2007 F1 Front Suspension?

[rcr286]

Does anyone here have insight into current design of F1 front suspension? When I saw the Toyota TF107, the front suspension angles stuck out like a sore thumb...then when other manf. release their cars, I saw that they were all the same!

The top control arm angles down from the the top of the chassis to the hub, and the lower control arm now mounts to the nose cone and is angled down as well...more excessively than the top. Of course, this will still give the desired camber gain, but what about excessive track change, roll centers, etc?

What rules change, or design philosophy has brought this about? (note; when looking at side views, you can see that the nose cone does not have any extension to the bottom of the car until it meets the chassis near the side pods...no verticle splitter to mount lower control arms to)

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by rcr286

What rules change, or design philosophy has brought this about? (note; when looking at side views, you can see that the nose cone does not have any extension to the bottom of the car until it meets the chassis near the side pods...no verticle splitter to mount lower control arms to)

The design philosophy behind this is not to do with the suspension, the suspension is the compromise, if you see what I mean. The idea is to tidy up the air flow under that part of the car. Mounting the suspension directly onto the side of the chassis is known as zero keel. Traditionally the cars had a "keel" that dropped down in the centre under the monocoque. This produced undesired air flow. Some then tried a twin keel approach which had two protrusions dropping down at the side of the monocoque. I think it was difficult to get this structurally solid without disrupting the airflow. Then they compromised the suspension and the lower mounts were moved upwards.

Toyota changed to this at the end of 2005 IIRC. Although at first they mounted the suspension as a zero keel, but still had the single keel until the B spec introduced this year! (Madness, worst of both situations!).

[rcr286]

"Madness, worst of both situations!"

HaHa! Hence the "moving chicane" nickname?

[marcush.]

track change in bump is working the tyres alot at low amplitude wheelmovement .So this helps create tyre temperature without the need to have excessive toe ,Camber etc.with the harder compounds and the ultra low cg height of todays cars creates less weight transfer ,everything is making things difficult in terms of getting heat in the tyres.And you need the heat to create any useful grip...

[phoenix]

This arrangement would appear to give a very high front roll centre - higher than the inner mount of the lower arm. Any comments anyone?

[meb]

...perhaps the swing arm is postioned in a way that better suits tire heat/tire loading???

[Hitech]

The mechanical grip from the front tyres on a current F1 car is so good that the effective operational travel of the front suspension can be almost zero, so wishbone angles are almost irrelevant. Grip is mostly adjusted and balanced by aero changes, so theoretical front suspension dynamic geometry changes are sacrificed to optimise the aeodynamic package.