gilgen wrote:I fail to see how the team designers can have less knowledge on how to design a car, than some of the posters here. I am sure that the CFD projections showed that an SWB was every bit as effect as a LWB. OK, the design got something wrong, but how can anyone say that it was one specific issue. SWB cars have won races in the past.
What are their problems, grip in high speed corners, grip in low speed corners, tire wear and degradation. The most obvious reason is the high fuel tank as has been said here numerous occasions. No one claims it is the magic bullet but it's likely a serious issue. Also they were slow to adopt Red Bull's EBD style and it's my opinion that happened because they had other things (like cooling) to deal with and because hot blowing (as is required for the EBD) uses more fuel. I think they had to use the less effective system because it is more stable under varying exhaust flows. That meant they had less of a problem with carrying high fuel loads.
With no refueling SWB cars are more vulnerable to having high CoG. Pre-2009 I suspect fast SWB cars had to pit more often than rivals. CFD likely did show good results for SWB (turns out they are very quick in a straight line) but the issues stated above plus many, many more small ones all added up to give them a difficult season.
