Polar moment of inertia of current F1 cars

[ismael]

I was watching the 2 spins by Alex Albon and the crash by Danny Ric on the free practice of the Styrian Grand Prix and I got wondering. I did not study Physics nor Engineering, but I follow F1 and car racing for some time now, so it's almost the same

The polar moment of inertia is that concept that I know vaguely what it means thanks to car racing. It's included in RRemedio's Slot and Tyre Editor.
I got thinking: isn't the polar moment of inertia of current F1 cars closer to DTM/Touring cars than to "traditional" F1? These spins made me think that after the driver goes over a narrow limit, it's impossible for him to hold the car with a counter-lock of the steering wheel. The car is lost for good as inertia takes control of it like it happens when a DTM car loses the rear.

What do you guys think, especially RRemedio who surely understands the concept?

[samsepi0l]

I study engineering and physics (I am an engineer for a major auto manufacturer in real life). The moment of inertia is something I have thought about tinkering with. I was hoping that raising it would make the car less likely to get unstable in height transition sections (found in many of the original tracks).

To understand this- there are many excellent videos on youtube you can view.

Think of moment of inertia as the want for an object to change it's spinning speed when a force is applied to it.

If you are at rest, and a force is applied to spin you- you will slowly speed up and turn faster as the force is applied. A lower M.O.I. just means that you are easier to get spinning quickly (or easy to stop from already spinning)

Has anyone tried this with the physics editor?

[ismael]

Hello samsepi0l, and thanks for your answer. Unfortunately I can't be helpful - I never got to change the polar moment of inertia in the editor, as I always felt that the car reactions were perfect and I was afraid of not being able to control it if I tinkered with that

[samsepi0l]

Just wanted to give the team an update. I actually used rremedio's tool to change the polar moment of inertia and tested it out. The default is 247. I tried first decreasing it to 147 and the car becomes super-twitchy in the rear, almost any steering input puts it into an incredible spin. I then increased it to 500- it feels like you are driving the "love-boat" - or the suspension is incredibly soft. You have to really give it a lot of steering input to make it corner. Maybe values closer to slightly over 247 would be better if I had more time to test them.