[Jon]

Hi, My name is Jon. I have been following F1 for years (and Indy when I can). I have been lurking here on this forum and many others, but never could think of anything to say.

At last I think I have something interesting to add.

Did anyone see the coverage of the Tour De France cycling this year? They went around the Spa circuit. It was amazing seeing them on pedal bikes going around a circuit that I am sure is very familiar to all of us here.

BUT it was soooo different.

When you see the camera angles in F1 you realise there is a bit of a slope around the Eau Rouge bit, but wow you really get a sense of it when you watched the Tour de France footage.

Here is a link on youtube. (Hope it is ok to post it).

The really good bit is around 50 seconds:

They had a motor cyclist in front of the pack filming them as they climbed the hill. From this perspective looking back, and from the higher vantage point of a guy sitting on a motor bike, you really got a sense of how really steep that slope is. It really took your breath away.

I also found it really unnerving seeing all those people right at the edge of a track you typically associate with 200kph F1 cars. It is the craziest thing I have seen in years.

So my question is this. There are other circuits like Brazil who seem to have a bit of a slope going on and off of the start/finish straight. What effect does this have on the car? Do the teams do anything special in the car setup for these circuits to compensate for these really steep bits?

[Scottie]

I wouldn’t imagine they need to do much for the cars at places like Brazil. The elevation changes aren’t really under large cornering loads despite the relatively steep inclines. It’s similar to COTA’s T1… it’s high speed, but the car isn’t under any other lateral strain to place any more pressure than a tonen of downforce is already doing.
In places like Spa, they’d only really consider the ride height as the large compression through Eau Rouge to Radillion can cause more slowing friction with the ground while the car rotates to the apex.

The rest of the time is handled by the already relatively stiffly sprung chassis, so would have minimal alternate impacts to car performance.

[Jon]

Thanks for the info Scottie. Do you think the Race-Stewards would be a little more lenient with the boards at places like Spa, or instead apply the letter of the law and its up to the teams to accommodate? Because a higher ride height for Spa seems like a disadvantage for the rest of the track. But I guess all teams have the same disadvantage.

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