Force India's Bob Fernley branded wind tunnels “a bit of a dinosaur technology”; Christian Horner suggest ban as way of cost cutting
Monday 13 April 2015 15:38, UK
F1 technical chiefs have defended the use of wind-tunnels after Force India’s Bob Fernley branded them “a bit of a dinosaur technology”.
Red Bull’s Christian Horner sparked controversy by suggesting a ban on the development tool to cut costs and Fernley spoke out in support of the proposal at the Malaysia GP.
The Force India deputy team principal said that continuing with wind tunnel use meant F1 wasn’t looking to the future – a view which angered others in the paddock.
“I think it is a ridiculous and provocative statement,” Williams chief technical officer Pat Symonds said in the FIA press conference at Shanghai. “Our wind tunnels are anything but dinosaurs.
“Just because a technology has been around for a while doesn’t mean it joins those reptiles of old. Cars have been around for long while, but are they a dinosaur technology? Maybe Bob wants to come and have a look at a decent wind tunnel to see how technically advanced they are.”
His counterpart at Ferrari, James Allison was also outspoken in his criticism of Fernley’s view.
“I think if anyone came and saw inside any of our teams I don’t think they would regard the aerodynamic department, which is a mix of CFD and wind tunnel, as in anyway not forward looking,” said the Scuderia’s Technical Director.
“The techniques we develop in both those spheres are impressive by any measure. We have as a sport have caused the CFD for low-speed aerodynamics to be pushed forward very nicely to the benefit of more than just F1. So I don’t think there is any need to worry about us using dinosaur technology. I just think it is the right combination of tools with technology as it stands today.”
Allison believes the idea of using CFD instead of wind tunnels could actually end up costing teams more.
“I don’t think it is the best direction for us to take as a sport,” he added.
“We do our best to take our technical budget and turn it into lap time. Aerodynamics are a huge part of the performance of your car and you need to be confident when you are spending that budget that you are going to deliver the performance to your investors and your team.
“At the moment you wouldn't find too many engineers that work in aerodynamics of any hue that would recommend developing the type of thing we have got just using CFD. It is too error prone and you need to have the wind tunnel to keep dragging you back to reality. Without that you are at very high risk of spending your investor’s money foolishly and not delivering a car with performance. That doesn’t really save anyone any money and doesn’t do the sport any good. So I don’t think it is the right direction.”
With plenty of F1 technology eventually filtering down to road cars, Symonds feels that increased wind tunnel development can be as beneficial as CFD design for manufacturers.
“I think some of the proposals we have put in place over the last few years have been quite sensible in terms of saving money and forcing us to be more efficient,” he said.
“I think that Formula 1 has contributed an awful lot to the improvements we have seen in CFD and that is something which has helped a lot of different areas of society.
“But the same applies to the wind tunnel and not that long ago I was working for a top car manufacturer and showing them how they could use their wind tunnel better to reduce drag and increase full efficiency on their road cars. So it is techniques that we develop in F1 that are useful in other areas.
“We have invested a lot of money in wind tunnels, we have invested a lot of money in CFD – it is not as cheap as some people might think. I think we have quite a good balance at the moment and I am pretty happy with the way things are.”
Despite the idea of banning wind tunnels originating at Red Bull and receiving support from Toro Rosso’s Franz Tost, not all at the sister team are in favour.
“Wind tunnels are still developing, they are not static, there are new ways of measuring stuff, there are new ideas coming along to make the best of them,” said the Italian squad’s technical director James Key.
“As it stands today this is how everyone works and you definitely have a split in terms of how CFD compliments wind tunnel and the other way round. There are things you can do in CFD which you couldn’t do in a wind tunnel and it is the same in reverse so they complement each other well. Just to take one in isolation for any team right now would be quite tricky. So I don’t agree with Bob’s view."
