Setting up a Formula 1 Car

Greetings good people, I like many on here love the sport and understand the “nuances" and the “whims" associated with it and would like to share with you my limited knowledge of setting up a Formula 1 car. This feeds back into a discussion we had about why Hamilton beat Rosberg with ease on race days even when Nico had qualified on pole. Like our good ol bruvver N606 pointed out, the speed trap is a good indicator of what sort of downforce a car is running for the weekend.

Alas some unfortunately did not understand this and were arguing from a position of no knowledge which is unfortunate. It is important to note that generally Nico was not top of the speed traps in many a race as he went for a higher downforce package than his team mate notably in Monza, he was not even in the top 10 I believe. The Williams regularly top the time sheets as well along with Lewis.

Obviously a looser car suits some driving styles which is why Lewis opted for less downforce and had Nico’s number for the season. In order to help the debate, I have provided what I believe is knowledge I have gleaned from my years of watching motorsport as well as doing research. Some of you may know this but I ride bikes and we take similar things to account especially with the suspension as that influences ride height and the behaviour of the bike around corners and the brake bias as well.

Contrary to what an individual may believe, each driver prefers a particular set up, some like a loose car like Lewis; some like Seb cannot drive a car planted to the race track.

So what is set up? Each driver likes the car to behave in a particular way to suit his style and adjusts a variety of parameters top achieve this. Suspension, (ride heights, aerodynamics (wing adjustments), brake balance (diff), brake material type, and tyres in some cases. F1 cars can be neutral, understeer or oversteer to a degree. At McLaren for instance Lewis preferred oversteer while Jenson liked understeer.

Simply put oversteer happens when the back end is going round faster than the front at corners, generally there is less traction at the rear whilst understeer happens when the front is not gripping the road as a result of a lack of grip in the front at corners. There are miles better definitions than these but this is the way I understand it.

Now I am not going to bore you to death with suspension settings, ride heights etc. but generally drivers set up their cars to suit their styles or for particular weather conditions. I.e. higher downforce for rain or lower downforce for tracks like Monza where top seed and gear ratios could decide a race. Some drivers, like Hamilton and Alonso and more recently Ricciardo appear to like a “looser car" and trust their talent to get them out of a jam even when quali does not go according to plan whilst some like Nico and Vettel prefer to go for a more quali based set up to lead a race and control from the front.

This however was a trend I noticed that changed during the year as he went for a more “racy" set up but could not get close to Hamilton and opted for a change of tactics. I am speculating here of course but when you look at his performances later on in the season you can see that he went for a higher downforce package than Lewis.

So guys, just wanted to put this out there, hopefully I have helped some or will now be the brunt of a torrent of abuse.

I will conclude with the following questions;

1) Why do you think Lewis is so much quicker than Nico in race trim using less fuel as well?

2) Why did Nico stop featuring at the top of the speed trap considering the power and torque the Mercedes PU had?

3) Why was Nico unable to make an overtake stick on Lewis?

4) How much quicker do you think Lewis is over Nico on a lap?

Thank you for reading