SiLo wrote: ↑16 Oct 2024, 14:05
I'm guessing it's all about the driver sitting central to the CoP of the aero platform, and that the current cars have it farther back then the previous gen because of the lack of barge board freedom.
For a long time now, driver sits ahead of CoG, which is always (more or less, depending on velocity) ahead of CoP along longitudinal X axis. According to 2022-2025 rules, your CoG at all times during Q session needs to be at least 44.6% front and no more than 53.9% rear, ie you have 55mm between both boundary CoG X positions if you maximise the wheelbase to 3600mm. W13 cockpit was 150+ mm ahead of RB cockpit and F1-75 cockpit was 100-110mm ahead of RB cockpit too, obviously all 3 cars were within weight distribution limits.
Obviously, all teams can place the CoP to their liking, but for driveability reasons you need to keep a certain relation between CoP and CoG, which means your CoP boundaries are also somewhat limited by rules. Setting up their 2022 concepts, Mercedes and Ferrari definitely planned and expected a lot of floor downforce at the front and a limited amount at the rear, which is how it was with previous 80s ground-effect floors. Mercedes moved their cockpit almost to RB's position, they also changed their floor concept and aero map a lot for this season, but Ferrari kept their cockpit position fixed on all 3 cars so far. They have, however, kept their floor concept very different from RB/McLaren and still rely on more load at the front of the floor, keeping the diffuser kick quite high. There is zero sense in changing their core floor concept approach for the final season, so I expect they want to add "free" rear downforce by moving CoG and CoP to the rear by design and I wouldn't be surprised if we see a fairly pronounced diffuser kick on SF25, while keeping the throat at the front around the SIS tube
