Red Bull RB8 Renault

[Owen.C93]

I think I was wrong.. I think the lower wishbone is still there. It's just further rearward and very small. What do you guys see?

I see the lower wishbone only having a single support, not two – i.e. a bone – not a wishbone.

I see both, one horizontal which is incorporated into the drive shaft and the other just infont of it.

[FrukostScones]

double wishbone (but what drives the wheel )

[RB7ate9]

The pictures are kind of hard to really discern because of the packaging with the driveshafts. It would be CRAZY awesome if they pulled off a single lower suspension arm, but the matter of creating the proper stiffness would be a materials nightmare.

[imightbewrong]

Okay, from the pictures above I'm pretty sure it is two wishbones, but the lower one is small and the back leg of the LW is shrouded with a cover along with the drive shaft.

I know my drawing is a mess but pink is Upper Wishbone, green is lower, and orange is the drive shaft. Hope you can understand my mess.
(click for bigger)

[RB7ate9]

I can believe that. for the RB6, at least, the lower back bone had to be moved forward to clear the DDD, which made it structurally less rigid. I don't recall what they did with the RB7, but it would make sense to have the lower rear wishbone span across the driveshaft, as that'd be optimum.

[RacingManiac]

From that front quarter pic 2 posts up, it looks like it is also mounted pretty high up at the height of the drive shaft....not sure if that is usual per today's standard, relatively speaking rear suspension of the F1 car tend to look more kinematically "normal" vs the front with the high nose and such....

[AbbaleRacing77]

A single spar lower A arm would be a dumb solution and impossible if using ball joints. There would be nothing stopping the wheel from shifting and changing castor angles... Not to mention that triangulating a suspension component would allow you to make the A arm thinner and block less air heading to the back of the car.

[Adrian Newby]

Hey guys, great discussion. Been reading a while, but this my first post here.

My thinking on the RB8 air intake...

Newey has always gone to a lot of trouble to get rid of as much cross sectional area in the area between the front wheels as possible. It is his way of “waisting” the front end to get as much clean flow to the underbody as possible (in the same way that the rear end is waisted to get flow to the rear wing/diffuser/etc.). The last thing he wants between the front wheels is a big hump, which would push air outward and interfere with air getting between the front tires and to the underbody. So to get rid of the hump, aerodynamically, he erects fences on either side of it, and allows the air to flow through it, "cooling the driver", and exiting through the cockpit opening. This is done to pull/let more air between the front tires, not to create less lift on the nose, although it does that too, and with very little, if any, drag penalty over a standard step nose, as used by the rest of the field (except McLaren).

[Gridlock]

Anyone know what the slit on the bull on the engine cover is for?

Renault engines get upset if the bodywork around them has proper panel gaps?

I see Mr Newey has been told he's not allowed bodywork in the exhaust path, so he's said to the suspension guys "hello, I'm Adrian and I'll be designing your wishbones this year"?

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?s ... &p=5515198

There are some intersting bits from the Renault engine guy Jean Caubet in the sportbild print issue.
He says the Mercedes engine has 15 hp more than Renault but their engine is more fuel efficient and the drivability is better.
Overall he says they have a small edge over Mercedes.
His rating puts the Ferrari engine as 3rd best, having about the same hp output as Renault but a higher consumption and worse drivability.
He added that Red Bull can start the race with 15-18(!) liter less fuel than the competitors.
Caubet also gives a hint that they found a clever solution with Red Bull to re-gain the performance loss of the hot blowing.

[Forza]

This underside of a nose looks like it's covered and at the end there is an inlet by the mounting point.

[yace]

could this be possible? to put more flow under the bulkhead?

Isnt it illegal to have a hole through the nose?? After Ferrari's F2007.

Exactly what I was thinking. It was after the F2008 that I thought this kind of thing was banned, although with the Ferrari air flowed from under the nose and exited from the slot on the top of the nose.
This would be doing it the other way round but pretty certain it would still be illegal.
Anyone with a good knowledge of the rules who can confirm this please?

Seeing as though it likely illegal to be feeding air under the car, surely there are only 2 possibilities - driver cooling or an air dam like nSmikle said or a combination of both?

i don't have a good knowledge of the rules, but the hole of the f2008 is on the nose, the one of the rb8 is at the front of the bulkhead, that's why i thinked it could be legal

but i agree that cooling is the better hypothesis

[OO7]

I think I was wrong.. I think the lower wishbone is still there. It's just further rearward and very small. What do you guys see?

I see the lower wishbone only having a single support, not two – i.e. a bone – not a wishbone.

I see both, one horizontal which is incorporated into the drive shaft and the other just infont of it.

I think the Williams FW-16 was similar, combining the drive shaft into one of the arms.

[Boost]

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?s ... &p=5515198

There are some intersting bits from the Renault engine guy Jean Caubet in the sportbild print issue.
He says the Mercedes engine has 15 hp more than Renault but their engine is more fuel efficient and the drivability is better.
Overall he says they have a small edge over Mercedes.
His rating puts the Ferrari engine as 3rd best, having about the same hp output as Renault but a higher consumption and worse drivability.
He added that Red Bull can start the race with 15-18(!) liter less fuel than the competitors.
Caubet also gives a hint that they found a clever solution with Red Bull to re-gain the performance loss of the hot blowing.

I didn't think that the Renault engine used hot blowing.

Do his consumption figures come from last year when the Merc used hot blowing? Not only was this used to drive the diffuser but also to compensate for the drag of the KERs unit when harvesting energy which would have had an effect on the fuel consumption.

[Lurk]

RenaultF1 claim today that they had gain 10 to 20 hp due to the ban of EBD & did some reliability improvements.