FIA evaluating Force India's CFD reliance proposal

All F1 teams currently operate under carefully monitored FIA Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions, which balance wind tunnel hours with the use of CFD teraflops.

Force India believes that the current system is too heavily weighted in favour of tunnels, and has thus submitted a proposal for a second system to operate in parallel, and which teams who want to focus on CFD can choose.

This would be of particular interest to teams who do not have tunnels and have to rent time in third-party facilities at significant cost, Force India, Haas and Manor among the outfits falling into that category.

The proposal has already been to the Strategy Group and is now being given further consideration by team technical directors.

“We’ve asked the Strategy Group to look into a position where we can do a glide path down and a total switch to CFD,” Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley told Motorsport.com.

“It’s on the basis that we can now foresee that in time CFD will replace wind tunnels, and we want to facilitate that, effectively.

“What we have today is a wind tunnel-biased formula, and what we are looking for is a CFD-biased formula that allows people to switch to CFD. It’s a completely different equation, and the current system would stay in place.

“We’ve put a concept proposal together, and now we’ll ask the technical regulations group to refine it and get a consensus between them and submit it back again hopefully for approval by the Strategy Group. The Strategy Group thought it had merit, otherwise they wouldn’t have put it through. They were very supportive.”

CFD as sole aero programme

Fernley is convinced that we are just a few years away from teams having the possibility to focus totally on CFD.

“CFD is developing at a rapid rate, and we must recognise that. Obviously what we’d like F1 to do is embrace the latest technologies, and cutting edge technologies, which is what CFD is. We want to encourage people to consider using it.

"It’s not compulsory by any means, it’s just to give another variation in terms of aero development. Not everybody might want to go down that route. If you have a wind tunnel you might want to stay with wind tunnels.”

A focus on CFD would represent a significant cost saving: “There are at least four teams in the pitlane who don’t have their own wind tunnels and are renting them, and we believe that in the foreseeable future – in three years or a bit more maybe – there is a possibility that CFD could become the primary or only aero programme. It is a significant saving. For a team in our position it would be many millions.”

Total reliance on CFD was previously tried by the Manor team when it was launched under the Virgin Racing name in 2010. Then technical boss Nick Wirth was convinced that it was the way forward, although history has proved that he was a little too ambitious. However, CFD technology has moved on rapidly since then.

“It was a very ambitious move at the time from Virgin. Obviously it was the right direction, but too early. Like many things, you’ve got to get the technology right.

“We’ve worked for a number of years with restrictions on use of wind tunnels, and no question it’s saved money. Like all technologies CFD is developing all the time, and we have to re-evaluate every so often. I think it’s an appropriate time to re-evaluate.”