Unfortunate e92

[Mun]

Aquaplanning means the driver becomes the passenger. Take it easy in the wet and pay attention to the surface.
Hope the driver is Ok.

 

[M5POWER]

Nothing can save you from aquaplaning, even F1 cars will slide off. When this happens, just hope that the tyres find their grip again before the car finds the wall.

Actually F1 cars have more tendency to have aquaplaning than our normal road car. It is because of the difference in ride height and weight of our road car... Furthermore, if you look underneath the F1 car, they have a flat undertray + car running closer to the ground means the bottom of the car is full of water and it pushes the car up resulting in a loss of control. That is why no F1 Drivers wanted to drive on some standing water or they will catch the aquaplaning and spin around out of control. The downforce however, will not help you any during the case of aquaplaning...

Our road car is better in dealing with aquaplaning but as you said, that no means it can save you from aquaplaning. If you watch the recent Korean GP, the safety car also have difficulties driving around the wet surface. But it is surely much safer as the weight is 2 times more than the F1 car and the ride height is also 2 times more than the F1 car. On top of that, the car's bottom is not a flat bottom as like in an F1 car. As said by DKNY, wider tyre will not give you grip on the wet surface because the main point is to throw out as many water as possible from the contact of the tyre to the road surface.

Please don't hesitate to correct me if I am wrong. Hopefully the driver escaped from the accident unhurt...

 

[Hammer278]

I think you got it dead on. F1 cars are not built for handling wet surfaces well, they're performance cars to carry maximum speed into corners, through corners and out of corners. When it becomes wet, it's a gambling casino on track with F1 cars.

Pity for the E92, it's a beautiful car a car I dreamt of getting for a long time. Trust the occupants escaped the wreck, and a car CAN be rebuilt!!

Quick question though, would this mean that a narrower tyre is more suitable for wet roads? I believe less surface area would lead to less chance of water 'carrying' the tyre and making the car aquaplane?

 

[M5POWER]

Quick question though, would this mean that a narrower tyre is more suitable for wet roads? I believe less surface area would lead to less chance of water 'carrying' the tyre and making the car aquaplane?

I'm not a physician but I think narrower tyres are good for wet surfaces as it will throw out as many water as possible from the contact of the tyre to the road surface. However, the narrower tyres has its own pros and cons too. They are extremely unstable to drive with especially with bigger cars like our 5-Series and such. Taking corners in high speed with those tyres could result in something really, really bad...

If you are used to rallying, if they are having a rally in snow or most wet surfaces they will use a narrower tyres like this:

Afterall, the tyres on our cars are the most optimum like Michelin PS3 etc... The problem with wider F1 car tyres are that they are just too wide. Eventhough they made a lot of threads on it, it is still very difficult to get rid of the waters right here while the car is going around 180km/h..:

 

[Iylia H]

it's simple physics... the wider the tyre, the larger is the base for the weight of the car to be distributed. thus, less force acting down on the road. The narrower it is, the higher is the force acting down on the road.The narrower it is, the easier it cuts through the water, like how a blunt knife compare to a sharp knife when cutting a block of butter..

However, if tyres are too narrow, you will also not get enough grip when driving on dry roads, as there are less contact point with the road. which equals to less friction (reason why sprint bikes in the velodrome have very thin tire compared to those in mountain biking)

so the rule of thumb is, know how your tyre behaves.. and don't push it beyond its limit.

 

[Hammer278]

I'm not a physician but I think narrower tyres are good for wet surfaces as it will throw out as many water as possible from the contact of the tyre to the road surface. However, the narrower tyres has its own pros and cons too. They are extremely unstable to drive with especially with bigger cars like our 5-Series and such. Taking corners in high speed with those tyres could result in something really, really bad...

If you are used to rallying, if they are having a rally in snow or most wet surfaces they will use a narrower tyres like this:

Afterall, the tyres on our cars are the most optimum like Michelin PS3 etc... The problem with wider F1 car tyres are that they are just too wide. Eventhough they made a lot of threads on it, it is still very difficult to get rid of the waters right here while the car is going around 180km/h..:

This is why I asked, are you referring to the wet or dry? In the dry, it's a no brainer however, on wet roads even for our 5ers I believe a narrower tyre is an advantage even through cornering. There is a balancing act of course, I wish there was a site with simple calculation showing the optimum tyre width to have for a car of certain weight in wet conditions. Could be very useful.

 

[M5POWER]

This is why I asked, are you referring to the wet or dry? In the dry, it's a no brainer however, on wet roads even for our 5ers I believe a narrower tyre is an advantage even through cornering. There is a balancing act of course, I wish there was a site with simple calculation showing the optimum tyre width to have for a car of certain weight in wet conditions. Could be very useful.

Indeed I was referring to dry road... I think Iylia H already explains most of it about Forces and Pressure...

Absolutely, I think could be somewhere in the net. Just need a little bit of searching and if there are, it really is very useful!

 

[zhul]

Actually F1 cars have more tendency to have aquaplaning than our normal road car. It is because of the difference in ride height and weight of our road car...

F1 car on a very wet track is still faster than normal road car on a dry track. You need to remember that F1 cars will change to wet-weather tyres when its raining heavily which will give them more resistance to aquaplaning than the tyres we use under the same condition.

wider tyre will not give you grip on the wet surface because the main point is to throw out as many water as possible from the contact of the tyre to the road surface.

Actual contact area on the road remains the same whether you use wide or narrow tyres. Wider tyres have to work harder during rain because it has to dispel more water from the road to maintain grip. A good wide tyre designed for wet roads will resist aquaplaning better than an ordinary narrow tyre but as you go faster, the tyres cannot remove all water from the road to maintain grip and this may cause aquaplaning.

 

[M5POWER]

F1 car on a very wet track is still faster than normal road car on a dry track. You need to remember that F1 cars will change to wet-weather tyres when its raining heavily which will give them more resistance to aquaplaning than the tyres we use under the same condition.

Obviously... Why? Because of the power difference between our road cars and an F1 cars are hugely massively different!

Obviously F1 teams will change to wet tyres depends on the dampness and the condition of the track. But as I said, the height and the weight of our cars really affect the chance for our cars to experience aquaplaning but that by no means we can escape from it. Let's just put it this way, you can only experience aquaplaning when you drive fast on a wet road or hitting a standing water. You guys need to remember our road car tyres are no match in performance compared to an F1 tyre because the rubber compund is different than ours... Try to put on our road car tyre on an F1 car, that F1 car will spins out of control and eventually worn the tyres out after the first lap.

Honestly, comparing an F1 car to our road car is just ridiculous because of the cars different characteristic. F1 cars are were not designed to always race in wet condition but every cars on the road can experience aquaplaning, just that the chance to have it in our car is much less than in an F1 car.

Actual contact area on the road remains the same whether you use wide or narrow tyres. Wider tyres have to work harder during rain because it has to dispel more water from the road to maintain grip. A good wide tyre designed for wet roads will resist aquaplaning better than an ordinary narrow tyre but as you go faster, the tyres cannot remove all water from the road to maintain grip and this may cause aquaplaning.

You proved my point... The wider tyre cannot throw out as many water when you are driving fast and when that happens, the watter gets collected on the picture I've shown above and it will lift the car up causing aquaplaning. That no means our road tyres are safe for you to drive fast, its still a NO but again as I said earlier ride height and weight really plays some part. The technology, research and blablabla of an F1 tyre compared to our road tyre is speechless. Price tag will tell you that.


Owkey for those who wants to understand more of aquaplaning, I stumble upon one in the net:



My advice, DO NOT drive fast or more than 120kmh on wet roads... They really can bite you!

 

[Hammer278]

Brilliant vid! Though comparing F1 cars to road cars are like apples and oranges...F1 cars go to either extremes, slicks, or the intermediates/wets (which are much more efficient at displacing water than our road car tyre)...as we don't have pitcrews to change our tyres at will! 1 tyre to last almost 50000 km, it's an entirely different compromise.

And aquaplaning can take place even if you're going at 50km/h....I've seen a huge tanker in front of me with the load actually sliding around behind (like a dog wagging its tail) because of worn tyres. Extremely dangerous. It's no joke driving in the wet, especially in Msian weather if you know your tyres are almost bald it's smarter to just park the car and wait.

 

[zhul]

Honestly, comparing an F1 car to our road car is just ridiculous because of the cars different characteristic.

Exactly, its ridiculous. I was surprised when you started comparing normal road cars with F1 cars when my actual response to an earlier post was in terms of car technology in general.

You proved my point... The wider tyre cannot throw out as many water when you are driving fast and when that happens ...

No I did not. You are using different context from what I meant in my post.

.. I said earlier ride height and weight really plays some part.

Come on! Do you really think the engineers at F1 teams will overlook a trivial thing like ground clearance for wet races? And don't forget the relation between aerodynamics and downforce. Are you a F1 fan?

Owkey for those who wants to understand more of aquaplaning, I stumble upon one in the net:

Useful video, thanks.

My advice, DO NOT drive fast or more than 120kmh on wet roads... They really can bite you!

From your profile, I notice that you are 16 years old. I am not sure if you have driven before but 120 km/h is dangerously high and also breaks our speed limits too
A safer max speed on wet road will be 90 km/h but those with almost botak tyres should go even slower. I have experienced aquaplaning on brand new tyres at 100 km/h.

 

[kamion]

Another reason for F1 cars to be more susceptible is because they go a lot slower in the wet, so they're not generating as much downforce as when going full speed in the dry.

 

[kamion]

Good news! I spotted this car on the LDP this evening. Bit of spit and polish and it's back on the road overtaking from the left. :lol:

I remembered the colour and unique license plate number.

 

[Ryou]

really? from the pic it looked like total loss...cos the front bonnet is the same length as the guys torso...must be a damn good mechanic "mental note to stay away from 2nd hand copper e92"