Sauber C32 Ferrari

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Artur Craft
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Joined: 05 Feb 2010, 15:50

Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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Tom McCullough, Head of Track Engineering: “We analysed the data that we collected in Malaysia and found interesting directions for the development of the car, therefore we will bring several test parts to Shanghai. ”
I'm eager to see if this new parts will be visible ones or the underneath kind of parts.

henra
henra
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Joined: 11 Mar 2012, 19:34

Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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Artur Craft wrote: I'm eager to see if this new parts will be visible ones or the underneath kind of parts.
Ok, I'll make a fool of myself by trying a guess: Revised sidepods with more pronounced/modified exhaust bulges. Now waiting to be embarrassed by the pics emerging on Thursday/Friday.
That said I'm not sure they will be that quick with such a rather drastic change. It will need a lot of detail work in the wind tunnel and manufacturing of wind tunnel models (and finally the real ones). Not sure if all this can be done within a little more than 2 weeks.

stefan_
stefan_
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Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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China 2013 - Thursday (11.04.2013)

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"...and there, very much in flames, is Jacques Laffite's Ligier. That's obviously a turbo blaze, and of course, Laffite will be able to see that conflagration in his mirrors... he is coolly parking the car somewhere safe." Murray Walker, San Marino 1985

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Forza
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Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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China GP - Thursday - 11/04/2013
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stefan_
stefan_
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Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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China 2013 - Thursday (11.04.2013)

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AMuS
"...and there, very much in flames, is Jacques Laffite's Ligier. That's obviously a turbo blaze, and of course, Laffite will be able to see that conflagration in his mirrors... he is coolly parking the car somewhere safe." Murray Walker, San Marino 1985

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Forza
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Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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China GP - Friday - 12/04/2013
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Artur Craft
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Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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Nico Hulkenberg: "The modified rear wing we have here is a step forward, and the car definitely feels a bit better with it. How much of a step this is, is difficult to say, so we have to look a little bit deeper into the data and wait until tomorrow. Overall, it was a positive day, but there is still some work ahead of us."

Tom McCullough, Sauber head of track engineering: "We evaluated some aerodynamic parts, including a modified rear wing and some other small parts, and they seem to be working as we hoped they would. "
So, the spoon wing is history, it seems. China have the longest straight of the calendar and if the low drag RW is not the best set for it, then I can't see it coming back other than, maybe, Canada and Spa. In Monza, it will be probably even a tinier one.

It's difficult to evaluate the car's speed from Friday FPs as we don't know how quick Guttierrez is, but his time is okay for a rookie. I would imagine a top quick driver could bring it much lower(+0,5s quicker at least)

Overall, I think a big lesson was learned with C32 so far. The focus of development should almost always be on the "most downforce possible" approach rather than on the "let's reduce drag" one. More downforce/drag seems definitelly more benefitial, as Red Bull quite proved since 2009 tbh.

It's also curious what is wrong with the car on the mechanical side. Esteban and Hulk have the highest top speed and Gutierrez S2 is very good and this sector demands downforce, which means C32 L/D is very good.

However, you don't see the benefit of the high top speed of C32 in S1 and S3. They lose too much time there and this can only be explained by very poor speed in some slow corners as straight speed is the best.

If this was Suzuka, I think the car could be very competitive like C31 was there. But this kind of track is very rare on the calendar and Sauber should have focus long time ago on developing a car with great mechanical grip, to start with.

korzeniow
korzeniow
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 03:51
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Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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Here you can see Sauber's vanity panel:

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It's been a long time since we drove last time, but it has also been a short time at the same time
Roam Grosjean ponders the passing of time on the first day of testing at Jerez
February 5, 2013

korzeniow
korzeniow
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 03:51
Location: Cracow/Poland

Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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If you zoom this picture in significantly you'll see that nosecone isn't unitary. Thre is a hole for the step pipe.

Also the underside bulge is hollow.

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It's been a long time since we drove last time, but it has also been a short time at the same time
Roam Grosjean ponders the passing of time on the first day of testing at Jerez
February 5, 2013

stefan_
stefan_
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Location: Bucharest, Romania

Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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China 2013 - Sunday (14.04.2013)

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"...and there, very much in flames, is Jacques Laffite's Ligier. That's obviously a turbo blaze, and of course, Laffite will be able to see that conflagration in his mirrors... he is coolly parking the car somewhere safe." Murray Walker, San Marino 1985

korzeniow
korzeniow
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Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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Even closer shot:

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It's been a long time since we drove last time, but it has also been a short time at the same time
Roam Grosjean ponders the passing of time on the first day of testing at Jerez
February 5, 2013

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Artur Craft
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Joined: 05 Feb 2010, 15:50

Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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Firstly, I must say Sauber is quite messy sometimes. After Friday, they said the new wing(the one with a shape more similar to other cars) was a step forward and etc. Then, they ran the old(spoon) wing on Qualifying/Race. My guess is that they didn't express themselves correctly on Friday PRs(or maybe I was the problem misunderstading things ).

From their choice, the spoon proved to be the better one versus the one which resembles the other car's RWs, in which case it's very nice that C32 have some potential to grow on this development path.

Another positive thing that I noticed on the race was that the Spoon wing was not always a lower drag one versus the others wings the rivals were using. The central section had bigger span than other wings used in China, by the top teams:

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Teams like Mclaren, Force India, Toro Rosso and Williams all used a more downforce/draggy RW than C32, though:
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Red Bull's and Ferrari's RW used less drag ones, the good thing was that Hulk could keep up on the straights with Alonso and Vettel even when both had DRS open while Nico's wasn't.

So, C32 even with a more draggy wing and closed DRS had straight line speed than Ferrari and Red Bull even with DRS open

The L/D potential of C32 seems to be pretty good and maybe in Spa they can have a weekend a la Force India had in 2009

A bad thing about the aerodynamics of the car is that I don't think this shape will make the better use of the downwash :
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Just compare it with other cars and imagine what it is doing to the airflow to know what I mean:
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stefan_
stefan_
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Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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Bahrain 2013 - Thursday (17.03.2013)

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"...and there, very much in flames, is Jacques Laffite's Ligier. That's obviously a turbo blaze, and of course, Laffite will be able to see that conflagration in his mirrors... he is coolly parking the car somewhere safe." Murray Walker, San Marino 1985

stefan_
stefan_
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Joined: 04 Feb 2012, 12:43
Location: Bucharest, Romania

Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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Bahrain 2013 - Friday (19.04.2013)

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"...and there, very much in flames, is Jacques Laffite's Ligier. That's obviously a turbo blaze, and of course, Laffite will be able to see that conflagration in his mirrors... he is coolly parking the car somewhere safe." Murray Walker, San Marino 1985

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Pierce89
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Joined: 21 Oct 2009, 18:38

Re: Sauber C32 Ferrari

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I feel that the narrow sidepods don't allow enough undercut below the exhaust bulge. Which would make much more difficult to separate the exhaust flow from the coke bottle flow. Obviously I have no evidence. Just a hunch.
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