F1 bringing back Active Suspension?

[MigelNansell]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/113465



I dunno how I feel about this but how many years did it take Williams to get it right?

[WeirdKerr]

Well it wouldn't need much development work as most of that was done 21 years ago.....

[go_Rubens]

I don't know how I should take this. But Williams should have it mastered...

I like that.

[WeirdKerr]

I don't know how I should take this. But Williams should have it mastered...

I like that.

dunno how much a certain engineer now at a team with a bovine connection was involved during his time at the team from Grove had with the suspension....

[go_Rubens]

I don't know how I should take this. But Williams should have it mastered...

I like that.

dunno how much a certain engineer now at a team with a bovine connection was involved during his time at the team from Grove had with the suspension....

I'd think Williams could use older cars like the FW15C to base a new active suspension off of.

[WeirdKerr]

I don't know how I should take this. But Williams should have it mastered...

I like that.

dunno how much a certain engineer now at a team with a bovine connection was involved during his time at the team from Grove had with the suspension....

I'd think Williams could use older cars like the FW11B to base a new active suspension off of.

Fixed

[VirtuaMcPolygon]

I'm sure Lewis will love it. He's always trying to be a gangsta . He will be able to bounce his car when pulling up to the grid...

[IceG]

Bringing active suspension back would be brilliant. Especialy if the emphasis on clever aero is reduced at the same time. The technology is directly relevant to road cars, unlike aero (I'm talking for grip, not slipperyness) and could perhaps mean we get rid of the awful DRS system.

[VirtuaMcPolygon]

They would be spoilt for choice on overtake buttons if they did.

Didn't the Williams have a push to pass button which would raise the car to reduce drag on the straights?

[Wallio]

Considering most road cars have some form of this equipped now, it'd be brilliant. It might speed the cars up again too. It will never happen though, F1 cars haven't been road relevant since about 1993......

[AustralianStig]

Cool to see they're also looking at 18 inch wheels - 13 inch aren't exactly relevant anymore...

[mario]

Considering most road cars have some form of this equipped now, it'd be brilliant. It might speed the cars up again too. It will never happen though, F1 cars haven't been road relevant since about 1993......

To be honest, it's debatable whether F1 (or indeed motorsport at large) has ever really been road relevant at all - Newey did once say that the motorsport world is rarely a primary developer of new technologies, but instead has to rely on existing technologies developed by others thanks to the rather limited resources in motorsport. He does have something of a point - even if you added up the R&D budgets of the entire F1, which might be in the order of $500 million, it's still tiny compared to the major automotive manufacturers (the VW Group, for example, spends €9 billion a year on R&D).

Cool to see they're also looking at 18 inch wheels - 13 inch aren't exactly relevant anymore...

If you really wanted to push road relevance (which is dubious given that road tyres and race tyres have very different operating requirements), then 18 inch wheels are not much more relevant either - the vast bulk of the worlds cars run 15 to 16 inch wheels.

Michelin were not subtle about hiding the fact that their main interest in 18 inch wheels was simply because that is the size of the wheels used for sportscar racing, so opting for larger wheels would allow them to utilise their existing manufacturing equipment. A cynic might also suggest that the main interest in switching to 18 inch wheels would be to promote a tyre size that the tyre manufacturers make a substantially larger profit on...

[FMecha]

Are there other series using active suspension system(s) as well nowadays?

[roblo97]

They would be spoilt for choice on overtake buttons if they did.

Didn't the Williams have a push to pass button which would raise the car to reduce drag on the straights?

Yeah, it gave Prost and Hill a 10kph speed boost.