Will Virgin Racing’s unique approach work?

Feb.7 (Daniel Chalmers) One of the most exciting prospects of F1 2010 is the prospect of seeing four new teams enter the F1 fray. The cost reduction in F1 thanks to the resource restriction agreement has now made entering and competing in F1 more of a reality than a pipe dream. It’s great to see some new blood in F1 who will give the sport a new leash of life.

The debut season in all likelihood will be an uphill struggle, and just lining up for the start of the Bahrain GP will be an achievement in itself.

They will be entering F1 at one of its most competitive periods ever. Last season the field was very often covered by little over 1.5 seconds, even less at times.

In order to compete with F1’s established teams in 2010 the new outfits are going to have to build a car within 2.0 seconds off the front running pace. To do this in Bahrain with their first ever car built from scratch is an extremely tall order.

Therefore it’s likely that F1’s new teams will form their own division at the back of the grid for the first few races at least. The challenge will be to come out on top within that division, and see if they can catch the likes of Toro Ross and Force India later on in the season.

F1’s new quartet will bring with them new approaches and fresh ideas.

The first new team to launch Virgin Racing are a great example of this. The team were first entered as Manor Motorsport who enjoyed great success in the Junior Formulas, and ran star names such as Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen. Virgin businessman Richard Branson then decided he wanted to come and back an underdog, and re-branded the team.

They are having their car designed and built by Wirth research, led by Nick Wirth. However he plans to build the car without using a wind tunnel, and solely relying on CFD (Computer Fluid Dynamics).

CFD involves teams building computer-simulated models of their car normally using CAD (computer aided design). Using computers the flow of fluid (i.e air or water) is simulated over these virtual models to see how much downforce or drag there is on individual parts of the car. The team can also assess how the car reacts to different conditions including different track surfaces and wind speeds/directions.

Supercomputers calculate the air pressure and velocity of the wind as it rushes around individual components, which are each divided into cells.

The team can then work out the exact levels of downforce and drag being produced, and can analyse the data in great detail.

CFD has been utilised more and more in recent times, but all the teams still opt to back up their findings from CFD using wind tunnels. CFD makes assumptions and approximations when it comes to flow equations, and it is very difficult to model turbulence. These two factors alone can reduce its accuracy.

Both CFD and wind tunnels have their advantages and disadvantages so combining the two is considered the most accurate approach.

The problem with wind tunnels is that they are very expensive to build and run. Also it is very time consuming as you have to build physical models to test with (as opposed to virtual models), which aren’t cheap. For a new team this isn’t ideal.

Nick Wirth says that CFD is more cost and time effective:

“We did it because it’s cheaper and faster. If there was unlimited money, I’d just employ loads of people. The point is that you can get more accurate aerodynamic answers for a given amount of money using this technology than any other thing.”

Wirth has already tried and tested the method and has enjoyed success with Acura’s ALMS car and in Indycar.

Just using CFD in F1 certainly represents a mighty gamble, but could pay huge dividends if it pays off, and see a new trend where other teams follow suit in relying more on CFD.

However it could swing the other way, and be a complete disaster. In 1997 Lola Mastercard entered F1, and like Virgin built a car without the use of a wind tunnel. It was one of the worse cars in the history of the sport. In qualifying in Melbourne it was over 11.0 seconds off the pace.

Lotus Technical director Mike Gascoyne says his approach is brave: “I realise that the accuracy of CFD design work is exceptional nowadays but I still think it is a brave step not to carry out any windtunnel testing. Only time will tell if his approach is correct, but I do stick firm in our approach to do windtunnel tests.”

Lotus boss Tony Fernandes went a step further and attacked Wirth: “I am from the aviation business, mate. You can’t. You’ve got to have a wind tunnel.”

In Timo Glock and Lucas Di Grassi Virgin boasts a strong driver line-up with the ideal combination of an experienced driver, and a rookie. The quality of drivers could be the one of the keys that decides the battle of the newbies. With both Campos and USF1 likely to field all-rookie line-ups Virgin will be at a sizeable advantage to them in the driver department.

Timo Glock’s main problem is that he is a bit inconsistent but on his day has proven that he can be a top driver. His second place finishes at Hungary in 2008 and Singapore in 2009 demonstrate that.

Lucas Di Grassi has been racing in GP2 for the last four years winning five races, and finishing third in the standings twice. His 2008 performance was particularly impressive because he didn’t have a drive for the first three race weekends, but still got himself involved in the title fight. If he had started from the beginning he could well have been champion that year.

He also impressed on the several occasions that he has tested for Renault.

Overall Virgin Racing look as if they are in decent shape, and ready for their assault on Formula 1. In the past Richard Branson has supported incredible engineering projects which have been successful, such as the carbon composite plane that flew around the world 2.5 times without re-fuelling.

Succeeding in F1 could well be the toughest project he has been involved in yet, but Branson seems confident: “It might take a while to get there, but I believe with this team of people on board, Virgin Racing can go all the way.”

It will be fascinating to see whether Nick Wirth’s gamble of just using CFD works. We will only find out when the car hits the tracks. If it does work Virgin could well turn out to be one of 2010′s surprise pacakges.