MP320 - Golf Ball Dimples On An F1 car?  

You're forgiven. 90% of people can't get my name right the first time. Happy belated birthday!

0:16 Rally GB was on this weekend Marc. Maybe it’s not on your radar but the championship is really competitive these days and the cars are as fast as the cars in the group b era. I’d highly recommend you all to watch a round of the WRC.

I was watching DTM this weekend, it was pretty good! With some of the JGTC cars, including Button involved in the Hockenheim race. I'll definitely be checking out more of that.

Happy birthday dude. Love your channel....great work

Marc, I'd watch the 30+ minute answer for the golf ball dimples and shark skin question.

Happy Birthday Marc! Haven't posted before, but your videos are really good. Love your perspective and insight. Best F1 content on RU-vid.

Magnificent Golfball question resulting in a highly entertaining and educational answer about something we can not see with the naked eye: all sorts of minuscule tiny fortecxes (exces?) that stick longer to a surface. Thank you Mark for pointing them out with your spiraling fingers to make them visible.

love the golf ball tech stuff.

That question about the person with the recorder thingy was enlightening. I always thought it was the teams being big brother and to keep their drivers in line. You know how Ferrari likes to keep their drivers as robotic as possible. Thought this was along those lines.

Hi Marc, Golf ball dimpled surface on cars... you gave a brilliant explanation thank you. I watched the TV show ‘Mythbusters’ episode where they did this and we able to make a car more fuel efficient so presumable faster too. But that was just a normal family salon car with no aerodynamics. I 1st thought this would be a good idea but it didn’t occur to me that this would screw up the aero design of the F1’s bodywork. 👍👍👍

Happy birthday mate! Congrats

You deserve a hell of a lot more than 38k subs love your vids keep them up look forward to wheeler dealers too

Glad you had a great day Marc.

Great video and great questions just shows how interested people are with F1 it's exciting times going forward. What I think would be a good idea is if a new manufacturer came in as a customer team and learnt then developed there own engine when we go back to V12s

Happy belated birthday!! (I remember golfball helmets in the 80's, same idea, and gone since :P )

A little late, anyway happy birthday Marc, thanks a lot for your thoughts, information and analysis about this wonderful world of f1, keep going so.

All the best for yesterday Marc 👍 I can't wait for Suzuka it's definitely one of the greats! Merc bringing an update, Ferrari getting on top of the car (Not so much the drivers) and Honda's home race, bring it on 😁

Very interesting video, thanks Marc.

Hey Marc. No question. Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed today's (and all) video. You answer the most complicated and technical questions with a style that's enjoyable and easy to understand. Btw, belated birthday wishes.

Marc: On the engine supply; one point afaik the FIA has incoming restrictions on dyno time for engine makers. So one way around the loss of dyno time is additional supply.

Happy Birthday Marc! Hope you had fun!

Yes I’ve been wondering this! And happy Bday!

I think McLaren is Mercedes AMG's safe bet in two instances: 1) Williams exits F1 due to economic situation. 2) Mercedes AMG wants to leave, and give "factory status" to McLaren. Keeping options open, while keeping the engine factory in business?

Happy Birthday. Enjoy the rain. We have 3 inches of snow with wind gust up to 30mph. & it's still snowing.

Happy Belated Birthday Marc, I,m glad you had a good day.

I've often considered the possibilities of a dimpled surface in F1, it would help airflow to stay attached to the bodywork. I think the main issue is the cost in testing it fullt for the potential benefit I suppose.

For a second there, your laptop cover looked like a pop-up ad. Whew. Maybe you could run us through all the logos sometime. Oh, and, Happy Birthday !

There are indeed both cars and airplanes manufactured with the idea of "dimples" except they're not called "dimples" they're called "vortex generators" but they utilize the same effect. On a golf-ball, we don't know which is the front and which is the back since the ball is spinning, therefore we have to cover the entire ball in dimples, but with a car or airplane, we do indeed know where the front and back are, so we don't need to cover the entire thing, we can put them only directly where they are needed, usually near the back of the roof on a car. It has both costs and benefits and the benefits only outweigh the costs for shapes that have a blunt back end, like golfballs, or semi-trucks, or hatchbacks. Here are some further videos on the concept of golf ball dimples as applied to cars and airplanes: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eP-YUDe9HF0.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uXYLCxq5YjA.html

Happy belated birthday bro !

I just got my answer to dimples and shark riblets etc. Cool. Thanks.

You should look into getting an Ember mug or something similar to keep your coffee warm! ;)

A great way to explain the aero issues on following another car is turbulence in a airplane. Same thing.

To be fair the electrical issues are risk of current flowing through the body parts. Power will flow from the battery + to - it won’t flow to earth. Getting out of the car should be fine BUT two contact points (both hands or hand-foot) could flow better through the person than through the car’s carbon fibre. That’s risky hence the rubber.

Happy belated birthday Mark - glad it was a good one. - here’s to a great year ahead 😎

14:13 regarding this question, what if we just put the dimples at the back end of the f1 car like the underneath of the rear wing? The resulting turbulence down stream doesn't matter anyways, and it also improves the attachment of the air flow beneath the rear wing!

Happy Birthday Marc!

Happy birthday Marc!

Happy belated birthday Marc!

A dimpled surface like on a golf ball is not the most effective way to keep the airflow attached. It is the best for a ball, because you dont know what direction it is going. But since a car is meant to travel forward, asynchronous designs can be used. Vortex Generators are used on cars, all the smal flaps and fins ar vortex generators.

Happy Birthday Marc.

I have wondered about how using a golf ball texture on a car would affect the aero, then I thought perhaps it's just a load of balls...😉

ive always thought that the matte paint initially introduced by red bull, was for aerodynamic reasons as well as it being lighter

Hi Marc , thank you for all the videos and time spent for us. On the electric issue you said that the team can remotly shutdown. I thought that there were no more communication with the in this way; that the car was only uploading datas to the pitwall but not the pitwall to the car?

Happy birthday Mark.. Like the vid

Happy birthday Marc. Was mine on Friday. Got "How to be a Formula 1 Champion" by Richard Porter. Proper toilet reading 😂

Happy belated birthday greetings Marc.

Talk about dimples in the surface, check out the new 21 inch wheels on the 2020 audi rs7.

Belated Happy Birthday Marc! Mine is today (8th). Great Q & A, as always! It's Angry Roman, btw.

Happy belated birthday buddy 🎉🎈🎈🎂🎂

Happy Birth-yester-day Marc.

Would adjustable front wings help with th

but what about the WEC this weekend?

Happy birthday. Make more videos...

I thought they change the modes on the switches to prevent other teams from decrypting secret messages.

Happy birthday bro.

Happy birthday

Hi I have a two questions i really want to know? 1st being why can't F1 make it Mandatory to use all 3 tires during a race to spice up strategy? 2nd And instead of the energy saving lights flashing why not just have brake lights so we can see the skill and difference between drivers and car management. Great Channel and happy birthday!!!!!

#askelvis Hey Marc, how to get into a Formula1 team? The engineering/operational part of the team specifically. What education one should pursue and how easy/hard it is to get into? How did you get into Mclaren? Keep up the good work, love your videos.

Happy birthday 🎉

That’s why the told him to put not stop right near the paddock like he did

Dimples F1 cars!...I've been wondering the same forever! Also, how about an F1 car with striations along the entire car body to reduce drag? I've seen it on boat hulls to reduce cavitation and make the boat more slippery.

"Oh balls, mu coffee's gone cold". Now that's a serious problem.

Great explanation about the aerodynamics of a golf ball applied to an F1 car. As you said at the end they would end up generating more drag than a smooth surface. In fact Airbus is now testing a new ""super-smooth"" that has to induce an almost perfect laminar airflow. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Laminar_Aircraft_Demonstrator_in_Europe Great video as always Marc

Years ago I saw a tv programme that said aircraft designers had discovered that, by copying dolphin skin and creating longitudinal flutes along the length of the aircraft fuselage, it made the plane 0.5% more efficient through the air. I often wondered why F1 designers didn't copy this as in F1 0.5% is worth having.

Happy birthday marc...

On the dimple subject; I did wonder whether the matte paint ( on the RB and Ferraris) provided a similar effect though not as pronounced as on a golf ball. Or is there another reason for the paint? Happy birthday and many returns of the day.

Coffee gone cold! Oh what a nightmare. Still, it could be worse. Your english beer might have gone cold. 🍺 Cheers from OZ

#AskElvis Hi Marc, could you do a video explaining your F1 career? Including your studies, ladder to F1 and so on, I think it would be really interesting and helpful for those trying to follow your path. Thanks!

happy late birthday marc

Happy birthday Marc 🥳 #AskElvis What decides a track to be clockwise or anti clockwise?

I watched 2005 F1 championship review. I saw you in a couple of shots in the pits. You've aged well my friend...

Is it my idealistic view of the F1 cars in the 90’s & not a great memory got me thinking can they not go back to the rules then or is the aero the same principle jst many generations on?they were always looking for that 1sec window for that slipstream

Actually, in Vietnam the event was not funded by the government but by a huge national conglomerate VinGroup, who makes among other things, electric cars and bikes.

#askelvis really important question that has been bugging me for a while...., where did you get that coffee mug from?

Wouldn’t adjustable front wings help not unlimited adjustments but the right amount to combat the dirty air

#AskElvis I was driving back from work and was following behind a car on the highway trying to get a slipstream when I realize that I have no idea how much i benefit from it. Is there a way to calculate how powerful it is based on the width of the cars and how far back I am? Is there a proper formula to calculate it? Do teams do it and if not, why?

I thought the 'golf ball dimple' ('shark skin') question was excellent. Sail sport has been wrestling with this, and I am not sure the question has been answered (in either sport). INEOS' recent America's Cup launch highlighted an appreciation of both water and air 'fluid dynamics, but I suspect the complication of adding 'lots of very small dimples' (or alternatively 'shark skin' has rather upset the digital models. Sharks seem to benefit, and golf balls do, so why has 'surface modelling' not impacted either sport? Not sure, but I suspect it will. (It could be a computation problem.)

Your birthday yesterday,mine today, Happy Birth Marc!

Hey Marc. I don't think you'll come back to this video/comment. I was about 15 or 16 when I watched your show on the Discovery Channel. I'm a bit of an amateur enthusiast in Aero , creating models for myself etc. And whilst watching your show I found the golf ball surface bit very interesting and wondered, sure it might create more drag, but say in these current Ground Effect 2022 F1 cars, wouldn't it be useful to experiment with the golfball surface inside the venturi tunnels to help make the airflow more controlled in the tunnels or just before the rear diffuser after the tunnel to minimise flow seperation from the diffuser?

We have the same Birthday, Happy Birthday! (I know it’s late)

Hi Marc, how is an unsafe car after an electrical earth failure then earthed? Can marshals earth it in an emergency?

Happy Birthday to both of us then. 👍🍻🖖🍰👍

Hi Marc another one from me , first time i comment and i send two the same day.... Do you practice before sending a lap video 🙂

Hi Marc re the dimples on the golf ball...one day many years ago i was at a flight school and one lecture was about why the russian migs could outfly the american aircraft ...so when the day came that a Mig flew onto a American base the wing was studied and to the dismay of the Boffins they were now looking at what looked to be nuts welded on to the wing.... So it was concluded that this was why the Migs could outclimb the americans.....this modification allowed the laminar flow to hold on to the wing that extra bit longer till the american jet stalled and then goodnight nurse. A similar tale was recounted as to why lend lease (welded plate) destroyers could not turn fast on the high seas as the many rivet heads on the older type did much the same job as the nuts on the Mig wing..

happy 50th !! lol , does the ferrari still smoke a lot, and are they still burning oil in the combustion chamber?? p.s who checks on the manafacturers that they are not using extra parts i.e mgk, ice, etc, teams always say after failing to finish races (seb vettle) that the failure does not mean they need to use another new part, do the fia watch them strip the car down, at the factory??

14:14

on the point of f1 and tourism...who knew, or cared about azerbaijan before f1? it certainly put them on the map as a tourist destrination amongst other business trade

The bird chirping in the video threw me off ...lol .I thought their was a bird in the house.

#AskElvis Hi Marc. What do you think will happen to Hulkenberg? Will he find a team within F1 or will he, even when he said he wouldn't, look for options outside the sport? Surely a driver with so much experience can't just go to waste?

#AskElvis Should Monaco be a night race? Simple question. Would appreciate your opinion even if it just a reply. Keep up the great work

So the team can control which car is faster so that they can help vetcrap in he’s battle with leclarc

Lastest forecast show 2021 cars to be around 6 seconds slower than today.

Maybe point your radar towards the Moto GP..

so if vettel was safe if he's not touching ground, why did they stop him 100 meters before the pit lane?

so that explain golfball dimples - what about sharkskin, they started modeling after that in swinsuits until it became banned because they did not want a tec race in swimming.

Marc, can you please try to keep the repetitive questions to a minimum or keep them short. After so many vids the same questions come up and for those who have been watching since the early days might get fed up listening to the same answers again. I know I am and have noticed I used to watch every vid but tend to miss some these days cos of repetition. I know you have to answer for newcomers but remember some of us know all this stuff and have heard several times before.

How long before F1 goes electric, not that I'm looking forward for it and what about Formula E when that happens? I also wonder what will happen to endurance racing when things go full electric. I've been whining about making F1 cars slimmer and shorter but with ground effect coming in that seems less likely to happen. Are the decision makers considering making the cars narrower and shorter for 2021?

Myth busters dimpled a full size American car to see if it improved fuel economy. Keep in mind they were looking to reduce drag, not downforce. See the car here. www.autoblog.com/2009/10/22/mythbusters-golf-ball-like-dimpling-mpg/

You’ve just convinced me that F1 RACING needs to get rid of all this tech. Give them a steering wheel and a gear lever.

Marc, I don't know your age so I won't ask "do you remember". Back quite a while ago in Americas Cup yacht racing there was big hula-baloo about the american entry, they had little rivulets down the side of the hull that supposedly smoothed the water flow around the hull allowing it to slip through the water quicker. Do you know if any F1 team has experimented with this particular phenomenon on their cars? I'm 76 BTW