F1technical.net

So I was listening to a podcast interview with Mario Andretti and he was talking about making suspension adjustments himself. He specifically mentioned adjustments to the steering tie rods where he would adjust both in one direction. This would mean the toe angle would stay the same but introduces changes under turning in one direction. He also mentioned playing with the Ackerman setups. He was referring to Monza specifically for this change.

I have thought of this before but as far as F1 cars go since many tracks are dominated by corners going one specific direction, do teams run asymmetric suspension setups to benefit in some corners?

Furthering that idea and probably more radically. Do teams run slightly asymmetric aero setups such as slightly more front wing on the inside side of most corners.

The asymmetric suspension setup I can see as quite useful however in my head the asymmetric aero setup sounds like it will create a very unstable car.

Thoughts?

Alain Prost did that with the tyres. Different compounds

I knew Ludwig Heimrath, Jr. back in the day; he raced at Indy in '87, '88, and '89. He told me the cars were set up to turn left and driving into the corners, when the car was set up correctly, was pretty easy as you just basically held the wheel straight and let the car turn itself. Not sure how that type of setup would work on a road course...

Rodak wrote: ↑

08 Nov 2019, 20:07

I knew Ludwig Heimrath, Jr. back in the day; he raced at Indy in '87, '88, and '89. He told me the cars were set up to turn left and driving into the corners, when the car was set up correctly, was pretty easy as you just basically held the wheel straight and let the car turn itself. Not sure how that type of setup would work on a road course...

Well I know indycar and nascar oval setups are extreme, with nascar even having slightly different aerodynamics with the roof strakes, different spring and damper combinations from side to side etc etc.

If done in F1 I imagine that the changes would have to be far more subtle.

Certainly cars set-up for oval racing are asymmetrical. iirc, the lotus of the 60's had different length A arms for inside and outside. Dirt sprint cars have loads of asymmetric aero and the outside rear wheel is huge.
Sure, it would be a lot more subtle on an F1 car, but you'd have to think both aero and suspension is tweaked for a track with predominantly more corners heading in one direction than the other..?

toraabe wrote: ↑

08 Nov 2019, 19:58

Alain Prost did that with the tyres. Different compounds

Yeah, wish there were those possibilities today. Maybe too much regulation..... I'd like to have tire choice up to the teams with no requirement to run two different tires. And how about having only three different tires throughout the season? That would cut costs to the tire supplier by quite a bit. Or, even better, have two tire suppliers.