F1technical.net

With Pirelli introducing a limit of 3.75 degrees of negative camber, it makes you wonder how much teams run on tracks like Malaysia and Barcelona.

Probably a fair bit more. I was quite surprised at how low the recommended camber limit is in general.

Of course, doesn't mean anyone will pay attention to it. Even an enforced static camber limit doesn't necessarily mean much.

it is a bit of generaliation don't you thinks as down force and braking force will affect the temperater of the shoulder. Why don't they say max pressure on the contact patch of the shoulder can take?

Even if they were to make a spec like that, how would a team measure that and know where they are?

Racing cars aren't static and tyre set ups have many factors. Factors relevant to top speed on straight may not be valid on tight bend in a heavy braking zone. As JT says, there are so many variables you can never determine exactly what is going on at any moment. So Pirelli can only give guidance and then its up to the teams to set up their cars with that guidance in mind.

Sometimes the car may exceed the guidance on certain parts of a lap and that would give a shorter tyre life, but a team might tolerate that if they thought it gave a performance advantage. It worked for RB in Spa, so expect them to build on that experience.

But if you know how much downforce your generating and braking force, and the ideal tyre pressure at temperature you and work out the area of the contact patch and the force going through the contact patch in a worst case secneario.

But all was really trying to say is pressure generated on the shoulder of the tyre may vary for one car to another due to driving style, setup and line taken round the track.

-3.7 is a fair amount when you consider a road car might run around 1 to 1.5 degrees

strad wrote:-3.7 is a fair amount when you consider a road car might run around 1 to 1.5 degrees

Completely different animals though
Normal streetcars (here in europe atleast) even run positive camber due to the nature of the roads (ment to get rid of the rain)

But yea, 3.7 is pretty extreme, even for an F1 car.

FWIW - I used to run -4.5 in a production-based race car (McPherson strut cars want a lot of camber). In a purpose-built race car with much better camber control though I would expect it to be a bit lower, but -4 degrees is probably about the average for most teams throughout the year.

I'm surprised that toe hasn't been mentioned at all in the discussions though. Normally to prevent the kind of blistering they've been getting you would reduce front toe. Conversely if you are having trouble getting heat into the tires, you would increase front toe. Obviously toe has other handling characteristics (mostly at turn in), but the amount of tire temperature generated is a very significant effect of a toe change.

strad wrote:-3.7 is a fair amount when you consider a road car might run around 1 to 1.5 degrees

NASCAR can use on the order of double that amount. Tough tires.

Tht's not a limit, it's a suggested maximum.

Teams will use what they see fit and will limit that to the amount that will not grind the tyres.

All this camber talk after SPA is way over the top. Had RBR had dry track time to test that setup they would have changed it. The just found out the setup was chewing the tyres during qual and had 3 choices:

1- Go with it.
2- Change it and start from the pits.
3- Cry wolf and try to have a free pass to change the car in parc fermé.

They tried (3) to avoid (2), got a big NO from FIA and decided to go with (1).

Little video
click photo

strad wrote:Little video

Ahh, thanks for that. He seems to be suggesting it reduces rolling resistance (relevant to our other thread), but is that really due to the reduced contact area as he says, or does it reduce aerodynamic drag?

I don't get it. Are the Pirellis structurally that weak? I doubt teams were using less than 3 degrees of camber last year and we never saw problems like this. Ironically would that not then translate to a safety issue, that the window in which you can push the camber of the tyres? As JT likes to point out NASCAR uses much more; or is it that the loadings on NASCAR tyres just that much less? I mean, they probably produce lift from the cars in NASCAR rather than downforce, but surely the banking and pounding the tyres take should go a bit to equalizing that?

munks wrote:

strad wrote:Little video

Ahh, thanks for that. He seems to be suggesting it reduces rolling resistance (relevant to our other thread), but is that really due to the reduced contact area as he says, or does it reduce aerodynamic drag?

Changing camber would only serve to optimize the contact patch and not the aero drag since it doesn't change the actual shape of the tyre would it not? You still have the same dimensions of the contact patch facing forwards but just not all of it rolling across the ground,as I understand it.


Comparisons between F1 and NASCAR tyres?