hora...that's not the 2012 car

They've ditched the L sidepods.

Hard to see but its definitely a box version(scroll through)

http://www.gizmag.com/mclaren-f1-2012-launch/21308/pictures#17

and http://www.gizmag.com/mclaren-f1-2012-launch/21308/pictures#13

Worthwhile to note: In this pic you can see the Double world champion to be on the left and his 12/13 runner up.

It's not hard to see at all...they're a completely different shape and the Vodafone logo on the side pod is also completely different.

At least your latest links are to the 2012 car 🙂

Force India is also horrible.

[img] [/img]

Hora have you been smoking something? The biggest simularity between the look of the 11 and the 12 is the low nose. McLaren have a history of low noses, their suspension setup looks more compact than the other two cars and this has helped them with a much nicer car.

PJM1974 - Member
New regs are to blame...

If the regs were to blame Shirley the MP4-27 would look horrid too?

[url= http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/launch-analysis-mclaren-mercedes-mp4-27/ ]Tis the reg, the history of low noses helps them[/url]

The regs are to do with getting the nose lower so that there is less risk of one car riding over another in side impact situations. There's a stipulated max height of the front bulkhead (roughly the axle centreline) and a lower max height of the area ahead of that. The trend in prvious years (from RedBull etc) is to run the nose as high as possible to make most use of the air going under that car, so most teams are effectively running the front as high as the rules allow, hence the step at the point where the max height rule changes.

McLaren have gone a slightly different way and have a lower front bulkhead which means no need for the big step as the max height changes - they've also got a snowplough/chin element under the nose to help the airflow under their car which may/may not make up for the losses from the lower nose height.

The high noses of recent years have caused quite a few accidents. Mark Webber springs to mind instantly:

[img] [/img]

It was only a matter of time until they got changed.

Duffer - doubt the nose will stop that sort of thing - most flips are caused by front wheel to back wheel contact. eg. Indy has lower noses but flips are all too common.

[img] [/img]

They've even put the eyes on the Force India car.

Duffer - doubt the nose will stop that sort of thing - most flips are caused by front wheel to back wheel contact. eg. Indy has lower noses but flips are all too common.

Whilst I agree that front-wheel-to-back-wheel contact will throw a car up in the air, the high noses will to it too:

I suppose it's just one less thing to potentially cause an accident.

Why do all the tyres look funny?

funny?

they look like they have some kind of cover or something

the noses have been lowered because noses were getting to the height that they were higher than the mandatory driver protection on some cars with obvious risk to the driver...

The Ferrari and the Force India are actually growing on me- the Caterham hasn't got any better though.

There's a video on the BBC of some ex-F1 designer talking about the McLaren, he reckons they might have given themselves less wiggle room with their nose but I'm not sure why.