Agreed. I think we have the same picture in mind and are just approaching it from different perspectives.ringo wrote: True, but the diffuser cannot be tuned or setup. Therefore it's not a variable, your variable over a weekend is your suspension. And this what limits your aerodynamic performance.
One example is ride height dependence. Remeber when during winter testing they ran the car too low?
That's an example of mechanical limitation which expanded the aerodynamic envelop.
You are starting from the Team's setup options, whereas I'm starting from the engineering perspective, re cause and mitigation.
The logic is in fact somewhat circular indeed as the aerodnamic consequences of the variation of the mechanical setup will practically limit their mechanical setup options regarding stiffnes.That's some circular logic there. You went from mechanical to aero to mechanical.
agreed.Put it this way, if your car has good aero, it will be consistently good. A team that has no money to do any updates will be able to setup the mechanical to get a good balance on any track. The aerodynamics will still give the same performance regardless of the track. What you find is the suspension setup that is changed more often than not.
And one setup doesn't work well on all tracks. But one aero package can work well on all tracks (with the exception of Monza and Monaco)
I agree in so far as the effect of the suspension on today's generation of tires does indeed seem not to be really well understood (at least not by all probably or rather even most teams).Suspension is not better understood. It is also more dificult to do repeated tests on it. Aero has more controls.
The effects of suspension stiffnes and spring/damper rates on traction and general track performance on the other hand should be well understood after decades of work in this area.
