doggie - 31 March 2009 11:24 PM

Justadope... Think of the shark fin as a vertical fin on an aircraft -- a fixed device, Within certain limits, it keep the car on a straight track. Exceed those limits and like an aircraft, it can get sideways. The main point of its existence was to make the car track truer.

The tail on an aircraft is to make up for the designers mistakes, which is why some are scalewise much larger than others. While it would diffuse the air equally over a cars rear wing and induce some vortex generation to make the wing "bite" a bit more there's no denying it's help when going sideways. The amount of side surface area would ###### a car at higher speeds when the fin could catch the air, allow it to spill over it and help return to a forward position.

The problem comes at Indy and such where the cars may halfspin and hit the wall much differently than without the device. From a styling view it's ugly, from a sponsors view it's purdy, from a safety view it can't hurt.......until more data arrives.

doggie - 31 March 2009 11:24 PM

Justadope... Think of the shark fin as a vertical fin on an aircraft -- a fixed device, Within certain limits, it keep the car on a straight track. Exceed those limits and like an aircraft, it can get sideways. The main point of its existence was to make the car track truer.

The tail on an aircraft is to make up for the designers mistakes, which is why some are scalewise much larger than others.

While it would diffuse the air equally over a cars rear wing and induce some vortex generation to make the wing "bite" a bit more there's no denying it's help when going sideways. The amount of side surface area would ret ard the spin of a car at higher speeds when the fin could catch the air, allow it to spill over it and help return to a forward position.

The problem comes at Indy and such where the cars may halfspin and hit the wall much differently than without the device. From a styling view it's ugly, from a sponsors view it's purdy, from a safety view it can't hurt.......until more data arrives.

I don't think you can really compare what a fin on the next-gen Indycar would look like to the fin on the current F1 cars....... for starters your talking about the difference in a NA motor cover and a turbo motor cover........ We're looking at a fin more like this:


Than this:

Justadope - 07 April 2009 12:43 PM

doggie - 31 March 2009 11:24 PM

Justadope... Think of the shark fin as a vertical fin on an aircraft -- a fixed device, Within certain limits, it keep the car on a straight track. Exceed those limits and like an aircraft, it can get sideways. The main point of its existence was to make the car track truer.

The tail on an aircraft is to make up for the designers mistakes, which is why some are scalewise much larger than others. While it would diffuse the air equally over a cars rear wing and induce some vortex generation to make the wing "bite" a bit more there's no denying it's help when going sideways. The amount of side surface area would ###### a car at higher speeds when the fin could catch the air, allow it to spill over it and help return to a forward position.

The problem comes at Indy and such where the cars may halfspin and hit the wall much differently than without the device. From a styling view it's ugly, from a sponsors view it's purdy, from a safety view it can't hurt.......until more data arrives.

At best, the wing MIGHT -- notice that I said MIGHT catch a microscopic yawing that without the wing, might cause a crash but it isn't going to pull back a three or four degree yaw. The wing can channel air in the sense that the air passing over the cowling wants to come up and over -- inboard as it goes rearwards. This is inefficient flow and thus has major parasitic drag. The fin can prevent this 'roll-over' effect and eliminate the drag. The question is if the linear drag of the fin is less than the parasitic drag -- or other combined benefits towards hacing or NOT having the fin.

The Penskes had it because the engine, and therefore engine cover, were externally taller than the others so it helped that bigger engine cover be not quite so noticeable; it also helps clean up the airflow to the rear wing by not allowing the airflows from either side of the engine cowling (and air intake in F1) to 'slam' into each other creating more turbulence (or less flow straightening, however you wish to view it) as they converge aft of the engine cover than if the air ran along the vertical side surfaces of the fin. Of course, as others have noted, it also has some level of benefit in keeping the car tracking straight when in yaw and as an extra surface for sponsorship.

The one that uses Renault or other F1 teams is really ugly and they must get rid of them.

But a little smaller like this one I think is great:

Of course the driver is going to be on the edge of catching the car. It's called a race. That's how you win.