weight distribution

[MRE]

F1 car's engine located at the rear of the car. This must cause the weight divide more to the rear wheel rather than the front wheel. The front and rear wings f1 cars generate downforce to both side, front and rear at the different amout of force. Does F1 cars has a good weight distribution, front and the rear? The engine cause the rear F1 cars heavier than the front .From my view,it is logic to get an extra force to the rear to enhance the traction between tyres to track surface.But doesn't this cause the car unstable while changing the direction at the high speed? Is this the cause that car spinning on the track while exiting the corner? Any comment or suggestion about this.

[pompelmo]

A F1 car is much lighter than is in the rule book!
That's why F1 cars have a lot of balast (appx. 120kg, lead weight), that is
distibuted at the front and the rear of the car!
This is how thay "make" the car stabile!

[sharkie17]

modern F1 cars are pretty much balanced so that it gives optimal weight distribution... however, there are more things to consider such as aero package which determines how much downforce is applied (depending on track they are racing on), desired driving characteristics (understeer or oversteer). also remember that under braking, weight will be transferred to the front on the car... which will also determine how the car handles.
there are so much element that i cant name them all.. im sure all the engineering guys on here can explain a LOT better than me.

[Monstrobolaxa]

Well yes a F1 car has the weigh pulled more to the rear then to the front....the numbers I've seen say that usually it's under 60% the weigh distibuition to the rear.

About the spinning well creating more downforce to the rear will stick the car to the surface of the road! The downforce won't create major unstability problems in have speed corners...the main problem is if you have to much weigh on the rear axle! Due to inercia mass tends to continue in the trajectory it had prior to the aplication of a force....so if you have a lot of weigh (cause by mass) on the rear axle it will tend to continue in a straight line when the car is turning into a corner....this may cause a spin.

About the ballast pompelmo talked about F1 cars have around 120 kg of ballast it varies from team to team depending on the car construction. But the ballast is made from Tungsten (in most cases) a few years back Jag used Depleted Uranium...but passed to Tungsten (it's safer). The ideal material would be gold (on of the densest non-radiation metals)....but it's too expensive. Lead (like pompelmo said) is to light when compared to tungsten. (for the same volume tungsten is 65% heavier). There was an intersting article on ballast in June's issue of RaceCar Engineering.

[Monstrobolaxa]

forgot to mention that aerodynamic downforce (weigh) will not upset the car too much because it does not have the influence of inercia, inercia is a physical condition that is only applied on mass!

[Guest]

I degress a bit.If the aero downforce centre of pressure moves fore and aft or sideways due to rideheight changes or the car going into yaw,it very well destabilizes the car turning understeer into oversteer rapidly ,or flipping the car over in extreme cases

[Monstrobolaxa]

Yes you are correct guest I didn't consider that parametre. My post was only aplicable on no-ride-height-variation conditions (though at the time I didn't remember that fact to be honest).

[West]

Well yes a F1 car has the weigh pulled more to the rear then to the front....the numbers I've seen say that usually it's under 60% the weigh distibuition to the rear.

About the spinning well creating more downforce to the rear will stick the car to the surface of the road! The downforce won't create major unstability problems in have speed corners...the main problem is if you have to much weigh on the rear axle! Due to inercia mass tends to continue in the trajectory it had prior to the aplication of a force....so if you have a lot of weigh (cause by mass) on the rear axle it will tend to continue in a straight line when the car is turning into a corner....this may cause a spin.

About the ballast pompelmo talked about F1 cars have around 120 kg of ballast it varies from team to team depending on the car construction. But the ballast is made from Tungsten (in most cases) a few years back Jag used Depleted Uranium...but passed to Tungsten (it's safer). The ideal material would be gold (on of the densest non-radiation metals)....but it's too expensive. Lead (like pompelmo said) is to light when compared to tungsten. (for the same volume tungsten is 65% heavier). There was an intersting article on ballast in June's issue of RaceCar Engineering.

Lead is also too soft; an F1 car's loading might deform it.

Racecar engineering said 48/52 was an optimal (if not "the" optimal) weight distribution, because a little more in the back will help traction. There's a lot more I don't know.

[ajg1030]

MRE- You are letting speed confuse you. Weight and aero are used for 2 different speeds. Forget aero for a minute. Weight (Static weight) distribution is for mechanical traction. This is traction at speeds too slow for aero to be real effective. So when you weight the rear you give traction to the rear tires to accelerate. When you break the weight shifts from the rear to the front of the car. Greater traction at the front wheels to slow the car down and or turn into the corner. Too much weight shift to the front will cause the rear to loose too much traction and can cause power-off oversteer. Basically the rear brakes loose and the car spins.
This is usually caused by too much rake in the setup. too much ballast in the front of the car can cause this too. Under braking the front is under BUMP and the rear suspension in rebound. While this is very minimal in F1 today it is still there. These are all the effects of Mechanical grip or loss of it.

Aero is at higher speeds. it pushes or pulls the car down on the track. the faster you go the more force is exerted on the chassis. Thus at speed the whole suspension will be in BUMP. the contact patch will spread and the car will squat. If there is more force on the rear than the front then the car will tend to understeer, cause the rear tires will want to go straight. So if the force of the rear tires traction is greater than the force of the front tires pulling the car away from the straight line then the front tires will loose and the car will understeer.
The opposite holds true as well. Now if you enter a high speed corner with too little rear downforce then the car will be twitchy. It will want to spin or rear slide. Its rare for a driver to continue to turn the car into the corner when the rear starts to slide unless they are asleep or stupid.
The other reason would be if the rear aero has a catastophic failure (becomes detached) in the corner or the rear suspension fails. Either way the rear tires have to loose all traction with the surface of the road violently to cause the car at high speed to just spin.