A senior member of one Formula 1 team has blasted plans to abolish wind tunnel testing in the next few years.
F1 has made it clear that it plans to become more financially and environmentally efficient, and has a net-zero carbon goal by 2030. That is the year by which the sport is also considering banning wind tunnel testing to help achieve that goal.
All F1 teams use wind tunnels to shape the aerodynamic designs of their cars, while in recent years they have also begun to use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The idea to get rid of wind tunnels would leave teams solely reliant on CFD when it comes to their aero designs.
While everyone is supporting of the sport’s push to be more sustainable, proposing a wind tunnel ban would likely not go down well. McLaren and Aston Martin in particular are likely to be opposed to such an idea, considering they are currently investing significant sums of cash in modernising their own facilities.
It seems Haas are also not fans of the plan. Their aerodynamics chief Arron Melvin has spoken out against the idea of scrapping wind tunnels and has concerns about the impact it would have on F1.
“The regulations will have to change to allow us to be as thorough as we are now,” he told RacingNews365. “These cars are very refined, and we get a substantial lap time from this refinement.
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“There are fast race cars that have very little wind tunnel testing, but that’s not F1 so we have to keep in mind what the series wants to be. But it is certainly possible to make a safe, fast car without a wind tunnel.”
Abolishing the use of wind tunnels could conceivable save an eight-figure sum of cash across all 10 teams as well as a lot of power. While that makes it easy to understand why it is an attractive idea to F1 bosses, Melvin has an alternative proposal.
“I don’t believe it’s intelligent, in terms of cost effectiveness. It’s good to have regulation and encourage us to push the limit of CFD capability. So I’d be very receptive to regulations that change the balance. But the industry is so good at wind tunnel testing, it’s not something that we need to ban, you certainly can phase it down to a much lower investment level.”
