Why do teams use different camber with same tyres?

[bl79]

The short answer, ignoring everything but differences between cars I think is at least a portion of this:

Different cars have different aero, lets say a Red Bull with a lot of downforce and a McLaren with less downforce.

Now think of 130R at suzuka, high speed corner. The RB can probably pull more Gs here and so it will roll more and the "ideal" amount of camber is different than the lesser high speed cornering McLaren.

This is super simplified but I think may be what you are looking for.

That is an explanation for one corner, on one circuit between two cars. Obviously as you begin to consider all the corners, tire wear, driver preference, difference between car suspension, aero, roll rates, caster, chassis stiffness so on and so forth it is not at all unreasonable to see different teams(and even same team but different drivers) running different camber rates.

[hardingfv32]

Camber is generally load dependent?

Brian

[Jersey Tom]

It certainly can be.

[bl79]

Camber is generally load dependent?

Brian

Firstly, yes it can be load dependent.

What I was getting at is body roll is dependent upon several factors roll stiffness, CG vs RC height etc. If these values differ you get different amounts of body roll.

Body roll in and of itself is not a "bad" thing, especially on road cars. The reason why body roll is bad is because it changes the aero for the car(especially true in F1), to a lesser extent it will change the CG(generally this affect is ignored, IDK about the F1 level) and most relevant, roll causes the camber to change.

The last portion being the most important bit for your question. If teams have cars that roll different amounts then the "ideal" amount of static camber to run differs.

Hell even look at caster. Caster angle has several affects, one of which is to add camber(in the "correct" manner e.g. negative camber to outside tire) as the steering wheel is turned. If two cars have different amounts of caster than the amount of static camber they run will be different.

Point being there are many, many reasons why two cars would have different amounts of static camber.

[Robert.Gardner]

Camber is/can be used for multiple purposes, to minimise rolling resistance in strait ahead position, reduce the steering load on the steering wheel at low speed, change the rate at which the tyres gain temperature, suspension rates, affecting how the suspension (helps cause or) copes with tyre flatspots (Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren-Mercedes, 2005 European GP), as well as increasing the contact area as the car rolls in turns. (and possibly many others)

But how much camber can depend on perceived circuit traction (how well its rubbered in), temperature, likelihood of rain, whether the driver likes better frontend grip at start/middle/end of race, etc.

There are so many variables, including driving style, time lost from less than perfect camber on the faster corners against time lost on slowest corners, or even medium corners, that its impossible to factor all these into a computerised suspension program, and know that your car will be perfect.

Personally I'd think that most teams would have run a slightly different setting, if the knew exactly how their car performed throughout the race, compared to all competitors, but had this information before the race.