Sauber C31 Ferrari

[techF1LES]

Photo courtesy of: Sutton Images
■ Copyright © Sutton Images 2012. All rights reserved.
■ Hosted at The Official F1™ Website



Photo courtesy of: wri2
■ Copyright © wri2 2012. All rights reserved.
■ Hosted at Nextgen-Auto.com

[naniSauber]

Sauber has said they are going to bring Updates to every race in this part of the Championship (Asian tour)

I can't wait to see them all

[raymondu999]

To be fair, unless you really find a breakthrough item, there really isn't much point in not developing (if you had such a breakthrough, you'd want to keep it secret from the other teams' eyes)

[naniSauber]

So then it's probably just wings (both) rear/front but still last season this amount of updates in a season wasnt normal
This season Sauber has really stepped it up..

[marcush.]

Development parts are what they are -you try to develop your product to perform better in reference to your performance targets.
As we can see the teams seem to be surprised by the amount of rear bias in overall downforce needed to make their current cars work

And a lot of them felt the need to throw away front downforce to find a workable aero balance.

So your development may concentrate on adding rear downforce bias . The obvious thing to do might be starting to work on the diffusser and rear wing ...but a front wing change or sidepod adjustment may be equaly useful to exploit better the airflow reaching the rear of the car.

I ´d think not every update or development planned at the start of the year pans out as something that is usable on the car to gain time given the surprise of the pirelli tyre this year.
It may well be some things are kept in the drawers to be unleashed in time when cars experience bif understeer tendencies again.

[stefan_]

[PlatinumZealot]

what is that weird looking tank that the tubes are going into? It is made of titanium and carbon fibre...

[FrukostScones]

part of/radiator I think

[superdread]

what is that weird looking tank that the tubes are going into? It is made of titanium and carbon fibre...

Cooling reservoir?, as it is at the edge of the radiator.

[marcush.]

It definetely looks like the reservoir air spring of the water system .
those sidepods are a fair bit narrower ,are they?

[Pierce89]

Is their main plane almost designed to generate lift when DRS is activated? Looks from that angel as if the trailing edge is some bit lower than the leading edge.

In the picture it is hard to tell, but the black band at the trailing edge of the main plane reminds me of a gurney flap. I don't recall if such a thing is a allowed, or even advised as it would disrupt flow through to the upper plane.

Edit: After much closer inspection of the angle between the trailing edge and the centerline strake, that black band is just livery. No gurney flap.

No race car wing will produce lift. It creates drag just like DF does, so a neutral angle maybe, but definitely no lift. Indycars at Indy run wings at -10 degrees and still create DF rather than lift because the wings are cambered.

[superdread]

Is their main plane almost designed to generate lift when DRS is activated? Looks from that angel as if the trailing edge is some bit lower than the leading edge.

In the picture it is hard to tell, but the black band at the trailing edge of the main plane reminds me of a gurney flap. I don't recall if such a thing is a allowed, or even advised as it would disrupt flow through to the upper plane.

Edit: After much closer inspection of the angle between the trailing edge and the centerline strake, that black band is just livery. No gurney flap.

No race car wing will produce lift. It creates drag just like DF does, so a neutral angle maybe, but definitely no lift. Indycars at Indy run wings at -10 degrees and still create DF rather than lift because the wings are cambered.

Purely etymological lift is always a force upwards, but owing to symmetries the aerodynamic mechanisms are the same upside down so lift can be negative (i.e. downforce).

So when people talk of lift in relation to race cars they mean negative lift.

[CottrellGP]

Wow this is so detailed! beautiful!

[Forza]

This article should explain a thing or two about characteristics of Sauber C31.



Copyright: Sam Collins - RCE September

[Nando]

Hi, just one question. Saw an article about a company selling 1:8 models of several cars, including the Sauber C31.

Was just wondering why they have split up one part of the front suspension component?
(just by the bump on the nose)


Is it for aero or just packaging?