Sauber C23

[drspeed]

After the shock and horror of the new Williams, the C23 does look like a beautiful car. I love F1 cars in blue.

Anyway back to the technical side. It seems that the rumor of Sauber using Ferrari's 2003 chassis seems to be true. The monocoque of the car looks suspiciously similar to the F2003-GA. IT even has a single keel lower wishbone mount if you see carefully.

2004 spec Ferrari engine in a 2003 spec chassis... I wonder how that'd be relative to the new Ferrari. They even have Felipe Massa coming to think of it. Sauber is a real "junior-Ferrari team" now.

[Guest]

....even the placement of the infrared sensors for the rear tires is identical. Willy Rampf and his team cannot proud......

[drspeed]

Even if they did used the 2003 ferrari monocoque i still expected to see twin keels on it. That would have been a mega combination.

[Beostar]

tru. twin keel would have bee nice. I like the looks of the car. the design to cause it looks like a ferrari

Not much to say about it really..

[hit_guy]

The Sauber looks definitely like the ferrari though the sidepods are very curvy and elegant even when compared to the Ferrari F2003

[uzael]

But if it's the F2003GA Monocoque with some extra dressings and updates from the Sauber crwe, how did it fail the mandatory impact tests? The F2003GA passed last year, so if this is it, why would this one fail? Also if a chassis fails the test, do the designers have to go back and redesign the monocoque, includings all new moulds, CAD and building a new car altogether?

[Beostar]

don't think so. they just need to find a way to make it stronger.
perhaps throw on another layer of carbon fibre or something.

[Monstrobolaxa]

the front doesn't look too Ferrari....the nose cone is slightly higher and doesn't slope down as much as the GA.

[Steven]

Read this:

http://www.f1technical.net/news/article.php?sid=217

[akbar21881]

fail the crash test? where did you guys heard about this? I couldnt find any!!

But in my eyes,new Sauber is 80% F2003.From cockpit backward,its an exact carbon copy.But the front monocoque and the nose looks slightly different.And of course,the bargeboard is the traditional Sauber,big one.It can be just for launch,when its on track,the ferrari bargeboard will make a return.But I'm totally sure that it is based on F2003.If not,why did they drop the twin keel suspension mounting? So I guess they get started with F2003 chasis and developed all the tiny details to improve the performance.

But I hope they will perform at their best this year.And hopefully they have improved the F2003 weaknesses,i.e CG too far backwards.

If Ferrari screw up with their new chasis,their near perfect old chasis with latest spec 2004 engine,under the shade of blue green Sauber color might give us some suprise this year.

[drspeed]

tru. twin keel would have bee nice. I like the looks of the car. the design to cause it looks like a ferrari
Not much to say about it really..

Still looks better than in red.

the front doesn't look too Ferrari....the nose cone is slightly higher and doesn't slope down as much as the GA.

If you see the nose of the C23 carefully, they left the under part of the nose blue so the nose looks slightly higher and thinner.

[Monstrobolaxa]

but it doens't slope down....and the under part of the nose is straight....not curved like in the F2003-GA

[Steven]

idd Monstro, I saw that a small border is left blue, but still then... it's more rounded at the upper side.

Furthermore, the sidepods look a little smoother on the outside than on the F2003

[F1freak]

Plus they're missing the shark fins so I guess that's Sauber design.

[Beostar]

or they didn't do the effort to put the shark fins on the car yet. cause they don't know if the engine will get to hot or not...