Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
Wheelbase also has an important effect on the frequency that the chassis vibrates at, thus effecting damping rates, etc.
A longer wheelbase car will vibrate at a lower frequency than a short wheelbase car. This is easy to understand because if the front wheels hit a bump, the time it takes for the rear wheels to hit the same bump will setup a vibration at a specific frequency tied to the wheelbase.
There is a reason that every land speed record car has an extremely long wheelbase. At high speed the frequencies increase so drastically with a short wheelbase car that it is not damped by the chassis and the car becomes incredibly nervous and unstable.
the tyres supplied by bridgestone this year are based on the 2004-05 construction and with compounds unrelated to the very trick and expensive ones that helped ferrari to a strong 2006.
testing at barcelona and jerez late last year showed that the performance of the rears degraded very quickley, particularly when a soft compound was used.
so the teams that they need to get as much weight off the rears as possible and towards the fronts. the simplest way to do this is to shorten the wheel base. another is to make the car lighter so you have even more ballast which you locate as far forwards as possible.
it is possible that last year ferrari couldn't bring ballast any futher forward as they ran out of room the longer wheel base will free up some space there without putting it on the front winh slowing down how quickley the car can change direction.
Genarally, longer wheelbasae cars are more stable and less twitchy in medium and high speed corners, although with a slower turn ii, especially in slow and medium slow conditions, Shorter wheelbase cars are usually thought to have a faster, more stable turn in and an advantage in slow and lower medium speed corners. But I don't think the small increase in the Ferrari is enough to emphasis this difference.Vehicle dynamics are involve. Changing the balance front to rear, even from wheel to wheel, used to be called polar movement - that is wheel loading changing from or to, any of the 4 wheels contact patch. Tire carcass characteristics and track width seem very important. For an interesting insight into tire characteristic testing. Goggle "intelligent tire" and click the site described as "experiences from the Appollo" ( it's the 2nd or 3rd listing)The Apollo is a new program and test rig that monitors tire and suspension characteristics with sensors in the patch area of the tire. Although the article test road tires - I am sure race tires are examined the same way.
I don't want to sound repetative - but I think it encourages varying the location of ballast. Hope you find the "intellignet tire" paper interesting. I would be very interested in the Forums input. Perhaps I'll start a separate thread later today.
I'm Back!:) i was just thinking, does any1 think the lengthened wheelbase onthe ferrari is to do with the departure from the single keel design to a no keel/small twin keel design?
Because of the close connection and cooperation all these years between Ferrari and Bridgestone, it is said that Ferrari were well informed about the construction and the compounds of the Bridgestone shod tyres, so that they designed the car taking all the importan interior data and information into consideration...Engine and tyre development are frozen, so they focused on maximizing aero efficiency and the best way to do this is a no-keel chassis and longer wheelbase...We'll see...
manchild wrote:That pic where cars are compared is totally wrong. Ferrari has 35mm longer wheel span than Renault and pic is made by lining up chassis' not axles so it looks like that cars have identical length.
I've made these two pics based on identical position of cars relative to rear axle. On lover transparent pic you can check that rear wheels are 1 on 1 as well as max bodywork width (1400mm as FIA reg impose). My pic might not be accurate in mm but I don't think it is wrong more than 2 cm.
Your pics are not quite right.
You have to remember:
Overall lenght off F2007 is 255 mm shorter than R27
From http://www.f1complete.com/ R27:
Front track 1450 mm
Rear track 1400 mm
Wheelbase 3100 mm
Overall length 4800 mm
Overall height 950 mm
Overall width 1800 mm
Overall weight 605 kg, with driver, camera and ballast. F2007:
Front track: 1470 mm
Rear track: 1405 mm
Wheelbase: 3135 mm
Length: 4545 mm
Height: 959 mm
Width: 1796 mm
Weight with water, lubricant and driver: 600 kg
Carlos wrote:
I don't want to sound repetative - but I think it encourages varying the location of ballast. Hope you find the "intellignet tire" paper interesting. I would be very interested in the Forums input. Perhaps I'll start a separate thread later today.
Off-topic, but great link Carlos, I found a really informative PDF. Certainly, this will be the future. I have always thought about how humans rely on pressure information to know how much grip they have on their feet. And how we use this information to tell us how to turn left and right. If you think about how you walk and run and change direction you are constantly varying the pressure on you feet. To turn left you actually roll your ankle a little bit and place more weight on the inside of your left foot. This is almost exactly what is happening with the outside wheel with negative camber causing a camber thrust that helps you turn into a corner. With this intelligent tire technology, you should one day be able to see these pressure variations in the contact patch in real-time as you are driving. With advances like this, I think we could see 5g cornering on road cars!
There's a short article on this week's AUTOhebdo mag, that I thought I'd share with you. As usual, my traduction is only approximative. Please note I do not intend to start a new conspiracy theory about Ferrari cheating or whatever, I just want to know what you think about this, and first of all, if you think this rumor is true. (about more weight on the rear).
Pascal Dro from AUTOhebdo wrote:
"Impossible to obtain the slightiest commentary from them [Ferrari]. But there is an insisting rumor spreading around the spanish tracks. Ferrari, which created a F1 with a longer wheelbase than its adversaries, would have put more weight at the rear of the F2007, at the same time that every others try by all means to move the weight forward. The reason of this generalised tendancy?
The rear compounds type provided by Bridgestone is the same as in 2005, while the front ones are more recent, more grippy and less fragile. This explain this will to lighten the rear everywhere else than... Ferrari.[...] It is strange that the team that have the greatest knowlege of the Bridgestones choose a different balance than others. And, obviously, only one of those tendancies is the good one.
Ferrari isnt the only team who chose to design a car with a longer wheelbase:
I think in terms of general philosophy the lengthening of the wheelbase is something that we've done in two steps, firstly in the August shutdown period last year, and now we've lengthened our wheelbase again.
That's obviously something that Ferrari have also done, and both we and Ferrari have gone from the short end of the scale and increased presumably for similar reasons, which is a combination of aerodynamics and the mechanical balance of the car.
As for the others, there does seem to be a fair spread of cars which are on the more conservative side, and cars which are slightly more adventurous.
no wonder honda and button get along so well ! they're both great at making excuses when they cant perform as well as they should have, or arent as "good" as they're hyped to be
Honda F1 racing motto - "excuses: just in case it doesnt go as planned"
http://www.autosport.com/journal/article.php/id/908
