Today's unveiled Mercedes AMG F1 W09 resembles a lot its sucessful predecessor, the championship winning W08. And this is no coincidence, as team boss Toto Wolff reveals. However, there are some interesting changes to come this year with the new car.
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Looks astonishingly the same as W08 to me. I would expect come day 1 of test the car would look pretty much different. Or perhaps Australia. I expected much more, but what do I know?
They mounted the front suspension backwards
But in all seriousness, that is not a naturally stable geometry - you usually drag the wheel behind you. I can't wait for the driver feedback on this, I can imagine the setup of the car to be very difficult. Otherwise a very nice evolution, they are making the most from their investment leading into the new engine formula.
But actually most cars are configured to " push" the front wheels because of the caster angle. The lower ball joint is always ahead of the top joint. It is made to be stable. As you dribe forward a draging torque from the contact patch rotates the wheel back to being straight ahead.
That being said yeah the suspension looms rather ungainly but interesting nonetheless! What grabs me is how they have used the tie rod and the front lower wishbone to make a sort of a downwards deflector. An extension of the cape in a way.
Edit:
I see what photo you are talking about now!
Yes the wheel axle is ahead of the two wishbones only balanced by the tie rod. This design has been done before. The load on the tie rod definitely gonna be higher but they know what they sre doing i guess.
Last edited by PlatinumZealot on Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
It looks like the rear suspension arm is raised out of the wheel rim as well, similar to what they do on the front wheels.
+ forward swept front suspensio arms and with undercut sidepod, perhaps they want to redirected airflow from nosecone into the middle of the car, not spreading on the edge of the floor which might collide with the wake from front tires