Formula 1 Set-up
“In motor racing, including Formula 1, you must always reach a compromise between the various settings which affect the performance of the car. There is no clearly defined procedure that will allow you to find the most effective setup in a scientific and dependable way”
Ayrton Senna from his book “Principles of Race Driving”
"The aim of a driver and his team in setting up the car is to ensure that the tyres operate in the best possible conditions. Only in this way will a tyre, which is one of the fundamental components of a Formula1 car, perform to the limit of its potential"
Ayrton Senna from his book" Principles of Race Driving"
"To assist in the process of setting up the car for a circuit a driver has to use all his powers of concentration. First of all, he has to tackle each corner in three stages. Then, once he has to establish reference points and the correct racing line, he should try to stick to them as closely as possible. Varying the line from one lap to the next alters the cars behavior and creates extra problems. As soon as a driver has got to grips with a circuit, he should be able to complete a lap in the same fashion time after time. If each lap follows the same pattern, the driver is better able to analyze events objectively. Indeed, such consistency makes the driver a reference point himself. This requires much attention to detail, but by maintaining the same procedure for lap after lap you become a good test driver"
From "Competition Driving" by Alain Prost and Pierre-Francois Rousselot
“I believe that my personal speed – compared with the drivers I’ve driven with, because it’s only those guys I can compare myself with - may come from what you do out of your possibilities. I believe that pure speed isn’t always the point; it’s what you manage to get out of your potential. And that’s where I’ve always been very successful. You know, really working deep with the team, maximizing my possibilities.”
Michael Schumacher during an interview with “ F1 Racing” magazine January 2000
I understand some of you are quite knowledgeable in this field and know how to setup race cars of your own. I also understand some of you have your own understanding of how to setup a car. Most people haven't heard of it yet and some have, but choose to stick with the methods they know, or think that they know, which is fine. I also want to point out that there is no ideal metod of seting up the car. Whether they all work same good is another question.
Each of this items are explained on separate pages of this site more in-deep, but here are put together to explain car setup. Must be noted that all of explained setup items interact with each other and changing one will induce different handling of the car, and can be counteracted with some other item. If, for example, car is "born" with some understeer, you can change it with suspension setup, tire pressure or aero setup. That depends of driver preferences, track characteristics or any other reason.
Sometime team become desperate in looking for perfect setup, and can be lost in all different possibilities. In this case is the best (and sometime only possible) to go back to the beginning, on "default" setup, and start again (if there is enough time), or try to copy setup of team mate and adjust it a bit to his own preferences.
Setup in Formula One is a bit of a tricky task. As the racing technology keeps improving, so the setups become more complex. Plus, driving style of each driver is linked to setups and that fact adds to complication. By that I mean that any minimal changes you make to the car will have an effect on the track handling.
Therefore "extreme" setup solutions rarely work. The key philosophy in creating a setup is to always to seek a compromise. The second, and equally important factor in creating a good setup, is the use of telemetry.
Preparations for race are long and difficult process involving all team for hours and hours, and using huge amount of data from tests, wind tunnel, computer simulations and previous years of racing. Drivers, with help of racing engineer trying to get the most from car they have. They will try to achieve that with changing and adjusting different settings on different parts of the car. Setting they will change can generally be divided in two categories: mechanical or aerodynamical. But, most often, if not always, combination of both.
Tires
Tires are one of the most complex element of setup. Also, they will have the most visible and dramatic effect on handling. Think about it, tires are the only part of the car touching the ground. An interesting fact is that the contact area of each tire is more or less equal to the area of your palm. So this gives you an idea of the incredible grip properties of the compounds.
The theory of tire pressure is as follows: Higher pressures give you increased responsiveness while lower pressure, a higher maximum grip potential. As you increase the pressure, the tire becomes more rigid, thus deforms less when you turn the wheel. The contact patch stays high, and the car turns sharply. Keep increasing the pressure, and the tire starts to form an "U" shape. This means that only the middle part of the tire is touching the ground, and there is a significant loss of grip. With higher pressure tires will reach working temperature slower, causing bad grip in first few laps.
Lower pressure does exactly the opposite. It makes the car react more slowly. This is because of tire squirm. Squirm happens when you turn the wheel. Since the tire is slightly "loose", as the wheel turns, the contact patch tends to stay in its original position. The tire actually twists, so in front tires it will give you understeer. The flipside is that this tendency for the contact patch to remain in its current position means that you get a slight increase in road holding. Continue to reduce the pressure and the tire begins to hollow in the middle, again reducing the contact patch and reducing overall grip. With lower pressure tires will reach working temperature faster. So, compromising is the key!
Height of the body
The body height is the part of the suspension geometry setup. However its changing is influencing aerodynamic settings. Ride height is the distance between the car and the ground. As car goes faster, the lower pressure air presses below the car, lowering it further. So by manipulating ride height you can turn the car itself into a wing. The engineer wants a ride height to be as low as possible. There are two reasons for that. A lower car has a lower center of gravity, giving it better handling. The second is ground effects. The concept of ground effects is this: As the car passes through the air, some of it goes over the car (and onto the rear wings) while some of it goes below the car. Due to the specific shape of the underbody and diffuser, the air that travels below the car goes faster than the air above. This creates low pressure below the car, causing the higher pressure over the car to create an additional downforce. This suction causes downforce without any drag penalty. Therefore it's very, very efficient. This low-pressure downforce increases as the ride height decreases. This is why we want to run the car as low to the ground as possible without drastically affecting plank wear. Ride height is initially dictated by spring rates, which themselves are selected for handling characteristics. Then the cars rideheight is fine-tuned by the ride-height adjustments on the suspension push or pull rods. Basically, you want to have front and rear ride high values as low as possible, while trying to maintain the two values as close as possible. Remember! The front ride height must always be lower than the rear ride height! Bay the way, remember Bernouly?
Brakes and Brake Bias
Formula 1 cars do not use power assists within the braking system. The driver requires a very high degree of "feel" fed back through the system in order for him to modulate the brakes; modulation being the minute adjustment of pressure to prevent wheel lock-up. Wheel lock-up is undesirable, however since optimum braking is the nth degree prior to lock-up, we do experience locked wheels from time to time. Especially when driving in anger! It should be noted though, increased brake system oil pressure also increases the brake wear rate. It is best to increase pressure and regulate your braking technique to decrease brake wear. This way, you can tap the full potential of the braking system at those moments when needed, such as a late braking pass.
Since the performance of a Formula 1 car is based on it's ability to exploit weight transfer , it is necessary to alter the braking balance of the car. When we alter the braking balance, we're merely shifting the force of the brakes so as half the car experiences more stopping power to the wheels than the other. The half we always shift towards is the front for the simply reason that weight transfers to the front under braking. We compensate because without this shift in bias, the transfer tends to makes the rear tires less tractable.
Brake bias is the question of purely driver preference. Before race, engineer and driver make some general decisions, but brake bias can be changed from steering wheel in some degrees during the race. Most drivers like bias to be set to 55/45 % to front wheels. As you hit the brakes, weight is transferred from the rear to the front of the car. Thus the front brakes must do more of the work. However, since the front wheels are smaller than the rear wheels, they require less force to lock up the wheels.
So having a brake bias to the front, means that you are setting up the car to lock front wheels before it locks the rear ones. There are many reasons for why this is desirable. The main one is that it's much easier to control a car whose front wheels are locked up. The fact that more braking power is needed at the front because weight was transferred on front tends to maximize braking potential.
With 50/50 braking bias, the rear wheels will lock prematurely as the weight shifts away from them under braking causing the car to oversteer during corner entry.The reason why some drivers like bias to be set to 50/50% is because they like to brake all the way to the apex, and slightly reducing the front bias reduces the chance of the front wheels locking first. Though this tends to slightly reduce braking potential, the ability to confidently turn-in while still on the brakes is worth it.
Brakes require a certain temperature to operate at maximum efficiency. Cold brakes do not have the stopping force of a heated disc. Optimum brake temperature is around 550 °C and at this temperature the brake will produce the most amount of stopping force. However, since the stopping friction creates heat, heat then turns into a detriment, causing increased pad wear and "brake fade", or reduced stopping force.
Above 550 °C carbon brake fade begins progressively and by 1650 °C, the stopping force is half of that experienced at the optimum temperature. Running the brakes at close to their optimum temperature is crucial. Altering the brake cooling duct sizes controls this at the cost of upsetting the airflow around the car and creating drag. Inside and slightly ahead of each hub/wheel assembly, are the brakes cooling ducts. These ducts are necessary to force cool air over the brake discs. They come in several variations in size.
Gearbox
Gearboxes look complicated, but really they are quite simple. The first thing you want to do is set first gear. You take the car out to the slowest corner, and lengthen or shorten the gear so that you can take the curve flat in 1st. By that I mean, from the apex of the corner on, you can be on full power. Next you want to set your top gear. You do that by checking your revs in top gear at the fastest point of the circuit (usually it's the start/finish straight). You want to reach max revs just before the braking point. Finally, you will set the rest of the gears. You want to have decreasing gaps between gears as you move up to the top one. This is because the engine has to work harder to fight drag at higher speeds. On low downforce tracks you can have "longer" gears; high downforce tracks "shorter" ones.
Short gears mean more power but lower acceleration, while long ones mean more top speed but lower power output. On a track like Hockenheim, where you are 100% throttle for 60 seconds per lap, acceleration isn't really important! But at Monaco, you slow down to 60-70 km/h 4-5 times per lap it is!
One thing to remember is that drastically change in wings setup will usually force a change in gearbox settings. The two are interconnected. Of course, procedures described before are used only at new tracks where teams racing for first time. On old tracks teams usually going to use data from previous years, with minimal modifications, if any. And another thing. For new tracks, teams more and more using computer simulations to decide general layout of gears. Again, only minimal modifications on track are needed.
Differential/Blocking Factor (Differential Lock)
F1 differentials are of a limited slip-type.
This is a simple setting, one that affects rear grip as well as engine power. When a car is turning, the outside wheel has a longer distance to travel than the inside wheel, thus the outside wheel must turn (rotate) faster than the inside one. When one wheel (usually the outside) begins to spin (lose grip), power is transferred from the spinning wheel to the gripping wheel. Differentials are the systems that identify this phenomenon and distribute power to the appropriate wheel. The speed at which this transfer is done is called blocking factor. A slow transfer speed means that the spinning wheel will not transfer its power suddenly, possibly causing a sudden loss of grip. Why then would you want a higher transfer speed? Because when power is transferred, there is a loss. Not all of the engine's capabilities are being transferred to the wheels. This also applies to straights. A higher blocking factor will mean a slight improvement in acceleration and top speed. Another side effect of a high blocking factor is that in low gears the wheels will spin more easily.
Camber
Camber is the vertical angle of the wheels. But let's be honest here: you will probably never use positive camber in a modern F1 racing car. If you have to use it, you have to start to think about your car. Something is fundamentaly wrong whid it.
When the wheels are angled in towards the top of the car, it is called negative camber, when they open up towards the top of the car (forming a "V" shape), it is called positive camber. What is the point of camber? Camber offers two opposed benefits. Setting up the camber so that most or all of the wheel is touching the ground in the curves maximizes grip while minimizing tire wear. This is because in a curve, as the g forces load laterally, the inside side of the tire grips more than the outside side, thus it tends to heat up (and wear out). Using the telemetry to view camber along a lap, you can adjust the settings so that camber is zero in the turns. That will give you at once a more "stable" feel in the corner.
As you increase negative camber, you increase a force called "camber thrust". When a cambered wheel enters a corner, the tread is actually pulled sideways away from the center. This outside warping creates a counter-force, as the tire "tries" to return to its normal shape. This opposite lateral force (back towards the inside) increases road holding, giving a boost to lateral grip in a corner. This is what camber thrust is. Put on too much camber however, and not enough of the tire is making contact with the road and grip is lowered dramatically. So the ideal situation is to put on as much negative camber as tire wear allows. Another thing to realize is that you can affect the oversteer/understeer characteristics of your car by manipulating the camber. More negative camber on the front will increase oversteer, while more on the rear will increase understeer.
Wheel Alignment or Toe-ing
This setting is referred to as toe. This is the angle the wheels make with the length of the car. The reason most cars have a bit of front negative toe, or toe-in, is to promote straight-line steering stability. If a car was to have 0-degree toe it would be very nervous on a straight road, wanting to dart and wander at any little bump, rut or groove. By adding toe-in (negative toe), each wheel attempts to turn the car "inward" at all times. This in turn creates that centering feel we have through the steering wheel and promotes better straight-line stability.
If the angle opens towards the front, it's called toe out, if the angle opens to the rear, toe in. Why would you want to make the wheels unaligned? Because it modifies the response of the axle you are affecting. Toe in generally adds incisiveness in the front, and stability in the rear. Toe out reduces front responsiveness and increases the responsiveness of the rear. For example, a car that oversteers could be corrected by increasing toe-out on the front. Understeer would be corrected by increasing toe-in on the front, and perhaps increasing toe-out in the rear… If the car is losing grip coming out of corners, increasing toe in will almost always increase stability in high speed corners.
Rear toe is a highly debated topic. On the negative side, critics claim rear toe only adds to increased and uneven tire wear. And this comes with no discernable performance advantage. On the positive side, some claim that a slight positive toe, or toe-out, at the rear can help stabilize the rear of the car under acceleration.
But be mindful; too much negative toe-in will heat the outside edges of the tires, creating friction and affecting speed to a small degree. Excessive toe-out meanwhile will heat the tires inside edge. You should counter these reactions with small camber adjustments. Important thing, the more the wheels are unaligned, the more tires wear out.
Weight distribution
All Formula 1 designers attempt to deliver the car under the legal minimum weight limit
the FIA imposes. This is to allow the use of ballast to fine-tune the weight distribution of the car for a particular circuit. In fact, this is such a regular practice these days that most Formula 1 cars are delivered to the test track initially weighting less than a Formula 3 car.
Because of this, weight distribution is a sublimely difficult thing to grasp. The weight typically is adding traction to the end of the car that you shift it towards. This means that weight shifted towards the rear will put less weight on the front end resulting in increasing understeer. Shift it forward, and less weight is distributed to the rear under acceleration. Then again, it depends on how well balanced the setup is initially as it relies on spring and damper choices. So with this in mind, weight distribution is a fineadjustment of the cars handling characteristics. Typically, weight distribution is one of the final, finishing touches to a setup, and sometimes that last-ditch effort to make a stubborn car turn good. Already during the design, each car has it's own distinct weight distribution. This is due to the variations of engine weights and chassis designs.
Shock absorbers
Shocks are very important to handling. Here there is no "optimal" setting for any track. It comes down to driving style and preference. Dampers don't determine a car's grip as much as they determine how much of the grip the driver can access. Each shock absorber has two settings: Compression and extension or bound and rebound. Their role is explained in their name, they "absorb" vertical energy, gathered by driving over bumps, kerbs, turning sharply at high speeds. This prevents the wheels from bouncing over bumps, losing aerodynamic efficiency as well as motive power. The compression setting refers to how hard the spring will compress over a bump. If it's hard (high value) the car is launched over a bump. However, on a flat surface, hard shocks will provide better responsiveness. As you turn into a corner, the car "rolls". The car leans over to the outside of the turn, as lateral g's are piled on. The softer the compression on the shock, the more this is true. Roll on turn in reduces responsiveness, but it slightly improves maximum grip potential through the turn. This is also true under braking, where the car "pitches". Pitch is the effect mentioned above, when you brake, weight is transferred to the front of the car (that's why more front brake bias is used) and this also has the effect of pushing down the front and lifting the rear. Again the softer the setting, the more this is true, and the more this is true, the more braking potential is compromised. So harder shocks allow you to brake later, and with more stability.
Extension (rebound) refers to how hard the wheel is pushed back onto the track after having been compressed. So extension helps road holding in the corners. As the car rolls or pitches, the stiffer the extension, the faster these effects are corrected. However, it is much harder to drive a car that has stiffer extension than compression. The car will tend to have massive oversteer in the corners, and will lift off coming off of kerbs or bumps. So you see that shocks offer yet another handling characteristic. Softer compression increases understeer, while stiffer extension increases oversteer. This is on turn-in, however. Once you are approaching the apex, the shocks have already done their work, and no longer have much of an effect through the corner.
Spring rates
Springs control the vertical and lateral movement of the wheels in relation to the chassis. A spring that's not stiff enough under cornering doesn't properly counteract the car's tendency to roll, moving its centre of gravity outwards and quickly overwhelming the outer tire's ability to keep a grip on the road. A spring that's too stiff slows the transfer of load from the inner to the outer tire too much; as a result, the outer tire isn't being loaded enough to achieve its potential before the corner is over. However, the spring rate that's just right for one corner on the track may be wrong for the next one, because of the corners different shape and speed. To further complicate matters, the difference front to rear must be considered as well. If the spring rate at the rear is just right, both too stiff or too-soft at the front produces understeer. If the front rate was just right, both too-stiff or too-soft at the rear produces oversteer. The driver and his engineer need to find a compromise over the many and varied corners of the track; this compromise may involve surrendering some grip from one end of the car to get the desired balance.
Packers or Bumpstops
These are elements of suspension that allow you to fine tune your spring settings. They are very hard little rubber pieces that go below the suspension damper. When the car is at high speed, the downforce presses the car down onto the ground, compressing the springs. The packers prevent the spring from compressing past a certain point, so that the car will not touch the ground at high speed and rub of the plank. When the car "bottoms out", you lose a lot of speed and downforce, so they can be a great help. If you are on the packers, beware of the corners. If the springs reach the packer, it will have the effect of suddenly raising the spring stiffness dramatically. This can make cornering very difficult. It's better to use as little bump stops as you can get away with, because the handling is "unpredictable" when you relay on them too much.
Anti-Roll Bar
This is the same as your spring, but its effect is solely on Roll. The name pretty much explains its role. Roll bars have a big effect on the car's handling, particularly in the first part of a corner as the driver turns in.
The harder the roll bar is used, the more incisive the car. Hard settings will make the axle slide a bit more through the corners, while softer means more grip. Realize then that if you have hard springs and soft roll bars, the car will feel a bit slow to respond. You will be able to brake very late, but you'll have to turn in early to make the corner. Conversely, soft springs and hard bars will make the car very good on turn in producing a little of oversteer and will tend to slide through the corners.
Let's compare two tracks that require similar springs but different roll bars. Hard springs are useful to help acceleration and braking, so let's take two tracks with long straights and hard braking: Montreal and Hokenheim. Montreal has almost no fast corners, and certainly nothing we could call a "sweeper". Hockenheim has the stadium section, as well as a few high speed corners, such as the one after the 2nd chicane, and the corner that takes us into the stadium, right after the 2nd split time marker. Since Montreal is made up of only slow or short corners, we must place emphasis on turn-in grip, so we would want harder rollbars to go along with the stiff springs. At Hockenheim, it's very useful to gain extra grip for the stadium and those corners without having to put on more wing, slowing us down on those beautiful straights. So stiff springs and softer rollbars would be preferable.
You might have noticed that the shocks seem to cover everything that the springs and rollbars do, and yes, this is true. However, you should view the shocks as a fine-tuning effect, while the springs and rollbars do most of the work. Shocks have the most influence over bumps and kerb.
Wishbone linkages
The linkage formed by the suspension arms and how they interact front to rear have a direct bearing on the overall handling characteristics of the car. The geometry of the wishbone linkages determine the roll centre of the car. The roll centre is an imaginary, but accurately defined, point on the centre-line of the car around which the car rolls on its suspension. The roll centre can be high off the ground, low, or even underneath the ground (it's only imaginary, remember). A line connecting the rear suspension roll centre with that of the front is called the roll axis. If the axis runs nose-down, the car tends to oversteer. If the axis runs nose-up, the car tends to understeer. These linkages are intrinsic to the car's design and can't be changed during a race weekend, but some adjustment can be made to the car's ride height via the suspension's pushrod. The closer to the ground, the more grip but the less the car can tolerate bumps and kerbs. The camber of the wheels can be altered by adjusting the wishbones so that the highly-loaded outer wheel becomes upright under cornering and uses more of the tire's width rather than just the outer edge. The downside of altering the camber is that it makes the car less good under braking.
Aerodynamics/Wings
This elements are the most influential element of your setup. Much of the design budget is devoted towards shaping airflow over, under and around the car. Not only is airflow crucial in generating downforce with the lowest possible drag coefficient, but also serves to cool several systems including brakes, engine KERS and transmission. The most often adjusted aerodynamic aids (at a Grand Prix circuit) are the front and rear wings and car ride-height, with the rest of the aero set-up being fixed and only modifiable in the long term through wind tunnel testing. Normally, teams develop 3 types of wings. Low Medium and High downforce wings. These refer to the number of elements on each wings and general angle of attack of aerofoil.
Dealing with the aero set-up, the driver will require the car to be balanced to a certain point. He may like to drive with the centre of gravity in a certain position, which will generally be a bit different to his team mate. The front and rear wings provide massive downforce at each end of the car, and each one can be altered to vary the amount of force it produces.
The complexities of aerodynamics allow the engineers to get a different force from the same wing by adjusting angle of attack on each aerofoil. Wing has two defining measurements, the chord, and the span, with the cross section which defining the final shape. After the design of the wing, the angle of the chord to the oncoming airflow - called the angle of attack - defines how much force it will produce. At zero angle of attack, the wing will produce downforce, because of its design to have a longer distance underneath than over the top, as explained in Bernoulli equation. However, if its angle is inclined (the rear of the wing raised), it will produce more and more downforce as the angle increases, up to about fifteen degrees. Around this point (depending on wing design), the air gives up, separates from the underside surface, and the downforce produced will decrease. By varying the angle of attack up to that point, the engineer can fine tune the car.
The front wing is generally made up of two parts - the main plane, and one or more flaps. The main plane is the part which creates the main bulk of the wing assembly's downforce, and is, almost always, at a fixed angle of attack. The fine-tuning comes from the flap. The flap is still an aerofoil, and works like one. In traveling over the main plane, the air loses energy and struggles to continue following the surface, but a gap left between the flap and the main plane allows new air to come in and re-energize the flow. With this help, it can carry on working a little longer, and create more downforce as it travels over the flap. Varying amounts of downforce can be obtained by changing the flap angle, and it is the half degree 'turns' of angle on this flap which are used to balance the car - it is designed to be so simple to change, it can be changed without losing time during a pit stop with simple screwdriver like tool.
At the rear of the car, teams design sets of rear wing elements - most have around three different options. These are built up of two aerofoils. The whole element can be changed, or angle of each aerofoil changed, to obtain the amount of downforce required. An aero map will be produced in the wind tunnel for each type of wing assembly, and taken to the circuit by the race engineer. This tells him the most efficient way of obtaining a certain level of downforce using the wing elements he has. If the driver wants more downforce on the rear, it shows him how best to achieve it, and then what angle of flap is required on the front wing to balance this change. It's all there on paper!
The final aerodynamic change which can be made is the addition of the gurney flap. This is a small length of carbon fiber (often only 15-20mm high) which sits perpendicular to the surface at the rear of the flap (or wing on the rear wing set-up). Providing its height is correct, the air will flow over it, and become turbulent directly behind. This turbulence is flowing in higher speed, what mean that is low in pressure, and will have the effect of sucking the air out from underside of the wing. In doing this, the air will flow faster under the wing, and so will be at a lower pressure than normal, and the downforce produced by the wing will increase.
What is important to know about the wings is that they represent your aero grip. Aero grip is just part of the overall grip. There is also mechanical grip. Aero grip comes from the wings, diffuser and the ride height. The relationship between the two types of grip varies according to your speed. It is said that at maximum speed, an F1 car produces 5 g's of downforce! 5 times its weight pressing it down onto the track. At lower speeds, the wings are not quite as important, and in this case mechanical grip (geometry, tires and suspension) is more important. So it is important to have both mechanical and aerodynamic grip optimized.
As we can see, deciding the right setup is long process with a lot of tries and mistakes. Compromising is very important to reach the perfect setup and is very hard to reach this "perfect".
Track specific setup
All we sad before is important, but is always the track that dictate setup of the car. Setup is quite different if we are talking about low downforce track (Monza) or high downforce track (Hungaroring or Monaco), track with predominately fast corners (Turkey) or slow corners (Hungaroring), flowing track (Silverstone) or start - stop kind of track (Kanada). I will not go so deep i this type if setup because I will need a book to explain all, but here is explanation of few different types of corners and how to do your work there.
Constant radius corner (Circuito Internazionale Monza, "Parabolica" )
A constant radius corner is one that has a quick gentle turn-in, a long consistent apex, and a gentle exit. Providing the track is fairly level, setup for the corner can be tackled in a fairly routine manor. As in all corners, how vital it is towards the overall lap time and how many corners like this are on the circuit should be analyzed before determining how much the corner should effect the car setup. A constant radius corner is actually quite simple. Providing you've roughed in your spring settings for fairly neutral handling, then this is all about aerodynamic downforce and anti-roll bars. The transition for turn-in to steady state cornering is fast. The car is on the bars quick and stays there for quite awhile. Typically, a well balanced car will automatically have reliable handling through most constant radius corners and one can determine quite quickly if a change in downforce will help. For this reason, this type of corners are good corners to focus on early in the initial setup of the car adjustments including springs and anti-roll bars.
If one is experiencing trouble being competitive, and the corner is high speed, then front wing adjustments would be first on the list, with anti-roll bars and weight distribution a close second. If the corner is medium speed, that order might change.
Also, any adjustments to the dampers should be performed with thought towards what compromises in other corners may occur, particularly if the circuit has one or more decreasing radius corners elsewhere.
Increasing radius corner (Circuit de Catalunya, "La Caixa")
An increasing radius corner is one that features a longer corner exit than corner entry, and is usually accompanied by a small corner apex. In an increasing radius corner, the idea is to brake late and turn in sharp, advancing the corner apex early, then quickly and progressively initiating throttle for
maximum exit speed. Because the corner exit line usually has no reference points, it becomes difficult to judge. Due to the extended corner exit, if one cannot accelerate properly this becomes a section where a relatively large amount of time may be lost. Therefore traction under acceleration is important to minimize time in this type of corner. This is crucially important if the corner exits onto a primary fast straight. Some drivers might want to run the differential lock setting at a lower value to help control
wheel spin. But a more experienced driver might prefer to control the rear himself using the throttle to induce oversteer. This however requires a very fine tuned neutral balance and fine tuned leg. To start with, you'll want a softer rear setup for more traction under acceleration. Choose front and rear spring rates to accommodate the overall circuit handling requirements, then fine tune with damper adjustments. As usual, slow damper settings are useful for adjustments to the spring response during
weight transfer. Here you'll want to run softer slow damper settings. While softening the rear, be aware of the packers vs. ride height. For the car to hit the packers (especially the outside rear) is counterproductive as it will instantly overload the tire with weight. Typically, the anti-roll bars and aerodynamics are not good things to adjust specifically for this type of corner, unless you're experiencing imbalances elsewhere.
Decreasing radius corner (Magny-Cours "180 Degrees")
A decreasing radius corner is one of the most difficult corners to setup for. As you can see from the picture, your braking zone follows an arc leading to the late apex. It's imperative that the
car be able to brake deep and turn in simultaneously. A well-honed trail-braking technique will defiantly aid in making the pass here. The basic setup principles for this type of corner are such that you want the car to have good turning, but more importantly, a stable rear. Because the transition from turn-in to steady state cornering is so long anti-roll bars are less critical. Softening the rear springs, helping the rears not to unload as much weight, is a great starting point if you're having trouble being competitive here (and providing this is a critical point on the circuit). But most importantly, dampers are the keys to unlock the cars maximum potential under braking and turn-in. One must control weight transfer. More specifically, the rear dampers' in slow rebound. Soften them to help maintain weight at the rear for as long as possible to help traction. An alternative might be to go to the front and increase the front damper slow bump values. Differential lock values can help here as well. You're already turning when you have to get off the throttle, so you really want that torque under control. But be careful of oversteer while reapplying the power. As stated earlier, the differential lock setting is very dependent on personal driving style.
Fast esse's (Nurburgring Nordschleife)
A fast esse is typically a combination of two or more corners. At these speeds, aerodynamic balance is a key factor. But probably equally important is the correct line which allows the fastest cumulative sector time. Missing the best line during this phase by just a meter can cost massive time loss
as it disrupts the flow for the next phase, or worse yet, the entire following corner. For this reason, front end steering response is crucial. One also must have faith in setup as the speeds traveled here repay mistakes with big spins. Like mentioned above, aerodynamics has a big influence through these types of corners. After setting gear ratios and a rear wing angle based on the circuits' top speed, the front wing angle can be adjusted to balance the car. Basic spring settings can be put to the test through these high-speed direction changes. Stiff font
springs give the car the much-needed quick steering response. Too high a spring rate will adversely affect the desired level of grip though and must be countered by additional front wing or a softer anti-roll bar. Special attention should be paid to the tire temperatures as overheating can occur from these changes. Softer rear springs enable the rear tires to bite and keep the power transmitting to the track. Use the damper slow settings to control weight loading and unloading into the tires during changes of directions. Also, this is a big anti-roll bar fine-tuning section as the car is changing directions and loading the bars in both directions in fast succesion. Once the anti-roll bar settings are roughed in here, they should require only minor adjustments
for other sections around the circuit. The exception would be when adjusting the anti-roll bars to compensate for another adjustment such as mentioned above. Differential lock settings can prove useful here, especially if one is using engine braking by coming off the throttle to slow the car to setup the following corner.
Medium esse's (Brazil, "S do Sena")
Like a fast esse, the medium-speed esse is typically a combination of two or more corners. Here, however the springs and dampers are more important than aerodynamics, mainly due to the fact that the car is either increasing or decreasing speed as it pass these corners. If the car has fairly well balanced characteristics through faster corners, then focus should certainly be placed on the springs and dampers settings. Medium speed corners are really where you
can start to fine-tune the springs and dampers. The latter probably more so. You'll want to focus on sharp turn-in characteristics with front springs, dampers and anti-roll bar adjustments. Go as stiff as possible with the front spring settings without upsetting the overall balance of the car. Try to balance out any induced understeer by increasing front wing angle or choose a smaller front anti-roll bar until a more neutral balance is obtained. Be careful though as these types of adjustments can quickly result in above optimum tire temperatures by overloading the front tires with weight.
Also a more aggressive driver might use the kerbs here, so damper fast settings become a factor as well. Damper fast settings aid in the cars ability to react to bumps, so if loosing grip while riding kerbs you might try lowering the fast bump settings.
Chicane (Belgium, "Bus-stop" Spa)
Chicanes are essentially slow esses, so all of the medium esse characteristics apply here. Also, because the phases happen in rapid succession (due to the overall smaller size of the chicane features), car imbalances tend to be magnified at the point of weight shift during the change in direction. Also, the overall slower speeds mean aerodynamics is less or no factor in car balance and mechanical grip has a great deal of influence. Do to the tight nature of most chicanes, riding over kerbs is an acceptable risk. Many times, a chicane will denote the slowest corner on a particular circuit. This means it is many times preceded by a heavy braking zone, making it a great point to fine-tuning the braking bias. As this makes the chicane a prime overtaking location, focus should be given to car setup through the preceding corner as to allow the most efficient exit. This will, in turn give the car maximum speed on the ensuing straight leading to the chicane, making overtaking that much easier. This also means this is the corner to help select your lowest racing gear. Quite often is the case that second gear is the lowest selected gear once the race has gotten under way. If this is the case, second gear becomes the lowest racing gear. If this is the case, then second gear can be adjusted to allow the best possible acceleration while maintaining stability when exiting the chicane. Otherwise, first gear should be a compromise of chicane exit stability and standing start efficiency.
Hairpin (Magny-Cours, "Adelaide")
Hairpin corners stress the cars braking capabilities to their maximum. Typically, the car is being coaxed into slowing from top speed down to anywhere from 50kmh to 100kmh. Sharp front-end grip is essential to allow a driver for be competitive here, particularly when passing. The turn-in comes early and the short apex is at the middle of the inside kerb. While qualifying the line will vary. The braking will be kept to as late as possible (allowing the car to travel at top speed a few hundredths on a second longer), followed by a late turn-in. This will shift the apex back later in the turn (the skid marks represent a good fast line). By moving the apex later, the radius of the exit is lessened, allowing power to be applied sooner and more importantly, at a more aggressive rate. Like chicanes, hairpins are great places to set the braking bias during early training session laps because the most aggressive braking zones on the circuit typically precede them. Typically teams don't concern themselves with tuning a car around a hairpin beyond the basic roughing-in of the chassis balance (wings, springs, anti-roll bars, and ride height). Focus is on other medium and high-speed corners, the hairpin tends to fall into place. But here gear ratio is very important. It tends to dictate lowest racing gear and therefore the gear should be chosen to allow the most stable acceleration out of the hairpin possible. The hairpin is also a prime passing zone for most circuits. This makes the prior corner extremely critical as far as the setup is concerned. Remember, overtaking that happens here was really executed through the previous corner, allowing the car to gain an advantage over a rival heading into this turn.
Double Apex, Multiple apex corner(Sepang Circuit, "Turns 7 & 8"-double apex, Turkey, "turn 8"-multiple apex)
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Double Apex corner: Sepang Circuit, Malaysia "Turns 7 & 8" |
From time to time, two or more successive corners will line up in such a way that it enables a driver to
attack them both as a single corner. This means the first corners' exit and the second corners entry become essentially both same corner, or the overall corner apex. In this instance, the Corner Apex phase is rather large and may contain some throttle adjustments. The car must be set to allow mid corner throttle adjustments to not effect the car in a negative way. Because of these things, these types of corners have more or less the same characteristics of the constant radius corner. Basic balance is achieved with springs and anti-roll bars, assuming aerodynamic balance has been achieved. A more stable throttle behavior can be fine-tuned by differential lock adjustments. If the double apex requires a slight throttle lift at the apex, and this in turn cases too much oversteer, then a higher differential lock setting is required.
More about cornering technique you can find here, and about corners here.
Setup testing
Testing is a very important part of setting up a Formula 1 car. On a typical Grand Prix weekend, track time is limited. This means teams must know their car and know
it well. A driver must know what setup changes bring about the desired effects in handling over the diverse selection of circuits raced during the championship. Testing allows team to develop setups that permit them to use driver individual driving styles to exploit the cars capabilities to its fullest. When making the initial adjustments to set the car up for a specific circuit, it's important to focus on one thing at a time and make detailed notes regarding the cars handling characteristic at the various parts of the circuits. This method to setting up the car follows a set routine to rough in all adjustments. There may be many times when team find themselves being required to backtrack and make changes to things that worked well earlier, but as a result of recent changes, are no longer effective. This is common. The good part is that as team make progress towards fine-tuning, this happens less and less, as well as the adjustments becoming smaller. As the team becomes more comfortable with the car during season and have a lot of collected data from previous circuits and seasons and the effects of setup changes, then they can make multiple changes to smaller degrees. This level of comprehension is vital to produce results during the limited running time of a Grand Prix weekend.
One should always examine the track layout to decide which corners and combinations are the key features to focus on. It is simple not possible to set the car up to handle all the variations at the highest level of efficiency. This is where compromise begins. Another thing to consider is the successive combination of corners and straights. Sometimes it's important to compromise the exit of one corner to maximize the speed through the next. This is especially important when exiting onto, or entering from a
long, fast straight. But as always, the tale is in the timing and a fast lap time is the ultimate deciding factor.
Wet race setup
Back in the founding years of Formula 1, it was enough to glance up at the sky. Today, the teams invest a large amount of money and time in the most accurate weather forecasts possible, on which they then base their race strategies. The setup used in qualifying is supposed to remain unchanged for the race, so the engineers and tacticians spend countless agonizing hours trying to forecast the weather. But despite state-of-the-art satellite technology, they are never safe from unpleasant surprises. The approach of a rain front in particular sets off alarm bells with the strategists on the pit wall.
The recommendations the meteorologists are passed on to their teams’ strategists. If it starts to rain during the race, the drivers have to adjust to impaired visibility and other changed conditions within seconds. How late can I start braking? Should I race around the puddles? And most importantly: how much grip I’m left with? The rubber build-up on track which improves the cars’ grip along the racing line is often washed away when it rains. As a consequence, the cars are more likely to slip and the drivers more likely to make a mistake. Strategists need to determine the difference in lap times amid the changing conditions and then pinpoint the precise moment at which it will make sense to change from dry-weather tires to intermediates or full wets – and vice-versa once the track begins to dry again.
The regulations of Formula 1 offer various options for reacting to rain. If it begins to rain just before the start, for example, the race director can abort the starting procedure, thereby providing the teams with the opportunity to change the tires.
In heavy rain, he can order a flying start following a lap behind the safety car or postpone the start of the race. Should the conditions on the track become too dangerous because it begins to rain, or because the rain becomes heavier, he has the option of sending out the safety car. The teams can then change to intermediates or full wets. If that is not sufficient to ensure the drivers’ safety, the race can be aborted or restarted later.
Engine setup
Problem is that Formula 1 car have so much power and it’s very difficult to get that power down on the track when it’s wet and slippery. Because the water on the track greatly reduces the traction, it becomes the most important factor. Anything you can do to improve the tire's ability to stay connected to the road surface is done. The engine is retuned to deliver a smoother, less harsh torque delivery to the drivetrain. With modern engine electronic control units, this is easily done. The engine probably makes less top end power, but the peak power doesn't come on so suddenly, and the risk of the rear wheels breaking loose is reduced. As the top speed of the car will be less than in dry conditions, the gear ratios will need changing too. Usually you have to lengthen your gear ratios in an attempt to reduce wheel spin – less power equals less chance of wheel spin. Driver can also employ a simple technique known as “short shifting.” This involves the driver shifting before the engine peak horsepower is reached, always keeping the car just out of the maximum power possible.
In addition to all of these, teams will ensure that water cannot get into the electronic systems. This is particularly important after 2009 with the introduction of the KERS systems, where water could act as a conductor between the high voltage systems and the driver.
With optimization of the settings for wet conditions, the teams will be in good shape for the race, unless of course it dries out during the race!
Mechanical and Aero
The grip afforded by the tires is controlled by two parameters; mechanical grip, and aero grip (down-force). Although there is a certain amount of overlap between these two parameters, mechanical grip is generally controlled by the suspension settings. These settings will be established by the engineer based on prior knowledge of the track/car/driver combination, and the anticipated weather conditions.
Rain suspension setup is again compromise. As the car will be traveling slower than in dry conditions, the downforce generated will be proportionately lower, therefore, the engineer will elect to increase the downforce generated by the wings. In the wet, grip is everything. For a full wet setup you should dramatically increase downforce, sometimes as much as 50%. Also, as mentioned, when the ride height was increased, the overall downforce created by underbody and diffuser will be reduced, and the engineer must compensate for this too when deciding on the wing angles.
To stop the car’s chassis from aquaplaning, the ride height will be increased. Be liberal with the ride height, as bottoming in the rain can be catastrophic. Normally, in dry conditions, the cars are set up to run as close to the track as possible as this makes the underbody aerodynamics work better and also lowers the center of gravity. Problems can occur when Formula 1 car flat undertray hit the water. A large amount of water spray from the tires can be pulled by airstream under the body, and if you ad the water what is already there, effect can be what they call “body aquaplaning”. All car body starts to slide over the layer of the water.
Ideally, the engineer would prefer fitting softer suspension springs to increase the mechanical grip, but as it will be necessary to increase the overall down-force, he may well leave the springs as per the dry set-up and only increase wing downforce. However, the shock absorbers (dampers) will need to be softened both in compression, and in rebound.
As the car will not be generating high grip levels on corners, the anti-roll-bar will also be softened. Some teams will disconnect the anti-roll-bars altogether.
Try to keep both of these settings (wing downforce and suspension setup) in proportion to your race setup to keep overall balance intact. In other words, add equal wing front and rear, and soften the front and rear springs by equal amounts. As a result of these modifications, after few laps you’ll need to re-examine the ride height.
At very high speeds on wide tires, aquaplaning becomes a real concern, and you just have to hit a paddle of water and suddenly you are a passenger. The tread patterns of modern racing tires are mathematically designed to scrub the maximum amount of water possible from the track surface to ensure the best possible contact between the rubber and the track.
The intermediate tires are generally used in partially wet conditions, where the driving surface is neither completely dry nor absolutely drenched. They provide moderate assistance in both conditions and are hence favored when half the circuit is experiencing rain and the other half remains dry.
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Pirelli heawy rain and intermediate tires |
Heavy grooved, full rain tires will come into play in case of rains. When the treads in the tires, come in contact with the track, they expand a little, due to the downforce and the weight of the car and absorb enough quantity of water to bring the tire back in contact with the track. When the water soaked area of the tire lifts off the track, it contracts again and releases the water. That’s why pure rain tires have an incredibly soft compound, they have to give as much traction as possible. In fact, the rubber is so soft that if not cooled by the water, their life expectancy can be as short as three laps. Because of the rain grooves, and soft compound, the tread blocks squirm much more than dry tires, and generate much more heat. Thus tires play an important safety role by keeping the car from sliding off uncontrollably.
Another thing to consider is how to setup the car for a damp, but drying track at the start of the race. In its easiest guise it might be only fitting intermediate tires to the car. Other times, it’s the always risky choice of adding a bit more downforce on the grid. But be careful, as the pitfall is a dry track late in the race with a car having not enough top speed to be competitive.
Hopefully this guide explain to you how various components interacting inside an F1 car. As Micheal Schumacher points out in the quote above, it's what you manage to get out of your potential. And this certainly includes the cars potential and maximizing that as well.
Driving style should always be regarded as another factor in setup. One should put forth a lot of analysis into what attributes his or her driving style requires. Through careful understanding of this, one can quickly discern which direction a setup must go in order to accommodate the drivers' particular style.
Every setup is like a meticulously tailored suit; while it suits great one driver, it can be total disaster for another. With this in mind, one should understand that when trying another's setup, instant speed is not always the case. In fact, many times it's the exact opposite. In this case, the setup itself is not poor, it's just missing the technique required to maximize its capabilities. Still, by understanding the contents of this article, a driver should be able to identify the setup characteristics and make adjustments attempting to shift the effectiveness towards a more positive result.
To have a complete picture of performance driving, take a look at Corners, Setup, Traction circle, Using tires, Left foot braking, braking, advanced braking, WRC braking technique, Slipstreaming, drifting, cornering, shifting, Heel and toe driving technique and steering technique articles
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