How many teams will switch keel configurations ?

[Hondanisti]

With the new harder compounded , more flexible shoulder constructioned Bridgestone spec tire for 2007, how many teams do you think will switch their keel/suspension geometry layouts ?


In 2005, we had the test of harder compounded tires in which a Vkeel was the winner (Renault R25) but a zero-keeled chassis was considered the quickest (McLaren MP4-20).


Can you glean anything from 2006 ? Is emulating the Ferrari 248 F1 single keel layout worth pusuing since the tire construction may be similar despite having harder compound options ?


I can't wait to see how Adrian Newey approaches this new problem with the Red Bull RB3 since it was his concepts that got the most out of the MP4-20 in the 1 tire per race era and the same concepts (of being easier on the tires) may come into play again for next year .


Your thoughts ?

[DaveKillens]

Theory says no keels should yield superior performance. McLaren have almost proven this true, but never been able to turn theory into practice.
Meanwhile, the most easily dominant teams last year had nothing to do with zero keel. Ferrari had the single keel, and Renault the V keel.
So it really comes down to deciding promising theory against the harsh reality of something less sophisticated, but more practical and successful. Addditionally, using people, money, and time chasing this zero keel concept takes away from other fields of pursuit. Maybe that is one reason why McLaren just haven't been able to return to former glory.
I believe that teams already comitted to pursuing the zero keel will keep trying, and everyone else will stay with more conservative designs until proven otherwise.
This year, with everyone on basically the same tires, comparisons will be easier, and the weak and inferior concepts will be proven lacking.

[mini696]

One design variable does not make a car fast or slow. The keel layout does not determine the championship.

[Reca]

On the last week issue of Sportautomoto there’s an article saying that next year Ferrari will adopt the no keel approach.
Anyway, as I already posted here in the past, it’s quite normal for Italian press to make hypothesis like this one before the launch of the new car.
It’s more or less since 2002 that, according to press, “Ferrari next year car will adopt twin keel/no keel/v-keel/whatever” and till now they always kept single keel...

The “new” thing this year is the rumour started earlier than usual, typically they start in mid December more or less.

BTW, as mini696 said, the suspension’s configuration is just one of the thousands elements making a car a good one or a lemon. In 2005 the no keel McLaren looked like a killer, this year the no keel McLaren wasn’t exactly the best car ever.

Anyway an interesting thing I was wondering about when I read the article, Kimi in his career in F1 always raced with either twin keel or no keel.
Not that it means something, it's just curious.

[zenvision]

do you buy autosprint reca? I find it really informative especially about ferrari and normally get their predictions spot on.

[DaveKillens]

The car that almost carried Schumacher to a title last year was a very good car, but becoming dated. Michael Schumacher had such an influence on design that the car was built around his preferences. But now he's gone, and the ultra-refined Ferrari design is due for a complete makeover.
So it would be no surprise to me to see Ferrari trot out a car radically different than in previous years.

[RH1300S]

The car that almost carried Schumacher to a title last year was a very good car, but becoming dated. Michael Schumacher had such an influence on design that the car was built around his preferences. But now he's gone, and the ultra-refined Ferrari design is due for a complete makeover.
So it would be no surprise to me to see Ferrari trot out a car radically different than in previous years.

Oh dear, poor old Kimi...........

[G-Rock]

I agree with mini69. It's the overall package that will win in 07. Keel or no keel, each design is a comprimise.
It seems that the keel cars were more consistant in every race where as the no keelers were all over the place.
Maybe keeping that keel under there keeps the suspension working more efficiently which probably outweighs the aero benefits of the no keel.
I think the F1 weenies have made too much of it over the last 2 years. It's an easy one to debate and get ones panties in a knot over because it's highly visible.
Why doesn't anyone debate whether team A uses frontal pod winglets vs team B using rear and side side pod winglets for example. "Will Ferrari add a winglet under its front sidepod beside the driver for 07?"
It's the package we should be debating. That's what will decide the championship.
PS The Mclaren wasn't fast in 06 because of reliability and aero reasons. In 05 that was less of an issue, nothing to do with it's lack of keel. That would be a shallow assumption.

[Reca]

This year, with everyone on basically the same tires, comparisons will be easier, and the weak and inferior concepts will be proven lacking.

This is the main point indeed, the single tyre supplier will make situation different from recent years.
Till 2006 the “marriage” tyre-car was a two way road, the team was working to adapt the car to the tyre, but contemporarily the tyre supplier was working to adapt the tyre to the car, so they could meet somewhere in the middle.
In 2007 it will be a one way road, the tyre supplier will say “that’s the tyre, adapt the car to it”. From the teams it will be required more “flexibility” in term of car’s design, suspensions, weight distribution etc etc should be easily modifiable allowing a big range of settings so that they can optimise the car to the tyre.

do you buy autosprint reca? I find it really informative especially about ferrari and normally get their predictions spot on.

Yes I do, but, to be honest, it’s mainly tradition, I buy it since very long so even if often I’ve the temptation to stop, I somehow “can’t” do it. In the last few years I found that the quality continuously dropped, and even if there are interesting articles every now and then, many times it disappoints me a bit.

I find the other weekly, Sportautomoto, to be definitively better, I buy it since the 3rd or 4th issue in 2001 and it constantly improved in the years.
Then since a few months, when Piola switched from Autosprint (where he had less and less space) to Sportautomoto, the difference is even more evident.
In term of predictions they are more or less equal, meaning that they are often right and sometimes wrong, as it’s normal.
The only “problem” with Sportautomoto is the lower quality of paper, it’s more similar to a newspaper than a magazine so isn’t the best if you want to collect them.

Do you watch the race with Italian coverage in Malta ?

PS The Mclaren wasn't fast in 06 because of reliability and aero reasons. In 05 that was less of an issue, nothing to do with it's lack of keel. That would be a shallow assumption.

Which was precisely my point, success or failure isn’t down just to a single element.
Nevertheless, we can’t deny that in F1 often team’s design choices follow the trend set by the car that apparently the previous year looked like the best one (even if it didn’t win the WDC/WCC), it happens every year, monkey see monkey do. And that’s undoubtedly the case with the single keel, twin keel, no keel, in the recent years. How many cars in 2006 followed that path seeing that in 2005 the Mp4/20 used it ?
Obviously that’s something that happens mainly in small teams not having possibility to analyse deeply many solutions in design phase, hence take shortcuts (if they, the top team, adopted it, it means that it was the best solution so let’s work on it) with the hope to find the “jolly”, typically top teams prefer to follow a coherent evolutionary path based on the mass of data they accumulated in the years.

[zenvision]

do you buy autosprint reca? I find it really informative especially about ferrari and normally get their predictions spot on.

Yes I do, but, to be honest, it’s mainly tradition, I buy it since very long so even if often I’ve the temptation to stop, I somehow “can’t” do it. In the last few years I found that the quality continuously dropped, and even if there are interesting articles every now and then, many times it disappoints me a bit.

I find the other weekly, Sportautomoto, to be definitively better, I buy it since the 3rd or 4th issue in 2001 and it constantly improved in the years.
Then since a few months, when Piola switched from Autosprint (where he had less and less space) to Sportautomoto, the difference is even more evident.
In term of predictions they are more or less equal, meaning that they are often right and sometimes wrong, as it’s normal.
The only “problem” with Sportautomoto is the lower quality of paper, it’s more similar to a newspaper than a magazine so isn’t the best if you want to collect them.

Do you watch the race with Italian coverage in Malta ?

I must give Sportautomoto a quick look now, is it weekly? I always buy F1 Racing, and sometimes autosport and autosprint because I am not really interested in other series apart from maybe champ car and karting, but now that Kimi joined Ferrari I might buy autosprint more.

Yes I can watch races with italian coverage (Rai) and even british (ITV) and I dont know which is the best. Certainly Rai is more informative and doesnt have allen with his stupid commentary but then I like his voice. What really put me off Rai was their complete adulation for schumacher, i was repellant to that! On the other hand, I adore watching motogp on Italia 1 with guido meda, he's hilarious.

[Hondanisti]

Any racer will know from karting to autocrossing to SCCA nationals to the feeder lower formulas to F1 that the best integrated package determines the champion. I didn't need a lecture on that.

This was never in question when I posed this on a more advanced "F1 Technical" forum.


However, the keel layout does dictate suspension geometry and aerodynamics layout.

It's the foundation to the house.

Many things are derived from it. The first domino to fall in a chain of dominoes, if you will. It's selection is consequential to the layouts of various other items on the package.

If anything, one of the selection processes criteria by Schumi for Kimi over Alonso as a successor was his driving style (the fact that Alonso's manager was Briatore as a factor for Ferrari is something else we won't get into). The similarity between Schumi's driving style to Massa's and Kimi's goes a long way into integrative development with continuity. So a midcorner to late apex rotational oversteer driving style by Schumi, Kimi, and Massa compared to Alonso's go kart- like "fling it at the apex" driving style works well with that single keel-derived integrative package.


But if you don't believe mechanical grip outweighed aerodynamic grip this past year with the tire battle determining a larger part of the car's pace, especially from France onwards when the mass dampergate started, then, we don't have a discussion.

Next year, mechanical grip is off the table for development. You're stuck with what you get at the start of the year, like Charlie Brown on Halloween getting rocks in his trick or treat bag. Bridgestone isn't going to be rapidly developing those tires for more grip, one presumes.

So given that fact, again, we're back to what will be the best foundation platform starting point to build the suspension geometry and aero around with fixed tires and engines ? Your gain will come from suspension geometry developments to max out the harder Bridgestones and aero.


I really do wonder how many of the zero keel-based teams will concede and flip over to a Vkeel/Single keel , especially McLaren , now that Alonso is their primary driver.

[Hondanisti]

On the last week issue of Sportautomoto there’s an article saying that next year Ferrari will adopt the no keel approach.
Anyway, as I already posted here in the past, it’s quite normal for Italian press to make hypothesis like this one before the launch of the new car.
It’s more or less since 2002 that, according to press, “Ferrari next year car will adopt twin keel/no keel/v-keel/whatever” and till now they always kept single keel...

I'm sure their intimate relationship with Bridgestone gave them some insight as to whether they should follow the " if it ain't broken, why fix it ?" mentality and stick with the single keel platform or not.

The variable that is different from 2005 though is the shorter stint on harder compounds. That was Bridgestone's 2005 Achilles heel: going the full race distance. It was never the first laps performance.


Whether the 248 F1 based platform can still wring the most out of the tire within the 17-25 laps pit windows (for 3 stoppers on most circuits on harder compounds) will be seen.


Newey's MP4-20 was a zero keel designed with the center of gravity moved forward slightly (see issue 62 Race Tech Magazine's interview with Newey on the MP4-20 http://www.racetechmag.com/racetech/bac ... =16&menu=1 ) to make the weight distribution friendlier on rear tire wear. The integrated packaging there put tire degradation rate as a key factor in the design.

Will it be the same case with allowed pit stops in 2007? I doubt it. So whatever advantage the MP4-20 zero keel layout gave to the 1 tire/race rule in terms of bringing the tire temp up quickly without having rapid tire degradation won't be in play, right ?


So for Ferrari to flip from single to zero keel based on being "bitten" in 2005 and becoming "twice shy" for 2007 with harder compounds because of McLaren's success wouldn't be the correct rationale from my point of view.


However, should they decide to start with a clean sheet and go with a zero keel for 2007 as the Italian press predicts, they certainly have the right people in place for it since Nicholas Tombazis played a big part in penning the MP4-20.

[scarbs]

I don’t see how the keel layout has such a bearing on the hardness or type of tyre. Keel design is primarily an aerodynamic decision. The teams are still able to set the suspension geometry with either keel, any small compromises in geometry are offset by the aero gains.
In 2005 Ferrari struggled with a loss in aero performance as a result of the front wing and diffuser changes, as much as struggling with the tyres. Curiously someone cited Tombasis as a benefit to Ferrari in the keel debate, lets not forget Tombasis was long at Ferrari before he breifly joined McLaren.

[BreezyRacer]

I don’t see how the keel layout has such a bearing on the hardness or type of tyre. Keel design is primarily an aerodynamic decision. The teams are still able to set the suspension geometry with either keel, any small compromises in geometry are offset by the aero gains.
In 2005 Ferrari struggled with a loss in aero performance as a result of the front wing and diffuser changes, as much as struggling with the tyres. Curiously someone cited Tombasis as a benefit to Ferrari in the keel debate, lets not forget Tombasis was long at Ferrari before he breifly joined McLaren.

It's easier to sacrafice mechanical grip for aero with softer tire compounds. In any performance equation you have to get the tire to work before anything else. Also since these tires are going to be used at every track they are likely to be on stiff carcases, meaning they are unlikely to be "camber change" friendly.

It is possible that the carcase construction could be different for the softer compounds which might alter this conclusion.

The only reason everyone makes such a big deal over keel design is that's one of the obvious things someone can see. It's not that big of a deal.

[Hondanisti]

I don’t see how the keel layout has such a bearing on the hardness or type of tyre. Keel design is primarily an aerodynamic decision. The teams are still able to set the suspension geometry with either keel, any small compromises in geometry are offset by the aero gains.
...lets not forget Tombasis was long at Ferrari before he breifly joined McLaren.

What is the inherent flaw of a zero keel car at midcorner , non-steady state ?

Tire construction does not affect camber setting ?

Tombazis penned (or had a large part in doing so) the MP4-20, did he not ?