The Incredible F1 Suspension So Good It Was Banned

over 30 years ago formula 1 had some of the most incredible technology the sport has ever seen the cars had automatic self-adjusting suspension that would move up and down to increase grip and performance it was extremely effective until the technology was deemed too dangerous and was banned from the sport but how can suspension trickery improve a car's performance how did a complex system like this even work with such old technology and why doesn't modern f1 use suspension like this all of that coming up look at this onboard footage of the williams fw14b at spa notice how the car is unbelievably stable with next to no body roll in the corners compare this to eight and centers mclaren that year and notice the instability and roll of the car due to the conventional spring and damper suspension system and the dominance the superiority of the williams here in kyle army is quite incredible because even though senna is in as james has said last year's car so for that matter are nigel matson and ricardo petraeze with the notable exception of the fact that they have the new active suspension which has no conventional metal springs instead it has high pressure hydraulics and it really works here at kyle army the williams looks so stable thanks to an innovative system that allowed the car's stiffness and ride height to be automatically controlled and adjusted for every corner on the circuit the system was the brainchild of famous designer frank durney and called active suspension this combined with the new traction control and semi-automatic gearboxes made the 1992 williams unstoppable in fact it still holds the record for the most dominant car in formula one history it was just a terrific car as a racer to drive because you had to hang on to it physically it was very hard to drive but very very rewarding however williams wasn't the first to try out active suspension lotus were the first to implement it in the type 92 in 1983 but it took 10 years to get active suspension to the point that it was dominating championships interestingly lotus developed it through necessity they had an issue with something called poor poisoning this was back in the days of ground effect cars where the undertray was used to suck the car to the road by accelerating the air and creating very low pressure below the undertray it created a huge reduction in lap times as cars were able to reach speeds in the terms that were not possible beforehand however on more bumpy surfaces lotus had real troubles with their ground effect cars the drivers experienced poor poisoning a strange resonant effect that happened when a large bump could pitch the car this change had the ground effect worked moving down force further rearward and creating a violent rocking effect this was heart stopping for the driver and led to a completely uncontrollable car the only way a driver could stop it was to hit the brakes and therefore ruining his lap time the next step for lotus was to try to stiffen the suspension to stop this rocking but unfortunately this only led to the same effect but with the car bouncing on the tyres rather than the suspension the chief aerodynamicist at lotus peter wright came up with a groundbreaking solution he proposed using a so-called synthetic spring to replace the traditional spring and damper system it consisted of a hydraulic ram with extremely fast acting electronically controlled valves this system minimized the poor poisoning effect but also brought about larger changes the car could now be held at the optimum ride height for the ground effect as well as the front and rear wings the ride height is how far off the ground the car's floor runs and is critical to how much aerodynamic force is produced the issue with traditional suspension that uses springs is that the ride heights would constantly change and with it the car's grip and balance having much tighter control over the ride height of the cars allowed a more extreme design of aerodynamic systems the benefits were not only due to the aerodynamic grip but also the mechanical grip the system could dynamically stiffen and soften the active springs on each corner of the car allowing manipulation of the downward pressure on each tyre maximizing the grip on all four corners the system was able to measure the downward pressure on the tyre and stiffen or soften the car suspension to ensure an optimum grip level the active suspension system also allowed the angle of attack of the car to be changed dynamically manipulating the balance of the car the fw11b would raise rear ride height in tighter turns to give more grip over the front wheels and allow the driver to rotate the car in higher speed turns the rear would lower to improve rear stability the system did have its drawbacks it added 10 to 12 kilograms to the weight of the car and could cause the car to be unpredictable if not programmed correctly remember this was the early 90s the system also stole about five percent of the power from the already less powerful renault engine as the hydraulic pump was directly driven off the crank the renault engine was low on power but was widely considered the best on the grid as it was much lighter than the more powerful but weighty honda v10 initially nigel mantle didn't like the system he refused to race the car until his teammate nelson pk won at monza he then went on to have the team build an entire new car before the next race in estoril while the lotus team took a ride height quality approach to the active suspension problem williams went in a different direction frank durney the designer of the williams active suspension focused primarily on the aerodynamic advantages that could be found by tightly controlling the car's ride height durney famously said i don't give a damn about ride height quality all i wanted to do was make the car go quicker initially williams's system could not anticipate the corners or the loads it merely controlled the reaction to them so williams named it reactive suspension it used hydraulic actuators to control the car holding it as stable as possible around the lap negating the need for roll bars of any kind williams teamed up with a company called automotive products who had already been working on a similar system for the ford granada that was released five years later with an extremely similar system to the f1 car five years later in 1992 the williams active suspension was reborn they had got over the technical challenges of integrating a computer into the car which wasn't as trivial then as it is now and created a car that could be taught a circuit the incredibly complex system was able to constantly apply corrections to dialogue oversteer or understeer many times in each corner williams also added a button to the dashboard to lower the car on the straights which would stall the diffuser this allowed the car to travel up to 10 kilometers an hour quicker on the straights so this is where we invented the button which in a way was the first drs sure the drivers used it on every straight if they remembered and they had to remember to release it before the breaking point which nigel didn't always remember to do because he he liked to push things harder the computers were even able to anticipate large bumps on the circuit particularly noticeable in the 1992 monaco grand prix where the cars were able to go straight over the large bump down to mirrorboat even today modern f1 cars have to take a less direct line around this bump the fw14b could raise and lower the front or rear ride height for every corner on the circuit as well as tightly controlled the body roll of the car but aside from this the car was also one of the best aerodynamic packages on the grid this was the real reason for williams's success in 1992 the fw14b produced a vast amount more downforce than the rest of the competition and it was the main reason for lotus not keeping up durney produced wings that were extremely peaky and sensitive to ride height change this increased the aerodynamic efficiency of the system meaning williams could lower drag and increase downforce coupling that with the better package of the renault engine new and innovative semi-automatic gearbox and a very good traction control system the car won nine of the 16 races and landed mansell and pk 1-2 in the driver's championship with mansell nearly doubling the points hall of his next closest competitor as with anything in formula one the secrets of the system were held close to williams's chest with many of the details still not being known to this day williams even attached a large piece of suede to cover the suspension system in case a crash took off the nose of the car and revealed williams's secrets frank derney has refused to answer questions about the unusual layout of the actuators and has said williams plan to hold on to the secrets in case active suspension does make a comeback in f1 if you are enjoying this video please do consider subscribing to the driver 61 channel so why is active suspension not around now well it is just not in formula one many road cars have extremely clever active suspension systems that were greatly inspired by f1 it allows for better cornering performance as well as a soft and comfortable ride most road cars use electromagnetic particles in the hydraulics to allow control of the car's stiffness lexus built this into one of their cars and you can see the huge difference in stability and control of the car it can even jump over small obstacles however in 1993 active suspension was banned f1's argument was that the cars were becoming more and more peaky and becoming aerodynamically unstable the rise in cornering speeds mixed with aerodynamic unpredictability meant that f1 banned active suspension entirely however it nearly made an unlikely comeback in 2019 f1 discussed the idea of making active suspension legal for the new 2021 rules under the premise that systems will be much cheaper to design and implement with current technology and the fact that modern cars already run many hydraulic systems however a decision was eventually taken that reintroducing active suspension would undermine efforts to improve the quality of racing teams would be inclined to produce more peaky aerodynamic packages that would be much more sensitive to dirty air from the car in front making it more difficult for cars to race if you enjoyed this you'll also like these videos where i break down famous f1 drivers techniques or these videos where i take a look at f1's incredible engineering thanks and i'll see you next time

Channel: Driver61

Views: 3,421,285

Rating: 4.9211216 out of 5

Keywords: formula 1, f1, formula one, active suspension, f1 engineering, williams f1, driver61, fw14b, fw14b active suspension, motorsport, engineering

Id: sRB9T2ACPRI

Length: 10min 28sec (628 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/1_player]

The system could dynamically stiffen and soften the active springs on each corner of the car, allowing manipulation of the downward pressure on each tyre, maximising the grip on all four corners. The [Williams] FW11B would raise rear ride height in tighter turns to give more grip over the front wheels. [...] In higher speed turns the rear would lower to improve stability.

All this completely automatic. Such incredible technology for the 80s. Imagine an alternate universe where ground effect and active suspensions were never banned, what incredible machines we would have now (though I bet much more expensive than the current cars, with probably even more negligible road relevance.)

[u/enqrypzion]

Did Winniams ever sell or use the technology in or to other realms of car manufacturing or motorsports?