The appearance of the car of the Stake F1 team, which, according to the long tradition of Sauber, received the C44 index, suggests that Hinwil is increasingly focusing on the concept developed by Red Bull Racing, and many experts immediately drew attention to this. Among them is Mark Hughes, a famous British journalist who collaborates with the official website of the championship.
In particular, on the C44, as on last year’s RB19, the front suspension is based on rods, as well as familiar features can be seen in the shape of the radiator air intakes and the characteristic bevel in the lower part of the side pontoons and their contours as a whole.
Ferrari still supplies the Swiss team with power units and all the gearbox components, but Sauber develops and produces their bodies in-house, like all other chassis components.
Jean Monchaux, the previous technical director, began working on the C44 project, but last year he was replaced by James Key.
The move to a linkage front suspension is in line with the concept that Red Bull Racing and McLaren have been pursuing for the past two seasons, and it appears to be becoming a general trend. In 2024, only Ferrari and Haas did not switch to it. The rear suspension on the C44 is based on the same balancers interacting with pushers.
The design of the front suspension, which uses rods, allows you to more effectively control the operation of the car’s aerodynamic body kit; Moreover, due to the geometry of such a suspension, it is easier to find ways to counteract the “dive” of the front part of the car.
At the presentation of the C44 and its photographs, it is quite possible to see that the attachment points of the upper wishbones are located very high, while the lower suspension arm is shifted lower – this arrangement suggests that the designers tried to achieve precisely this effect – to make the car as small as possible ” I was nodding off” when braking.
This behavior of the car during intense deceleration is quite natural, but in theory, in the case of the C44, this tendency should manifest itself much less than it was with the C43 – therefore, the aerodynamic body kit should generally work more stable. This also allows for a lower ride height at the rear of the car, resulting in improved ground effect.
Strongly raked rear sidepods and Red Bull-style radiator intakes are designed to prevent unwanted airflow from top and bottom of the pontoons – the underflow should be directed only to the edges of the bottom.
More stringent requirements for the strength of the upper rollbar (following Guanyu Zhou’s spectacular rollover crash at the start of the 2022 British Grand Prix) meant that Sauber redesigned the assembly, reverting to a more traditional A-shape. .
The front wing shown at the presentation is practically no different from what we saw on the Swiss team’s cars at the end of last season, but this is certainly not the final version. Likewise, Sauber tried to draw as little attention as possible to the edges of the C44’s underbody.
In this context, we can quote a fragment from another text dedicated to this car, written by Gary Anderson for The Race: “There is an old expression: “We only saw what they showed us.” It’s safe to say that the car that will hit the track on February 9 (on this day the Stake F1 Team will hold an initial run-in and an official shooting day in Barcelona) will already be very different.
The most important thing for the Swiss team now is to focus all their efforts on organizing a more efficient process for upgrading equipment throughout the season. Then Audi will believe that they did the right thing by betting on Sauber in their 2026 project.”
2024-02-06 12:24:00
#Mark #Hughes #Kick #Sauber #C44
