Hi! Can you explain what it means for a car to have a loose rear? I know it makes it more oversteery but was wondering why certain drivers prefer it. I know Vettel and Verstappen have mentioned they do and the Red Bull is known to have an especially loose rear. Thank you!
Hi!
I’m so sorry this has taken me so long to answer, I’ve had various issues with my computer and I needed diagrams to be able to show so in the end I drew them (apologies)
If people are interested I’ll do a more in depth post once I get my computer working properly.
This is a very basic difference of oversteer and understeer, oversteering is the tendency of a car's rear to slip out in mid-corner, turning front of the car to much in the corner. Understeering is the lack of responsiveness of the car's front in turning into a corner
As you can see (in the first picture) the rear of the car gradually starts to step out on entry into the corner, before stepping out completely at the apex.
A car with a loose rear end is one that naturally leans towards over steering, with the rear often stepping out in certain corners.
The Red bull has always been characteristically quite oversteery and loose in the rear especially later cars, the SF1000 (2020 Ferrari) too - drivers like Max, Fernando, Lewis and Charles have all been quite suited at handling a car with a loose rear, and in a lot of cases this set up provides the best results. But not many drivers prefer to drive this way as it’s quite risky to be so on the edge
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So with the low rake vs high rake thing is it known who the new regulations will suit better?
Not really and anything will be pure speculation.
The car above shows a high rake concept whilst the one below shows a neutral rake
Initially with the floor changes that were made prior to the 2021 season, it was believed that they would suit the lower rake cars better, but it turned out in testing that the higher rake cars were stronger, and whilst the low rake ones had good straight line speed, the high rake ones could induce more downforce.
For 2022 on paper it seems as though lower rake is more preferable but more of the middle ground between high and low rake. So the teams that have more of an experience with lower rake design should be in a stronger position.
But also these engineers are incredibly talented so I’m sure that they can figure out how to maximise different design principles.
With ground effect you don’t want a car that is completely parallel to the track, as you still want air to be sucked under the front wing, so the car needs to have some rake but not high rake.
A higher rake car will make the Venturi tunnels less effective and air could escape from the sides of the car. They want to keep the car as close to the floor as possible in order to seal in that air.
Hi Al! Hope you won't mind me ask a basic question. I never see people really be worried about sparks from the bottom of the car. Doesn't it mean they are damageing the floor? The redd bulls won't even have a floor by the end of the weekend from the looks of it. Or is it just superficial damage that doesn't matter?
Hi, so the cars have something called a skid block. These titanium skid blocks are embedded in the 'legality plank' on the underside of the car.
Basically the legality plank is there to impose a minimum ground clearance and limit the use of ground effects.
Aerodynamic forces cause the titanium to spark when the cars are pressed down onto the track at high speeds.
But short answer the sparks don’t harm the car, some cars spark more than others because of the set up, and it’s not the floor itself scraping on the floor and causing the sparks.
That’s the legality plank (the wooden looking part), it’s slightly lower than the rest of the floor of the car.
Yeah this is from the technical delegates report, that’s a lot of changes, it’s looking like new engine components will likely have to be taken later on in the season.
It was likely a very late night for all the mechanics as well so they’ve done a good job to get it done.
So you see the little black collar and headrest - that’s the HANS, it stands for Head and Neck Support and it’s a system that consists of a carbon fibre shoulder collar which is secured under the driver's safety belts and connected to his helmet by two elastic straps.
It essentially stops the drivers head from moving around too much in the car and is intended to prevent stretching of the vertebrae and also to prevent the driver’s head from hitting the steering wheel in a crash.
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How does this work? There is no penalty for this?
Hi anon;
That is really interesting thanks for sharing that; honestly being at my parents for this weekend has been quite helpful as I got to discuss this with my dad and he got as confused as I did.
After taking a look at the regulations it’s likely because it’s still within his 3 engine allowance and certain things can be changed under parc ferme conditions if it is for safety reasons. They’ve changed like for like and as such it is allowable in the regulations, but it is an interesting situation.
Hi, I'm sorry if you already answered this question, if you have please ignore it and I will continue to try and find it somewhere :) but! Do you know why Silverstone is the track which is "bad" for the tyres? Why the tyres have a hard time there?
Hi anon,
Silverstone is an interesting circuit as it is a high downforce circuit which increases tyre wear as the tyre is being physically pushed into the track surface, but it’s also one of the fastest tracks on the calendar and has a lot of high speed corners (where the driver is simultaneously accelerating and turning) which increases the lateral loading on the tyres.
The track is also quite abrasive, typically it’s the tyre wear that’s a killer at Silverstone rather than tyre degradation (the physical heat cycles of the tyre causing it to break down in a linear process) but when the track surface is hot, like it is this weekend you get the combination of high tyre degradation and high tyre wear.
There is also a lot of quick right hand corners which can put additional strain on the front left tyre but overall it’s purely the speed of the cars through these corners that destroy the tyres, hence why they are being slowed down this year.
On which tracks does talent make a huge difference?
Hi anon, this is such a great question.
When talking about tracks in F1 you will often hear the term “driver track” which means that the driver is what makes the difference between a good result and a great one.
Usually some street tracks like Monaco, Baku and Singapore fall into this category as they are physically challenging tracks for the drivers being quite tight, as well as it being harder to keep the car at the limit.
But also some of the more old school style of tracks are also seen as driver centric tracks such as Spa, Monza, Silverstone and Suzuka.
The main features are usually a variety of corner types, some sort of elevation change and a unique characteristic, the main thing with these types of track is that the driver needs to be able to really trust the car to be able to lean on it and push it to the absolute limit to get those extra few hundredths and tenths of a second.
