Formula 1 2000 Cars: Technical Novelties!

Hi everyone!

The season is only five weeks away and the teams are introducing their new championship-contenders one by one.

I would like to invite you to examine the new cars carefully and post here all the technical novelties you come up with, so we can get a better view of the development the engineering-teams have worked out to blast the competition away.

My first one is something about the all-new BAR of which I saw a picture taken from above in the German magazine "Rallye Racing".

The front wishbone of the front sudpension is as with the rest of the field wide, flat and a little wing-shaped.
The BAR-version is carved backwards in a horizontal plane like this: ")".
As it is sufficiently difficult too make those light as well as thin and flat without compromising the overall rigidity it got me a bit puzzled.
Do they want to use it as a kind of second spring if it has a certain predictable reduction of rigidity under load?

I am curious about your observations and comments, so please shoot!

Dino IV.

I would say that the BAR front top wish bone was shaped like that for packaging reasons. Not for a performance gain.
I think suspension has to be rigid so that the movement is controled by the dampers and can be adjusted, you cant adjust the rate of a wishbone and it would vary due to manufacturing methods

Sometimes straight bits are built with a slight bend or curve so they will absorb energy in a shunt, or to direct the deformity in a certain direction, as in a roll-cage.

Maybe?

If a wishbone bends while being used as hoped (not damaged in an accident) the change to toe-in and camber will be disasterous. I don't believe this component would ever be made to be anything but entirely rigid. The strength of it's mounting points may be decided upon for purposes of crash characteristics. The curved shape is most likely for aerodynamic purposes.

However, as you suggest NeilC, maybe it would be weak primarily when affected by an extremely high force from the front. Breakaway mountings for the wishbone would be risky-remembering what happened to Senna.

The assumption of a possible valuable non-rigidity was a longshot, I have to admit.

The McLarens same wishbone is also curved but just slightly, the BAR one is trully banana-shaped. The manufacturing problems let alone keeping weight as low as possible in creating such a shape for a component, which has to be as rigid as possible solely for aerodynamic reasons, seems hard to believe.

Found the pic on the net.

http://www.britishamericanracing.com/AllPhotos/By600/BG6Q9248.jpg

Well this is way larger than in the magazine and solves it a bit, seeing the wishbone curving around the pushrod.
Obviously it's worth the effort to keep the front attachmentpoints as close to pushrod attachment as possible.

[This message has been edited by Invader (edited 07 February 2000).]

Thanks for the nice picture!

I understand that several F1 teams will be using very advanced electronic ignition this year.
Adrenaline Research http://www.adrenalineresearch.com
have produced an ignition system that uses a CDi system to trigger the spark to jump the plug gap and a radio/microwave channel induced 100A pulse to ride the spark.
It is supposed to be able to fire 22:1 air:fuel ratios and produce 3-5% more power at optimal ratios.
It was a bit pricey for my Grp1 RX7 at $50,000, but for 15-30bhp in F1 this is small beer.
Spoke to a radio ham/elec eng friend of mine, who said concept is OK, packaging would be the hard bit.

IanC

Ian,

I know you would like an interest in this product but instead of advertising it why not explain what it does and why its useful. Remember NO ADVERTISING!!!!!!!!!! ;)

Peter,
Be Fair!
Few people here:
i) Would be interested in purchasing a $50,000 ignition pack
ii) Would be allowed to use this setup in their tech regs.

I have NO association with the company, but thought people might be interested in a new application of technology.

I gave a brief description, but the rest is outside my tech. base, therefore I posted the URL for thsoe who are interested.

;-)
IanC

Mr Yeli,

Fair? How about reasonable? ;)

Actually I think we'd genuinely like to understand the product and the way it works. You may be able to put the info into words of one syllable for the rest of us. BTW. How many shares have U got in this one then??? ;) ;) ;)