A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
This is the speculation thread about the 2018 car. Rumors, articles, ideas and fantasies about the car can be posted here. Once the car gets officially launched, this thread will be closed and discussion continues in the official thread.
Topic will be unlocked after the season finisher in Abu Dhabi.
I suppose the big question is whether they are actually going to go with a larger rake or not. If they do, will they also reduce the wheelbase? Imagine if they were able to get a high rake, long wheelbase car to work properly - the downforce margin over the rest of the field would, potentially, make the much-vaunted engine margin look infinitesimal.
I would imagine that moving to a high rake design will require a whole new set of barge boards and turning vanes too. A totally new car, in effect. Quite an exciting prospect when it is likely that most teams will just be evolving this year's designs to some degree.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
Think that's a question for many teams. I suspect that sidepod design (which basically looks like another wing in the middle of the car) generates a ton of downforce.
But I suspect a lot of the car will have to change/be adapted for a sidepod design like that.
From what I understand the suspension hit they took was the main reason they performed terribly, right? So now that they have more time, they can probably design a better system around the new aero.
After that, I think they're going to focus a whole bunch on following other cars. They've seen how much worse they are when stuck behind other cars. The risks presented by 3 PUs only coupled with the fact that Ferrari and RedBull can be expected to be close competition, means that the car must be able to follow and overtake beyond just PU grunt.
Think that's a question for many teams. I suspect that sidepod design (which basically looks like another wing in the middle of the car) generates a ton of downforce.
How would a element that has negative AoA create "tons of downforce"? Elements in this area is aimed on improving airflow, not produce downforce in it's own right.
If anything the Ferrari solution creates more lift, as it is more reliant of air going over the top of the sidepod.
Think that's a question for many teams. I suspect that sidepod design (which basically looks like another wing in the middle of the car) generates a ton of downforce.
But I suspect a lot of the car will have to change/be adapted for a sidepod design like that.
Lets wait and see.
The Ferrari concept is pushing the cooling air intake up as high as possible allowing more air flow under and around the side pods. This helps with down force production at the rear.
Rumor is, the W09 will be so long that its front end will be revealed in Barcelona, and its rear end will be revealed in Abu Dhabi.
Perhaps Gary and Ace will pilot the WO9?
On a serious note, Mercedes was playing around with different set-up ideas in the last two races. It appears they will go in a different direction. How much so is yet to be seen, obviously. I'm guessing a similar wheel base with more rake and a different barge board & front nose vane concept.
Toto said at Sky after the race that they'll stick with the long wheelbase and also at the start of the season told us high rake was setup was a no go for them, tough I presume it was a scenario having a short wheelbase into account. But I don't think they will adventure into unknown and will further dig dip into suspension area and especially into find another so called FRIC system ... In addition, Toto was saying that after Spa they run their PU in some conservative mode and I wonder how much power they will unlock after the winter and more of that had a 3 PU rule per season means a more robust PU hence more reliable therefore more time using high power modes settings in the race if not more output power ...
also at the start of the season told us high rake was setup was a no go for them
That was at the start of the season though. Since then they have learnt a lot about the car and we have been told the W08 was a bit of a diva and had an underline problem which needed fixing for next year. So I wouldn't rule it out now even if they are keeping the long wheel base (don't Force India run like that). Saying that, I think its something else they are looking at because I didn't notice a "high rake" with them in the last two races where they were testing something.
I think next years car will be an evolution of this years car. If you look at the poles and wins Merc took this year, they where still pretty dominant, they just had a harder time getting both cars to work well all the time.
I think the car will be a little shorter, and have a little more rake. For all we know the tire compounds for next year could work amazingly well for Merc, and they could be back to 4 and 5 tenthsfaster than everyone else again.
I would think it'd be easier to find another way to make the suspension do what they wanted at the start of the season rather than change their entire aero philosophy.
