Right I can't sleep, I'm still living off the wrong time so I was having a pointless thought (as per usual). Something I've never really considered when thinking about F1 cars is the rims. After a quick browse on the tinterweb I found that most teams have significantly individual Alloy designs which I would assume are specifically designed for the car. Hardly worth a thread but it does make you think about how many variables the designers still can work with even with these massively strict rules of today. As with all things there will be pros and cons, in this case they'll be the ability to cool the brakes, weight, how they disturb the air, how rigid they are, and how strong they are, to name a few. please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Take this thread where you wish as you can only talk about rims for so long before the inevitable innuendos come out.
At one point there was talk of moving to 18" rims but it was rejected because it would need more torque to turn them and put more strain on what is a very delicate gear box. Can someone explain why this would be as the overall diameter of the wheel + tyre would remain the same, What is it I am missing? 18" rims with a lower profile tyre would look well cool, and give better grip.
I'd be happy to Mephisto… Last point first: Whilst low profile tyres can help tighten up a softly sprung road car's handling, they do not give better 'grip' for an F1 car. Oddly enough, this is related to your first point. The high profile sidewall allows a greater degree of 'twisting'* than a low profile tyre, which dampens road feedback to the transmission by softening the blow. It works both ways: it also softens inputs which might otherwise cause the contact patch of the tyre to break traction, since the connection from engine to contact patch is wholly more compliant. The down-side of a high profile tyre is that it distorts more, especially when cornering. This can be a problem in a road car with its soft chassis and suspension, which can easily begin to 'float' (the sensation one might get from a Landrover being driven at speed on a twisty road). But this is not a problem in an F1 car because its suspension and chassis is incredibly stiff. In fact the greatest dampening of bumps in an F1 car comes from its tyres! *'Twisting': a reference to the rim of a tyre trying to rotate faster than the contact patch with the track surface. A high profile tyre actually allows this to happen a tiny bit, before the sidewalls say 'enough is enough!'. A low profile tyre allows it far less (almost eliminates it), thus making drive from the transmission far more direct - not a good thing with a delicate and highly strung lightweight.
Yes I see now thinking about it I've seen that happen to a greater extent on a dragster with its massive rear tyres and only a couple of psi in them, you can see the rubber twist from the rim outwards upon launch. So what you are saying is that if a larger rim is used then the suspension and the drive train would have to be redesigned to do what the tyres are doing now? it wouldn't be a case of bolt them on and jobs a goodun
