Back in 94, the penske teamed introduced the transverse gearbox into CART for the first time. Apparently it had significant adavnatages in aero packaging as well as CoG placement. It was so good that next season I believe that Reynard and Lola followed suit. Have F1 cars ever run such a configuration? It would seem that since CART and F1 are similar in many aspects that this would be a logical progression.
"I'll bring us through this. As always. I'll carry you - kicking and screaming - and in the end you'll thank me. "
The T in the name of the Ferrari 312T of 1975 means “Trasversale” as a reference to the transversal transmission. Several cars adopted it since then, in early ‘90s it was the most common solution, in ’94 12 of the 14 cars had a transversal gearbox, but then it was gradually abandoned mainly because the requirement is for a very slim Coke bottle so a longitudinal transmission is required. In ’98 only Williams used it and, AFAIK since ‘99 all the F1 gearboxes are longitudinal.
Simply it’s no more an advantage as previously was.
Since ’94, following the well known facts, FIA limited the length of the diffuser outside of the central section, imposing to stop it at the wheel centreline. As a consequence it was necessary to start the lateral channel a bit earlier and the presence of the transversal gearbox wouldn’t allow it, the lateral channel would be too short reducing the efficiency of the whole underfloor. Also, the slim rear end realizable thanks to the long gbox allows to increase the efficiency of the lower element of the rear wing and this has a strong influence on the diffuser efficiency.
About the advantage in term of cg uzael was referring to, actually I’m not sure that it still exists nowadays. Also with a long gbox the gears are inside the wheels (longitudinally) and the moment of inertia related with yaw is already small enough. Nowadays it’s more profitable to work to lighten the components increasing the available ballast than to modify the layout. Components layout and the consequent packaging are mainly driven by aerodynamics and a longitudinal gearbox, with current rules, is apparently the best solution.
The only small advantage I see for a transverse gearbox is that it could allow to reduce the distance between driver and rear wheel, but, also if this is one of the tendency of the recent years, I doubt the advantage would be enough to overcome the other disadvantages.
