Brazil GP Tech 🔍

There's a lot of talk about McLaren's new rear wing in Brazil, but there's also a Sauber change that's caught the attention of Edd Straw and Gary Anderson.

Edd Straw: Unusually, Sauber has made geometry changes to its front and rear suspension during the triple header. For the United States Grand Prix, the rear changed, and on Friday at Interlagos it modified the front suspension through running new outboard suspension pick up points - something that's admittedly very hard to spot.

This was framed as providing more freedom in mechanical set-up, but it’s primarily about improving what has been one of the many weaknesses of the Sauber this season. That’s management of the tyre contact patch. That can cost not only grip, but also play a big part in tyre degradation. The Sauber has often not fared well in races when it comes to that.

“It’s just trying to use the grip available in a slightly different way,” says Sauber head of trackside engineering Xevi Pujolar. “It’s not big changes, but everything helps. For the race, a small change in the degradation can help a lot in terms of a race stint.”

And why is that? As Gary Anderson explains, the tyre contact patch is hugely significant – and not only for grip.

"F1 cars are not solely about aerodynamics, the black bits that attach the car to the ground are critical,” says Anderson. "Everyone has the same tyres so optimising the tyre contact patch both front and rear for high and low aerodynamic load is critical to tyre degradation and controlling overheating.

“You could theoretically work out the size of contact patch that's possible and what percentage is achieved by each car and find that relates to the rate of tyre degradation. If your contact patch isn't as big as it should/could be at low load in particular, that will correlate with rear tyre overheating more easily."

“When we see the cars trundling down the pitlane it’s not just about finding the best track position, it’s more about letting the temperatures come down from the minimum levels that Pirelli have stipulated and with that the pressures will decrease which means the tyre contact patch area increases, this all equates to more grip.”