Formula-Retro drivability

I've no problems over this crest at all, because i keep the nose down. And if that's a bug, than it is in every sim I know, because cars with more weight at the rear tend to get light at the front and it's not a good combination during cornering. Btw the real Porsche 956/962 was loosing front-aero over Sprunghügel around Nordschleife, a similar crest where the car is not fully straight. Jochen Mass told Stefan Bellof about that issue, but Bellof was a ****head and crashed there.

 

I was playing AC over 2k hours and hundreds of hours AMS and crashed thousands times more often in those sims because very strange traction-loss issues due to their simplified tyre-physics that should IMO not happen IRL. But your problem is none, because it's a very simple longitudinal weight-distribution 'issue' that can be easily prevented by keeping the nose down with some trailbraking to keep the front from loosing traction in the first place and upsetting the lateral balance. But you want to climb up those leaderboard and forget that real drivers were not driving like you, because every mistake could've meant death, not just esc+restart. Lauda crashed in the very simple Berkwerk-corner because of similar loosing front-grip+snap-oversteer issues because there is a crest with a corner and he wasn't lifting. With today's cars no problem, because they have a more even balanced longitudinal weight distribution and will never loose front-end grip in this corner. But you still can get similar traction-problems over Quiddelbacher Höhe/Flugplatz or Schwedenkreuz for the same reason and just lifting throttle or sometimes a dip von the brake is needed to keep the nose down.

 

While the video is about modern sports car aero a similar thing is happening between pitch angle and downforce or neutral aero turning into lift over a crest with any car that's fast enough.

The other thing to consider is suspension angle when you are landing after the crest, look at photos of the cars at the Nurburgring and all have massive suspension droop when in the air, so in this article scroll down to the effects of bump steer coming down after a crest.

Chassis Geometry 101: Engineering Speed

In essence it is no wonder cars cars are skittish over a crest.

 

I believe what Jochen Mass is saying about both the Lauda and Senna incident, because he should have the best guess from driving those cars. Lauda also never claimed there was a suspension problem afaik. The Senna-incident had a similar issue according to Mass: The tyres were not warm, so big enough after FCY and the downforce was pushing the bottom of the car to the ground resulting in sudden front-wheel grip loss. Uphill over a crest+corner it's the same issue, but for loosing downforce and weight in the front at the same time. Downhill there is no problem at all even there is a crest and a corner, but enough front-grip.

 

I feel like something weird is happening with how the downforce is modeled. I am wondering if their wings are modeled with too much pitch/Angle of Attack sensitivity... which could be counteracted by dabbing the brakes over crests as suggested before. I dont feel like many cars in AMS2 really visibly shift weight forward and back that well, though, so Im not sure on that one.

 

After a crash it's difficult to tell what part was broken before. Jochen Mass was driving/surviving F1-cars for 10 years and later cars like the Porsche 956, Sauber C9 and C11 because he's one of the smartest racers ever. And you should maybe learn some basics about weight distribution.

And now look at those cars and guess what is keeping the front on the ground on acceleration other than aero, so better don't loose it on the throttle. For me they look more similar to drag-racers than modern formula cars and I'm not wondering about handling issues, but what reasons they had to make this design-choice. I guess that straight-line speed was just more important on the average tracks and they thought, that cars are better if they look like an arrowhead.

 

I'm driving like a racer who wants to see the checkered flag and picked the wrong car. So far I won most online-races in AMS2.

 

The key here is to remember that the whole grid, besides one team, was using the same engine and aero was very primitive by then. Wings were less than 10 years old as a concept on cars. Adding downforce made you faster in the corners, slower on the straights. Everyone has the same engines... how do you get an edge? How do you get more grip on the corners and more speed on the straights?

There's probably a lot more to this, but I think the key is that the horsepower was pretty much consistent for everyone, so you had things like the Tyrrell 6 wheeler to try to get an edge.

Also, am I the only one that dislikes Scott Mansell? He just seems so condescending. I did some digging into his actual racing pedigree and I am not really impressed with his qualifications for a guy who cites himself as an authority and brags about his accomplishments. Maybe I should give him another chance, though.

 

From the designer himself:

Six appeal - 6 fascinating facts about Tyrrell’s six-wheeler

Just thought it was interesting.

 

I agree and when you just google the F1-designs per year, the 1974-versions (AMS2) were the most extreme on difference between front- and rear- tyres and Tyrell made their P34 with two front-axis probably also because of that design-flaw. The Ferrari was more even and with the 75 and following seasons the difference in tyre-diameters front/rear got lesser. It could be, that they choosed the size of the tyres depending on the track-layout as well, since some pictures showing less differences in tyre-diameter from the same season. IMO we don't need better physics for this cars, but cars from a later season that should handle better as well.