Ferrari's Longer Wheelbase = Lack of Overtaking Ability ???

[beerbellybob]

Just fishing for technical info on how longer wheelbases affect performance. Saw some complaints about lack of technical threads and so thought this would be the right time to post.

What I was thinking was while a longer wheelbase might be ideal in terms of outright speed, maybe just maybe its not so good for tighter cornering required on twisty circuits and for overtaking. Wonder if this could be the reason for Massa's and even to a certain extent Raikonnen's lack of overtaking ability this season (though its still early times).

Lets not bring in aero-overtaking issues and front wings losing downforce, I am aware of those already. Just looking at wheelbases and how they affect overtaking ability. Suspect it will have a greater impact on low to medium speed corners.

Also if I'm not mistaken the other team having bad problems is Honda. Maybe a combination of a relatively long wheelbase and their lack of understanding of the Bridgestones.

How does Renault's wheelbase compare to Ferrari, McLaren and Honda? I know wheelbase info has been posted somewhere on this forum but am too lazy to find it.

What I am getting at ultimately is whether Ferrari will struggle through the season on circuits with predominantly low and medium speed corners, especially in the event that they are out-qualified by other teams. Do you think it will significantly affect them championship wise?

P.S. Of course I am arrogantly assuming that my reasoning is at least mildly accurate.

[Carlos]

Overall these 3 links offer insight into vehicle dynamics related to wheelbase, track and suspension. The first 2 links are by the noted Lotus F1 designer, Peter Wright - partly concerning the interesting compromises of 1997>9 chassis dimensions and the effect on chassis balance. These articles are from the years when new rules dictated what we have today in F1 design - with some alterations due to the latest regulations.

"99 F1 - wheelbase/ track ratio - 3rd Paragraph

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft00320.html

98 F1 - wheelbase/track relationship 5th paragraph

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft00289.html

Reading the entire articles offer more insight. The final link is interesting as it discusses suspension design, which combined with wheelbase and track adds to explaining chassis balance - using FSAE as a platform.

http://campus.umr.edu/fsae/library/sae_ ... epaper.pdf

1 Edit

[Carlos]

This was my first exposure to long and short wheelbase handling characteristics. - the year was 1966.
Back in the day when only the birds and bees had wings - wheelbase had 2 schools of thought - but every Gran Prix team considered widetrack indespensible. Imagine no aero and you could actually look under a car and see somones ankles. It was the first year of the 3 litre formula. A long wheelbase car with soft suspension produced stability in highspeed corners with very litle oversteer. Jack Brabham snookered everyone that year with the very short wheelbase BT19, said to be based on his Formula 2 car. Brabham was known for being very aggressive. slipping and sliding, dancing on the edge of traction - the shortwheelbase car had a very fast turn in and oversteered a lot, which suited his driving style - he did a lot of opposite lock sliding through corners. He won the first championship of the 3 litre formula, it may have also been the reliability of his engine - the Repco which was derived from the American Oldsmobile F85 block, which Wikipedia says he bought for L22 each shortblock, that's about 60USD?- very economical team owner. F1 expenses have risen a bit over the years, did they ever use that engine in NASCAR?

http://www.ddavid.com/formula1/brab.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT19

Edit April 15th:
@Ted68 - Some great motors!
@Mep - I'll see if I can find some more of those reviews.

[checkered]

I seem to recall that

in 1999 many teams took a page from McLaren's playbook. They, in turn, had lengthened the wheelbase in 1998 in response to the narrower car and grooved tyres and enjoyed a particularly strong start to that season. I also remember some in-car comparisons showing just how uneventfully Hakkinen brought his car through fast corners, as some other drivers seemingly had a cockpit full of hands. I timidly tried to suggest that perhaps Ferrari had reacted in a similar fashion this year in anticipation to the harder Bridgestones, but perhaps that's an oversimplification.

Was reading up on the BT19, too ... quite an incredible project. Some site listed the price for the Oldsmobile blocks being £11 apiece. Of course that was when money still had buying power, I wouldn't know what "real world value of 2007" would correspond to that. Maybe there's an internet converter for that, too? Nothing really factual to add to that (t'was before my time), except for a quote from Wikipedia, Brabham himself talking about the car: "The BT19 was beautifully balanced and I loved its readiness to drift through fast curves." Seems like the shortness of one's wheelbase is a state of mind ... There's also a slight reference to aerodynamics in the Wiki article - I imagine applying such arts were close to state secrets at that time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT19

And here's an image from the 1966 Dutch GP, just to se the mood (linked via http://www.jackbrabham.com/ )

[Tp]

The reasoning behind the Ferrari having a longer wheelbase is an aerodynamic one. Instead of mechanically adjusting the weight distribution about the car, they looked at increasing downforce at the rear of the car thus reducing the amount of sliding at the rear, which in turn reduces the wear rate.

So with this in mind, you could say the aerodynamics play a more fundamental role with the F2007's performance, especially how it uses it's rear tyres. So being in the 'dirty air' of the other car, would hamper the aerodynamics, which in turn would affect the car's performance, more so than any other.

That’s my take on it anyway.

[mx_tifoso]

The reasoning behind the Ferrari having a longer wheelbase is an aerodynamic one. Instead of mechanically adjusting the weight distribution about the car, they looked at increasing downforce at the rear of the car thus reducing the amount of sliding at the rear, which in turn reduces the wear rate.

So with this in mind, you could say the aerodynamics play a more fundamental role with the F2007's performance, especially how it uses it's rear tyres. So being in the 'dirty air' of the other car, would hamper the aerodynamics, which in turn would affect the car's performance, more so than any other.

That’s my take on it anyway.

So if your "take on it" is correct, last weekend's results for Ferrari are rather explainable, to a certain extent. Because by being in "dirty air" for pretty much the entire race, their performance was hampered, in addition to driver mistakes and/or engine limitations on a certain drivers car.

[Ted68]

@Checkered: According to S. Morgan Friedman's Inflation Calculator, $60.00 in 1966 would be $370.61 in 2006.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

@Carlos: In 1966 Ford was running the bad ass 427 Hi-Rise motor, Chevy the then new porcupine head Mark I big block 427, Dodge/Plymouth the legendary 426 Hemi, Pontiac it's 421 Super Duty, Buick had the 425 Wildcat Nailhead and Olds ran the Rocket 425.

Thats why the brilliant little aluminum 215 (3.5 litre) V-8 Brabham used never succeded in America. It was too small back then. Even when Turbocharged in 1964!

Rover (British-Leyland later) then bought the tooling dirt cheap and it was in the 3500 sedan of 1966(?) and eventually in the Vitesse and Triumph Stag and TR-8 of the seventies. In the 90's Range Rover even had it re-engineered by Callaway as the H.E. series and TVR used it in it's wedge series cars, including one of my favorites the 420 SE/AC. Not bad for a failed motor!


Back on topic...If the long wheelbase and aerodynamics argument is correct, what about Massa going from the back of the pack to a points finish in Melbourne? And Kimi had no trouble passing cars as he lapped them in traffic. I think McLaren just flat beat them in Malaysia. Bahrain practice is in six hours and we'll see what happens there. But Melbourne looked like Ferrari will have no problem posting another win quickly and has again put out quite a good car.

[segedunum]

So if your "take on it" is correct, last weekend's results for Ferrari are rather explainable, to a certain extent. Because by being in "dirty air" for pretty much the entire race, their performance was hampered, in addition to driver mistakes and/or engine limitations on a certain drivers car.

Not really. Massa was clean through on Hamilton on at least two occasions - he just didn't turn into the corner. In Raikkonen's case they'd totally compromised the power of his engine by turning it down, particularly as they were a tad worried about cooling. As a result, Raikkonen never got as close as Massa did. By the time he'd got close to Hamilton it was already the end of the straight and he could do nothing.

[wazojugs]

The problem of overtaken has been made more trickier due to the change in the tyre regulations, teams are now having to use more upper body appendages to get more downforce to work the new generation of tyres harder.

There has been more of a use for the aero devices since the FIA reduced the dimensions on the diffuser. Since then passing has been made harder due to the amount of turbulant aire flow coming from the cars upper body apendages.

When you need to do is cut back on the amount of aero devices on the cars bodywork, i think bargeboards cooling chiminys and winglet on the sidepods should be elimninated or made very smallso that they have only a few kgs of downforce. The diffusers dimensions dimensions should be increased and we go back to big slicktyres which give more mechanical grip and are aero inefficient.


then we have more overtaking

[Tp]

I agree with you Wazojugs, the only problem is the cars will start to look quite similar, and all the fans interested in technical part of F1, you, me and the rest of the members on the forum, will have less to talk about. Because lets face it, the aero devices, as well as being the most visible are also one of the most updated parts of the car. But although they are a talking point, like you said they reduce the amount of overtaking.

The only way they (FIA) could get around this, is allow the F1 teams more freedom in their designs. So it's the best of both worlds.

........................................................................................................

Don't know if any one heard what James Allen said about the Ferrari's performance in traffic, that 'The F2007 is more extreme on cooling, thus unable to follow a car as well as a Mclaren.' Now, this goes against what I was saying.

My argument against James Allen is this, did you see the Ferrari moving on the other side of the track to get cool air, through to the radiators, or at least back off, to reduce the risk of engine failure? I for sure didn't.

[mep]

Very nice articles Carlos.
Are there more fore the other years( 2000-07)?
I tried to find them but failed.

Can anybody explain the principle behind the best wheelbase/track dimension?
(Or post links)

Copying the dimension from the most successful team is one
way to get quickly a competitional car
but to be the best you have to understand the rules who stands behind it.

[Carlos]

@Checkered - Looking at Jack Brabham's hands in that picture - it looks like he's cranking in a bit of reverse lock and his line make it appear he's drifting nicely

Long wheelbase vehicle dynamics:

http://www.sae.org/automag/techbriefs_9-99/05.htm

Interestingly f1technical has a lot of clout - this thread made the 3rd page of my Google search-
Out of, probably 50 G-pages - although I only glanced at 4

These people are obviously the ones to consult on this engeering question

http://www.prodrive.com/level3.html?id=4

Mep - There's a long list of interesting articles, just search Peter Wright at the top of that page at Grandprix.com

[bizadfar]

So if your "take on it" is correct, last weekend's results for Ferrari are rather explainable, to a certain extent. Because by being in "dirty air" for pretty much the entire race, their performance was hampered, in addition to driver mistakes and/or engine limitations on a certain drivers car.

Not really. Massa was clean through on Hamilton on at least two occasions - he just didn't turn into the corner. In Raikkonen's case they'd totally compromised the power of his engine by turning it down, particularly as they were a tad worried about cooling. As a result, Raikkonen never got as close as Massa did. By the time he'd got close to Hamilton it was already the end of the straight and he could do nothing.

If massa took your advice, he would've spun in the middle of the track. It's clear from the onboard he was losing rear grip under braking (hence the correction, and the running wide...)

I agree with you Wazojugs, the only problem is the cars will start to look quite similar, and all the fans interested in technical part of F1, you, me and the rest of the members on the forum, will have less to talk about. Because lets face it, the aero devices, as well as being the most visible are also one of the most updated parts of the car. But although they are a talking point, like you said they reduce the amount of overtaking.

The only way they (FIA) could get around this, is allow the F1 teams more freedom in their designs. So it's the best of both worlds.

........................................................................................................

Don't know if any one heard what James Allen said about the Ferrari's performance in traffic, that 'The F2007 is more extreme on cooling, thus unable to follow a car as well as a Mclaren.' Now, this goes against what I was saying.

My argument against James Allen is this, did you see the Ferrari moving on the other side of the track to get cool air, through to the radiators, or at least back off, to reduce the risk of engine failure? I for sure didn't.

james Allen is a twat and doesn't know --- (It's good when he asks questions and Martin answers them). But yea most of his technical comments are rubbish to me.



On to wheelbase:

Isn't there a rumour (or ferrari themselves said?) that there will be new rear suspension geometry or have they already implemented that? I think it is something that will benefit greatly from longer wheelbase.

[Carlos]

Another PDF on vehicle dynamics Edit
http://www2.ee.ic.ac.uk/cap/publication ... lt_pap.pdf

[Tp]

Isn't there a rumour (or ferrari themselves said?) that there will be new rear suspension geometry or have they already implemented that? I think it is something that will benefit greatly from longer wheelbase.

They'll have the rear suspension updated at Barcelona. Along with the other updates; front wing and suspension, barge boards, diffuser and the engine cover.