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Car Designs

Jack, Ricky & Darren.
If I wanted to build a Williams, Redbull, Ferrari or Mercedes. How would I go about it, what Strength & Weakness in the CD do I need to start with?


Williams 137
50% Acceleration
43% Braking
1% Downforce
43% Handling

Redbull 137
1% Acceleration
43% Braking
43% Downforce
50% Handling

Ferrari 137
50% Acceleration
43% Braking
43% Downforce
1% Handling

Mercedes 137
50% Acceleration
1% Braking
43% Downforce
43% Handling

Maybe my thinking is wrong high level Acceleration might mean a lower top speed as it's picking up speed faster

I think you got Acceleration right. It could be just labeled Power as well because so far it looks like it's the (main) stat for top speed as well.

McLaren has two weaknesses then lol Acceleration and Fuel Economy

I need to find a 5 star CD with Tyre Economy as weakness to get my hard tyres to work well, then I be unstoppable once again

True or False?

Straight-line speed car: 100 in Acceleration, Handling, Braking, Cooling & Reliability (every bit of Downforce lowers straight-line speeds)
Cornering car: 100 in Downforce, Handling, Braking, Cooling & Reliability (every bit of Acceleration lowers corner speeds)
Balanced car: 100 in Acceleration, Downforce, Handling, Braking, Cooling & Reliability ( average straight-line & cornering speeds)

Then we have a choice of long or short runs:
FE benefits M & H
TE benefits SS & S

I'm not sure what you're up to with that but I'd say both.

Handling: That one is tricky. In the real world designing a car that's good for handling often has a negative impact on speed. For one a shorter wheelbase improves handling but usually makes a car more instable at high speeds. It's similar with the aerodynamics of a car, elements that gives a car good high speed stability and improve drag often negatively impact handling.

Downforce: The Downforce here is as in car development and not actually using it as in car setup. So while putting design points into Downforce should make it possible to generate more Downforce it more so should make it more efficient, like a better undertray/diffusor, an optimized airflow around the car and/or availability of especially tailored parts for certain tracks. Since you can't go without it even if going for speed because you need a certain downforce to enable your car to accelerate better, without the power just making nice burnouts, to reach the top speed at the given length of the main straight of a track more points into Downforce should make your car actually faster.

Braking: While higher is better for any car the cornering one is slower and able to enter the corners at a higher speed so it would need less braking to get it done in the same braking time and, more so, distance. Thus it's of a little bit less importance there imo.

Acceleration: It lowering cornering speed makes no sense to me.

So my selection would be then:
Straight-line car: Acceleration, Braking, Cooling
Cornering car: Handling, Tyre Economy
Any car: Downforce (low wing setup for speed, high wing for cornering), Reliability, Fuel Economy

With the effects of FE and TE on compounds you're spot on.

I was classing the diffuser, monkey seat, side-pod wing-lets & barge boards as chassis downforce 40-60% of cars overall downforce. Nothing to do with Front wings 25-15% & Rear wing is 35-25% downforce

Building the car for corning, by adding acceleration it's lowering the gear that the car takes the corner. Adding downforce to a car built for acceleration lowers it's top speed. You can add little amounts but going too far you will end up with a semi-balanced car.

I dont know I dont build cars but I know you can build it for acceleration or downforce or both

I think in the real world you go for the maximum amount you can find on everything. You then trim the car with wing levels and suspension settings and all that to make it suit the particular track and weather conditions. In my opinion handling/downforce/acceleration is where you find the best 1 lap time. Maybe braking too. The other attributes are important for race distance and flexibility with strategy. But what would I know? It's only a guess.

Yes, Braking is in there but to a lesser degree. I think it goes somewhat with acceleration because if you go for fast on the straight you don't want to spoil it by having to brake to early. The thing is all of it weights different for every track. Finding the right balance, and what to update in preparations for the next race(s), is the trick to master.

What I'm absolutely not sure about is cooling. Using a worn engine for the next race is clearly harming performance, but how is it during a race? Probably, if at all, more noticeable on 100% races yet, until the wear gets scaled, but still.

Yes, but while chassis floor/diffuser is providing about 50%, give or take, of the cars downforce it accounts only for about 15% drag of the car, whereas the wings together make roughly 50%.

Anyway, I guess our differences result in how we understand the car design page. I understand it solely as the development of a car, with Downforce being both wings and chassis including all the air guiding measures, or Acceleration as Power, internal drag reduction and the general choice and quality of the gearings provided. Whereas you, at least it seems that way to me, view it as partially already including track setups like gearing, aka more Acceleration less top speed, and exclude the stuff from the setup page like wing downforce.

While setting a car up a with shorter gearing for better acceleration might require a different gear in a certain corner it doesn't change the speed at which you can go through that corner.
Adding downforce to a car like setting up higher wings or larger diffuser does indeed lower its top speed, acceleration doesn't matters here, but only for a given quality of the aerodynamics. With improving it you can gain downforce without resulting it in more drag and thus lower top speed.

Straight-line speed test Italy using same setup on each car
Mercedes 367kph
Redbull 351kph
Williams 369kph

Cornering test hairpin Monaco using the same setup
Mercedes 67kph
Redbull 73kph
Williams 58kph

Mercedes I would call balanced car design it's strong near enough everywhere
Redbull I would call downforce car design it's strong in corners, weak on straights
Williams I would call acceleration car design it's strong on straights, weak in the corners

Us here designing cars, should be able to do the same instead of just trying to get a flat out 800 point car?


[EDIT] Unfair test Redbull has slower engine. Has anyone got a copy of f1 2016 for the pc that I can download from them an try to editing the files so Redbull has the same engine?

Given Williams and Mercedes should have the same engine output the sacrifice in cornering seems not worth that little gain in top speed.

I agree, it would be better, at least in Elite, if we could go on to design our cars differently instead of having exact the same stats at the last races because (almost) everything hits the cap.

I give it run and see what happens, off to flying start having downforce as a weakness