Originally Posted by
TheScrutineer
Cheers for the info.
I understand the problem with 'stalling' when bottoming out. I read an interesting article in Autosport saying that the secret to Redbull's success is probably not ride height control, that because of their 'pullrod' rear suspension the diffuser is more simpler and less prone to stalling than other teams.
Sounds like BS to me. The Pull or push rod the function is the same, and if anything pull rod takes up more real estate around where the diffuser sits. Journalists are just that, they look stuff to report where there was none. Same people also said Newey had a harder time to package double diffuser last year because of the same suspension....
Thats off topic though...
Its not just the wake thats making the car hard to follow though. Wings(in their various guise on a modern F1 car) needs clean flow to function, where as tunnel is less sensitive to flow. And with F1 car's grip is dependent on wings effectiveness(both front and rear), as soon as the air becomes turbulent the front wing becomes less effective, while the the rear may still be functioning ok due to the help of still-present ground effect and rear wing, the front is not, thus understeer becomes a problem and you are less able to follow the speed the car infront of you can do. On a tunnel car that is less of an issue as primarily the downforce comes from the tunnels, which I'd imagine sets the center of pressure closer to the CG(will shift as the car pitch and dive, biasing downforce distribution fore and aft).
I think going all out with skirts and such is not the answer simply because of the same reason they were banned. But looking at the current crop of LMP car with a fairly effective(yet is a spec design) tunnel, I think something akin to that approach might be good for F1...
University of Toronto Formula SAE Alumni 2003-2007
Formula Student Championship 2003, 2005, 2006
www.fsae.utoronto.ca