Tech talk

[donKey jote]

fascinating, thanks guys

[Mr Kurtz]

So anybody notice anything fascinating about other parts of the cars? Anybody has some information on those seemless shift gearboxes for example?

[CaptainRaiden]

Now, I can post some Interesting pics which illustrate the Keel Setups better. Here :

The first one is a diagram, albeit a very crappy one, but you get the idea :




The Twin Keel Setup on a Midland





The Single Keel Setup on a Ferrari






The V-Keel Setup on a Renault




And Finally, a Zero Keel Setup on a Toyota :

[RJL25]

nice summary to the discussion X-ecutioner, i think it sums everything up nicely

how about rear suspension tho? Is that dramatically different from team to team? or is everyone more or less doing the same thing? Is there very much room left for innovation in rear suspension design? I think its fair to say that the only real reason they're is still innovations in front suspension design is because front suspension has such a major influence overy aerodynamics, and therefore finding a compromise between optimum suspension setup and aero efficiency drives that innovation forward. But without the same aero influence over rear suspension have we pretty much reached the peak of rear suspension innovation???

[CaptainRaiden]

Correction, I'm sorry that's a V keel setup on a Renault. I posted Twin keel. My bad.

Corrected!

[CaptainRaiden]

nice summary to the discussion X-ecutioner, i think it sums everything up nicely

how about rear suspension tho? Is that dramatically different from team to team? or is everyone more or less doing the same thing? Is there very much room left for innovation in rear suspension design? I think its fair to say that the only real reason they're is still innovations in front suspension design is because front suspension has such a major influence overy aerodynamics, and therefore finding a compromise between optimum suspension setup and aero efficiency drives that innovation forward. But without the same aero influence over rear suspension have we pretty much reached the peak of rear suspension innovation???

Now I’ll try to answer with whatever I know. More technically sound members like Gannex or Sleeper, Correct me if I’m wrong.

I believe the Rear Suspension Design pretty much depends on how the front Suspension is set up. For example a rear suspension setup for a front zero keel will be different than that of a Twin keel setup. It also depends on how much mechanical grip is available so that the car doesn't slide while cornering. The complete suspension arrangement of the car includes the front and rear suspension. It also depends on a whole lot of other factors, Most importantly proper management of Camber angle on the front tyres to decide how much cornering speed or straightline speed the car should have, How much downforce does the car generate, Weight distribution, how long is the wheelbase, The Anti-Roll Bars etc. etc.

Now as far as weight distribution goes, the best example(although not proven) would have to be the Ferrari F2007 with a longer wheelbase and hence a longer front profile than any other team. Many Insiders believe that Ferrari know something about the new Bridgestone tyres that the other teams don’t, and that’s why the car is 10 kgs heavier than last year with the majority weight distributed towards the front to avoid Grip loss and tyre lockups while cornering because of the new slippery tyres. Probably One of the major reasons why Ferrari adopted the Zero keel this time around. And So the rear suspension for the New Ferrari is also Heavily revised for this year because of the new front layout. They might’ve hit the sweet spot with this but, We may never know this until we see the first race.

So in short, the doors for innovation in rear suspension are always open, but they have to work in conjunction with the front setup, otherwise say goodbye to your car’s overall Balance. I hope I have answered your question. And if I’ve screwed up somewhere, somebody please correct me.

[Sleeper]

Nice pictures X-ecutioner, its the first time I've properly seen the V-keel layout. It looks like its an attempt at a compromise solution to me as basically there are four thin carbon struts there (two from the suspension and the V section) which offer reduced interferance with the front wings wake whilst maintainig the optimum suspension geometry of the single keel. As Renault have won the last couple of titles I guess it cant be a bad system overall. I also read at the start of last year that Ferrari had adopted the system on thier car, but on the launch of this years car I hear they were actually using a single keel layout so I'm a bit confused on that area.

I'm not actually sure whether there's any significant corelation between front and rear suspension setups i.e. that you do one thin to one end and you have to have a specific performance from the other.

One thing that I do know is that the rear suspension does get a lot of development on it, an I think we'll probebly see more of it this year with the very fragile rear tyres that we have now. I know that Ferrar has for most of this decade been using a special rotary damper system on thier rear suspension (developed in conjunction with Sachs, exclusively for Ferrari), and Toyota has develepod their own version in the last few years but with a third, central damper (its this central damper that gave them a lot of trouble last year, it failed on both cars within a few laps of each other in Brazil last year with both cars coming into the pits with the back en on the ground). Sadley, I dont actually know the significance of going with rotary dampers, all I know is that they absorb shocks by twisting but their strengths and weaknesse as well as how their performance differs to conventional dampers is unknown to me. In recent years using the top strut of the rear suspensionas an aerodynamic aid has been the main line of development. For 05 when the rules governing diffuser shape were changed, reducing their effectivness, Renault designed the rear top strut of the rear suspension and the lower beam wing of the rear wing to act in conjunction with the diffuser, effectively making it longer and getting a better venturi effect, which= moe downforce, than their rivals.

This years Ferrari is deinitely a very strange design, even if it looks a lot like last years. As I said in my previous post, the single-keel layout is known to work best with Bridgestone fronts but Ferrari have switched to zero-keel this year. More importantly is that the rear tyres are more fragile this year and wear faster so most of the teams have been working their backsides off getting the waight distribution forward on their cars (McLaren's was always a very forward biased car which probably goes a long way to explaining why their so fast in testing so far), yet Ferrari have lengthend their wheelbase and moved which has moved the weight distribution back going completely against the conventional train of thought. There seems to be two possibilaties for this: Ferrari have the best simulation technology in F1 at the moment and have worked very closely with BS for a long time so its very much possible that they know something the rest dont about the tyres and how they work (as you can imagine, this has the other teams scared sh!tless as we all know what happens when Ferrari steal a march on the others), or the new design team are so keen on proving themselves that they decided to throughaway the old design and start new to prove themselves, but have actually got it very wrong. As they arent looking to hot in testing at the moment, and some of the long standing, senior technical staff arent, apparently, too happy with this (like Nigel Stepney) I'm thinking the later might be right.

[tinchote]

Hey, Ferrari was at the top of the sheets today, so now it is certain that they will win the championship

[Sleeper]

Hey, Ferrari was at the top of the sheets today, so now it is certain that they will win the championship

What surprises me more is that they got in over 100 laps each, so far this winter we've normally been waiting for them to get into double figures.