advantages/disadvatages of short/long car

[Jersey Tom]

I beleive the assumption shorter F1 cars are better through slow turns is an oversimplification. Willi Rampf told me wheelbase changes (all else beign equal) only provides gains of 1000th. He didnt even feel shorter cars have an advatange at Monaco.

Perhaps we should drop the obsesison with the actuals length of the cars and concern ourselves more with the layout of the components along the wheelbase (driver, axles, engine\gearbox lengths etc)

+1

[mike]

well it depends how you look at long and short wheelbase cars
F1 cars today are 3 metres long in the wheelbase, an increase or decrease of 100mm is about 3.3% not enough to make a great deal of difference (normally it only differs but 50mm to 70mm)

the simplyfication of the affect of wheelbase only comes to play when their is a larger % difference

[Belatti]

the topic has been disscused before here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4147&hilit=wheelbase

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4526&hilit=wheelbase

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4044&hilit=wheelbase

It has also been disscused in a 2008 thread if Ferrari could have made 2 versions of the car, with longer and shorter wheelbase. Of course that would be expensive and almost useless without changing all the aero...

The long "fast & stable" vs. short "good in twisty" characteristics of F1 wheelbases are only and no more than a myth.

A better design than rivals given a specific set of rules is a conjunction that includes not only wheelbase but entire suspension geometry, aero map and its sensibility and masses distribution and posibilities of relocations.

Im not an aero guy but I guess sidepods works closely with rear wheels and then also front wing and nosecone works closely with sidepods... placing the rear wheel position in relation to front wheel can be a matter of aerodynamics and then suspension geometry gets secondary... unless the position of rear pickups for wishbones turns problematic...

after all its all about the whole package

[mike]

with the most grip coming from the aero, wheelbase makes seemingly no difference, its like how they reduce the tracks to fit wheel covers in, it gave them 2-3 tenth per lap, alot more than that 4mm more extra track and give them