How hard is it to make changes to the overall package to get the car to use its tires more effectively? Is it down to the chassis design? Or can minor adjustments be made from race to race?

druggernaut - 17 September 2008 02:16 PM

How hard is it to make changes to the overall package to get the car to use its tires more effectively? Is it down to the chassis design? Or can minor adjustments be made from race to race?

There are mutliple things that can be adjusted, spring rate, camber, swaybars (if they have one, some F1's don't), ride height, castor, toe and weight balance are some of the major ones. The aero package is also a big player in tire use.
The stiffer the car is in spring rate and roll the more "movement" it puts into the tire, the more work the tire does, the more heat it creates in the tire. A lot of the cars in F1, have very little suspension movement and uses the mostly the tire as it's suspension and creates high heat in the tires.

If you mean by Chassis design you mean the construction of the tub, it plays a role in how the tires are used, though the suspension design plays the bigger role in how the weight and movements are distributed to the tire. The majority of the changes to change the tire use from race to race, are by changing/adjusting the suspension and aero pieces for each track.

Thanks for the reply.

I bring up chassis design only because I recall the MP4-21 that Kimi was driving in 2006. I think it was originally designed to be used with one set of tires in each race. He had grip problems then as well, since the car was too gentle on its tires. I also find it intriguing that the Bridgestone/Ferrari relationship of the past has lost its competitive edge.

druggernaut - 18 September 2008 10:14 PM

Thanks for the reply.

I bring up chassis design only because I recall the MP4-21 that Kimi was driving in 2006. I think it was originally designed to be used with one set of tires in each race. He had grip problems then as well, since the car was too gentle on its tires. I also find it intriguing that the Bridgestone/Ferrari relationship of the past has lost its competitive edge.

When the tires were custom made for each team, it wouldn't be hard for Ferrari to get tires that heated faster or didn't require so much downforce to keep warm. That would be a significant advantage, being able to maybe run slightly less downforce or less camber or whatever to lower aero or mechanical drag. But now with spec tires, the teams have to bring their cars to the tires, not the other way around.

No one solution is perfect either. The Maclaren package seems to keep the tires warmer and works particularly well in rapid cooling conditions like light rain. Yet, there have been certain races where they could not risk using the option tire for very long because they were literally burning them off the car. Ferrari also had issues like that in the past, particularly last year burning off the rear tires before the fronts.

It is one of the best by-products of the single tire supplier rule, it has certainly helped to focus the competition as being between teams and their designs, rather than tire companies.

OwFanatik - 19 September 2008 05:26 PM

druggernaut - 18 September 2008 10:14 PM

Thanks for the reply.

I bring up chassis design only because I recall the MP4-21 that Kimi was driving in 2006. I think it was originally designed to be used with one set of tires in each race. He had grip problems then as well, since the car was too gentle on its tires. I also find it intriguing that the Bridgestone/Ferrari relationship of the past has lost its competitive edge.

When the tires were custom made for each team, it wouldn't be hard for Ferrari to get tires that heated faster or didn't require so much downforce to keep warm. That would be a significant advantage, being able to maybe run slightly less downforce or less camber or whatever to lower aero or mechanical drag. But now with spec tires, the teams have to bring their cars to the tires, not the other way around.

No one solution is perfect either. The Maclaren package seems to keep the tires warmer and works particularly well in rapid cooling conditions like light rain. Yet, there have been certain races where they could not risk using the option tire for very long because they were literally burning them off the car. Ferrari also had issues like that in the past, particularly last year burning off the rear tires before the fronts.

It is one of the best by-products of the single tire supplier rule, it has certainly helped to focus the competition as being between teams and their designs, rather than tire companies.

Aero downforce has less to do with keeping the tires in their "target" heat range than the suspension does, as aero affects the tire only as speed increases, by increasing the contact patch size. The suspension has to maintain the stablity at all speeds and through all changes in the contact patch size and is the "root" of applying heat (work) to the tire. The chassis construction (not including the suspension) and aero package take a back seat in approach for gaining the correct temp range in the tire.