why double wishbone suspension?

[marcush.]

why do the top teams in f1 still employ double wishbone suspension systems?
To my mind it would be worth considering trailing /leading arm suspensions.with rollangles almost non existant I would try a front lower leading arm system ,maybe even with the front wheels interconnected like an A .
An obvious advantage would be to get the lower wishbone out of the wake of the frontwing .additionally you could do away with the keel as you could bolt the A member to the floor of the car.If you form the A to your advantage they could well double as conditioner wings for the sidepods...if you could get away with going that far...
this way the installation would be very stiff ,and the implemention of flexures would allow for the suspension movement necessary.
In this setup you could even get rid of the diagonal pushrods and feed the loads directly upwards into the monocoque...
For a start one could retain the upper wishbones..

[Ciwai]

I like your way of thinking, very chapman-esque.

I guess double wishbones are like the diamond frame bike. Structurally pretty hard to improve upon, so mass can be minimized. I would guess that your suggestion would entail a weight penalty since it sounds like the links would have to be more stout. In that way the trade-off resembles that of the twin keel, but if you consider how critical the removal of the center keel was then maybe you have something there, if all of that area under the nose is opened up.

The other trade-off is geometry (as with twin keel) and you'd get minute disturbances to wheelbase with a leading/trailing link.

I can see a leading link front suspension with the links getting progressively wider as they go back so that there is more "beef" at the attachment point. The whole thing would probably have to be thicker to compensate so yeah, maybe it could be useful as a conditioner but maybe not since they are at a swept angle. Control of this would be limited due to the symmetrical rule

I'm not following your point on getting "rid of the diagonal pushrods and feed the loads directly upwards into the monocoque". Seems you'd lose progressive damper function.

[Ciwai]

While we're at it, how about at the rear we yank out the half shafts, instead use longitudinal shafts like on a bike, with a transverse engine.

[marcush.]

why should you loose progressive damper movement? did not say I put the dampers directly on the leading link.
As for the wheelbase variation...we are talking of very small vertikal movements and a very lon leading arm ,and it depend on the mounting point(height) as well.
Stiffness/weight.Not sure but I´d say you ´d need more cross section to get the stiffness .The positive side is :The added weight is mounted deep and next to the CG.And the addition of unsprung weight is negligible.