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With Newey coming, and with his having had a taste of both designs since he has been at RBR, which route do you think he will take? V-keel has better suspension geometry, but with such a small range of movement, how important is that? It also offers better leverage for the forces generated by the brake caliper to be absorbed. The upper A-arm and lower A-arm mounts at the hub appear to be seperated by around 320 mm on the V-keel and by around 240mm on the No-keel. This can only be offset by increasing the strength (and therefore, weight) of the hub mounts, A-arm joints, and the A-arms themselves. Even so, it is hard to imagine such a set-up giving the driver the same brake pedal feedback as the whole hub must torque forward (same direction as wheel) by a few degrees during braking.

The areo advantages of the No-keel design are manifest. So which design offers the best compromise? And does the tried and true central keel design really have inferior aero than the V-keel? The air has to go to the right or left by the time it gets to where the driver's bum is correct? So is it all that critical if it is split 600mm upstream of that event anyway?

Hard to say...

I think zero keel is the solution everyone will try to reach in the long term, but it mainly depends on suspention developpement. Seeing Mc Laren's situation it seems to be quite difficult to make the suspention work perfectly, but in the end it will be the best solution.
I guess the V keel is just a very good compromise for now, but for those who chose to switch to no-keel, it should be worth the investment, sooner or later.

So, I'll go for no keel.

V.


It'll still be an evolution on last years car (they always are, despite what PR people say), and with everyone on bridgestones, having an optimal suspension geometry will be important [and perhaps more important a flexible design strategy for it - the pick-up points being integrated with the monocoque definitely does not allow this].

Could a No-keel design employ some sort of eliptical pivots that would allow it to mimic the geometry of a V-keel as far as camber deltas throughout the range of motion? Could eliptical pivots be used to seek out an even better ideal? I suppose that all the suspension linkage can be easily tuned at the rocker location for whatever progression/geometry the engineers what without limitation, so in that regard the V-keel and No-keel designs are no different.

kilcoo316 wrote:V.


It'll still be an evolution on last years car (they always are, despite what PR people say), and with everyone on bridgestones, having an optimal suspension geometry will be important [and perhaps more important a flexible design strategy for it - the pick-up points being integrated with the monocoque definitely does not allow this].

Toyota is on B'stones this year with their finally mature No-keel design. I have never heard the tire engineers discuss any carcass construction differences between the Toyota, and the Ferrari. Just how much are the camber deltas between the two designs? And how might this affect cornering.

gcdugas wrote:Could a No-keel design employ some sort of eliptical pivots that would allow it to mimic the geometry of a V-keel as far as camber deltas throughout the range of motion? Could eliptical pivots be used to seek out an even better ideal?

I suppose that all the suspension linkage can be easily tuned at the rocker location for whatever progression/geometry the engineers what without limitation, so in that regard the V-keel and No-keel designs are no different.

I don't think so, as an eliptical pivot would generate friction within the system [wouldn't it] - that would increase tyre wear as the suspension is not in tandem with the tyre [the pivot wouldn't have a linear load/displacement line would it?].

No, if your rocker position is wrong, there isn't much you can do with it. edit: well, actually, not the rocker, but the pic-up points for the two wishbones.

gcdugas wrote:Toyota is on B'stones this year with their finally mature No-keel design. I have never heard the tire engineers discuss any carcass construction differences between the Toyota, and the Ferrari. Just how much are the camber deltas between the two designs? And how might this affect cornering.

No idea mate, but look who is in the championship hunt and who isn't.


Toyota were adament that the car's L/D figures were good earlier in the year, yet they were getting nothing near ferrari in terms of pace. They still aren't.

Newey was coy about it when I asked him, I suspect the prospect of the aerodynamically better lower wishbone position will be too tempting for him.

There is an aerodynamic advantage to mounting the lower wishbone horizontal and... well... lower?


Does that not put it below the main upwash field from the front wing, reducing its effectiveness in straightening the flow?

Although, I suppose its gonna be below the main front wing wake anyway regardless of pickup point position.

kilcoo316 wrote:There is an aerodynamic advantage to mounting the lower wishbone horizontal and... well... lower?


Does that not put it below the main upwash field from the front wing, reducing its effectiveness in straightening the flow?

Although, I suppose its gonna be below the main front wing wake anyway regardless of pickup point position.

He was talking about the upper and lower A-arms (what he calls "wishbones"). And he was talking about the No-keel design mount of the lower A-arm, not mounting the A-arm lower. It a semantic mess.

Suspension design is quite mature, or at least we think we know a lot about it. In the ultra competitive world of F1, designers seek any gain or advantage. And at present, apart from engine technology, aero refinements seem to be a main attack point. And theoretically, a zero keel front suspension is advantageous over anything with keels. As long as we have high noses, that is. So many teams are trying to make it work. Mclaren have been at it for quite a few years now, and Toyota have spent countless millions of yen in purauit of that too.
But obviously, making the suspension work properly is a huge problem. And right now, teams following a more conservative and safer route (Ferrari and Renault) are still producing the important results on the racetrack. But if Mclaren can start to string together victories and become genuine contenders again, we might see a lot more teams commiting.
Right now we're at a transition point, where tried and true keel designs are still competitive, yet the new concept of zero keel will eventually find widespread acceptance. It's just that the gestation period is extremeley long for this technology.
If you put addditional rockers on the suspension pickups or arms, I dread the problems with roll control.

A little bit off-topic, but i found Newey's twin/zero-keel that it took him more time to implement successfully. correct me if I'm wrong but if I remember well 17 was the first twin-keel one, therefore it took him 17,17D (it was only kimi's brilliance and consistency that made it look good), 18A, 19 and then the fruits were 'reaped' with the 20, his influence diminished over the 21 and its back to step one. For me this shows two points; only newey is able to do a successful twin/zero-keel design and it takes ages to get it right. Does Red Bull have patience? i very much doubt it. Besides, all newey's car started a bit on the wrong foot, needed a bit of time to develop well (forgetting '98) so do Red Bull have the develepment area up to the level of macca? i doubt that too.

I voted for no-keel, but hard to tell. Newey could a V-keel or a no-keel design on the 2007 RBR car. I give 50 for V-keel, 50 for no-keel. Its very hard to tell, last year Newey did a no-keel design on the MP4-20, but in 2007 he could change his taste and go fo V-keel instead. Really hard to predict a F1 Technical Director's mind, but I place my bet on no-keel.

I couldn't agree more with zenvision, but maybe that's because we're both newbies... Red Bull is going to use a V Keel design next season.
By the way, I don't remember if I read in this discusion that the MP4-21 is based on the MP4-20 (because it's too expensive to develop the No-keel concept), that's not whay I read at the beginning of the season. What I read was that it has 96% of it's parts with a new design.
They would be much successful if they've updated the MP4-20. This year Renault is using an updated version of last year's car.