Farnborough wrote: ↑16 Feb 2024, 22:13
The SF 23 was not a slow car last year, beating the RB on pure pace more than any other entrant.
Don't think they maximised it in competition, took some considerable time to understand how to get out of TD039 predicament, ultimately until last iteration of the floor etc toward the end of 2023.
Looked like they were still "stroking" PU software in combating 2022 mechanical reliability issues during initial phase of 23 too.
Pure and absolute pace was generally close to RB.....their own assessment seemed to intelligently, and with diligence, list and target primary areas of concern that they appeared to have verified quite thoroughly during 2023.
Sidepod and associated aero map, plus optimisation of rear suspension that they acknowledged was good (concern seems to be solely underfloor aero impact/volume) looks to be a very very solid development in evolving their car.
Casual observance of "why haven't they gone pushrod " seems a very crude and naive analysis by way of determination and projection of performance that we've all yet to see.
They seem set to offer the most evolved challenge they can to RB, I feel there is good room for more optimistic expectation.
I completely agree! The whole push/pullrod debate is completely exaggerated anyway and I think that's what Cardille was trying to say. At the end of the day, there is hardly any difference between pushrod and pullrod from a mechanical point of view, because each has its advantages and disadvantages that practically balance each other out.
Funnily enough, thanks to the great F1 media experts, nowadays everyone thinks Pullrod at the front and Pushrod at the back is the philosopher's stone, which is just nonsense. A pushrod suspension at the front pulls air in, a pullrod suspension pushes air out. To say that one or the other is better is simply wrong, because aerodynamically speaking it depends on the rest of the car which works better. Just as it always depends on the "whole machine". Things like weight and stiffness also play a role here. Not just one of them! And it always depends on what you need and where, and how to balance this in the best possible way.
A pullrod suspension at the rear moves the suspension components closer to the ground, lower the chassis of the vehicle, and lower the centre of gravity to improve efficiency in cornering, body-roll, and high-speed stability. So if you have enough downforce in the rear anyway and don't need more diffuser expansion, it's an excellent solution. It always depends on the machine as a whole. Always.
And how great the so-called F1 experts often are and how much you can put on what they say should be illustrated by an example:
they glorified the advantages regarding better ride height control of the Red Bull " anti-dive" pullrod front suspension and its platform control (which in reality is indeed there but here we are talking about very minimal advantages that also have disadvantages and again - it is a question of what is best for the whole machine and what is needed where - it is always a trade-off!). If we now think back to 2023 for a moment, a decisive factor was how low your ride heights were in the rear and how stable you could keep these low ride height here... so shouldn't it actually make a pullrod suspension much more necessary and advantageous on the rear axle as it gives you better plattform control where it is decisive? I think this example makes it clear what kind of, sorry, garbage all these so-called experts sometimes say and how little sense it sometimes makes!