Sauber’s worst season to date came in 2014 with the Sauber C33, their ideal race car for the new 2014 power unit and chassis regulations. The C33 was by all means a great racing car, it just wasn’t as good as its competitors. The team identified reliability as their main area to work at the time of design and testing, unfortunately, this didn’t go to plan.
In 2014, the Ferrari power unit was slow and simple, while the chassis was very unstable and high and low speeds, this resulted in Sauber’s worst season of competing in Formula One.
Come the close of the season, Sauber had been beaten by Marussia in the team’s standings (thanks to an epic 9th place from Jules Bianchi in Monaco) this was the sign that Sauber had to change its ways. Sauber had a tremendous 2013 campaign with Nico Hulkenberg who had countless top 5’s, but did Sauber shoot themselves in the foot? Well yes, Sauber consistently brought updates to the C32 in order to help them beat its rival outfits. Often the C32 would be on par with Ferrari and Mercedes, this then brought upon Sauber’s performance demesne in 2014, as not enough time or money was invested in the new turbo era of Formula One car. From here onwards, Sauber was on the back foot.
The end of the 2014 season brought Sauber together as a team, things had to change for this iconic company. For the 2015 season Sauber went back to the drawing board, new backroom staff had been applied to the research and development for the C34’s chassis, suspension and transmission. Updates came to the car fairly slow compared to its rival outfits, Sauber had a fantastic start with both cars high up in the points, but since then the car has suffered for pace. Hers is the low down on the cars rocky technical roadmap.
The FIA and fans were not happy with the low noses for 2014, as they were deemed to ‘ugly’ so changes were on its way. The nose will be lowered further and must sit 135mm to 220mm above the floor. The nose must also be widened to a second cross section 150mm behind its tip, which must be no less than 20,000° mm^2. These new regulations would eradicate any ‘finger extensions’ to meet FIA regulations. To meet the well-scrutinize noses, Sauber went for the ‘almond’ design with a large thumb section mounted on the front to meet the cross section areas. While this was a simple adaption to the new rules Sauber likewise to McLaren and Ferrari were blocking off the airflow underneath the chassis, as the front wing overhang was just too large, and obstructing the flow patterns.
When the Singapore GP showed up Sauber showed off its new nose, a much better adaptation to the regulations, which is also kinder to the cars aerodynamics. The thumb design is a non-linear idea which means they come to a point. The overhang above the FIA homologated cross section shows it’s quite large with the cross section behind it quite high up. This allows plenty of air to go under the chassis where underfloor elements can play with like the cars diffuser and y100 winglet. The new nose was a much-improved concept, which has really helped the cars balance, but the car is still having balance issues to this point.
One of greatest assets now on the C34 is the new re-profiled front wing, which was debuted in China. Their previous design was a complete carryover from the 2013 C32, therefore showing money was tight. The old spec design was very basic and outdated, and so the new concept could‘ant of come sooner. Their latest one consist of more mainplanes at the trailing edges of the wing, with a neat cascade unit to help turn the oncoming airflow outboard of the front tyres.
By becoming three tier, the flow is more laminar as it goes over the flaps. This will result in less turbulence for the bargeboards and bulkhead vanes to deal with. The inner sections of the flaps are much more twisted, so will have a bigger grip of the Y250 vortex (high and low pressure flow mix to form a vortex 250mm from the car’s centerline) This can then be used more effectively for the cars cooling, as the vortex will carry flow right into the side pod ducts. The net result will be improved cooling capabilities.
Up front, the car has pull-rod suspension, which has been commonly used this calendar year. But with the car’s electronic and mechanical suspension this has resulted in a lack of feel and stability. Sauber tells us that the C34 suffers from high doses of understeer, which the team are not currently on top of. Rear stability is one of the weaker areas with the car too. Sauber would need more load on the back tyres to help push the rubber into the tarmac, this can be archived by new rear suspension geometries or more downforce.
Sauber uses Ferrari’s transmission, but that’s only the casing, as the internals and bellhousing are very different. Because of this Sauber have had to mount its damper elements into the bellhousing, and use pull-rods to actuate them. A new exhaust and turbine layout sees a twin entry into the turbine mounted in the bellhousing along with the cars collector and tailpipe, which exits from a small hole on top of the casing. Also packaged into this small area is the hydraulics and dampers for the rear suspension.
On the Sauber, the tailpipe leaves the bell-housing, and on its way it passes through the rear Y100 and rear wing supports. Because of this Sauber have mounted its supports onto the transmission casing, as opposed to the rear impact structure as seen on previous cars from the firm.
For 2015, Sauber moved to horizontal radiators, which has been switched from a higher setup as seen on the C33. This has meant Sauber have re-packaged its side pods to a much smaller profile. At the heart of Sauber and its significant improvement in performance in the Ferrari 059/4 power unit. Last year’s engine was made up of basic principles, manifolds were too long and were not heat coated to save energy got the MGU-H, which meant not enough electric energy could be gathered for the MGU-K. When looking at the engines details the first thing to note is the relocated oil cooler, which has come from the bellhousing and onto the front of the engine’s “V”. Turbine wastegate is also of a new design, with re-positioned intercoolers.
The biggest change is the manifold. Last year the engine had the “up and over” layout which was used to make the packaging more compacted, this has been ditched for the three into one collector, as seen the previous year on the Mercedes W05. This sits very close to the bellhousing and turbine, under the overhang of the V6 cylinder heads.
Magneti Marelli has supplied its new and updated MKU-K to the Ferrari engine for 2015. The 120kw motor packs 450v and weights 10kg. Ferrari is also using the new inverter from the same franchise, which has new and updated capacitors for Sauber and Ferrari.
One of the key weaknesses for the C34 is the steering, which both driver has claimed its “killing their confidence”. Over the break, Sauber had to revamp the rear suspension layout, as the C33 has a truly unnerving set-up, as traction and stability were just below par. At the front little has changed year on year, and now they’re paying the price. With pushrod actuating torsion bars, the feel hasn’t been up to scratch for its drivers. Sauber has improved from the 2014 car, but all is not dealt with to this point.
2012 and 2013 were a great season as they had a neat concept with the exhaust, as they had well integrated Coanda exhaust and blown diffusers into the back of the car. Sauber is still working hard to combat the problem; on the front and rear. Power delivery and throttle maps also contribute to the issues so you need the right programming here too. Brake-By-Wire is also hard to keep on top of as well. The biggest problem by a mile is rear loading, as mentioned earlier – a factor which has really hurt Sauber, as with the C34’s brakes overheating the rear end, so they lose grip, traction and stability. When the watch the car through a fast corner you can witness the rear-end snaking around as the tyres loose grip on the surface. When James Key left the outfit for Toro Rosso, the team has worked tirelessly on kinematics and tyre contact patch ever since. From the C32 to the C35 there have been great strides in the field for the team.
Another underlying problem is understeer for the car, which is something very hard to eradicate. Engineers have told us on several accounts that the cars are just too long for the tracks we use, making mid-corner understeer inevitable. This isn’t just with Sauber, as all the other teams will suffer doses of this to some extent. Montreal and Monaco were the two stand-out tracks where Sauber had a lot of steering issues, with the flowing tracks of Austria and Silverstone suiting the cars philosophy better.
Brakes for the C34 have been okay for the cars, it’s just cooling has been a real issue for Nasr’s side of the garage. It’s important brake ducts are to scale so that right amount enters them. Sauber until recently has overcome this problem.
Moving back to the side pods and aerodynamics of the car, it’s easy to note the neat deign of the flow conditioners on them, the leading edge sees one separate vortex generator, which will guide the flow down the side pod to the diffuser. Next to that you can see two more generators which are a rectangle-like shape – this will help keep the turbulent wake laminar to the car. It’s important that this area is designed correctly as there can be benefits to the diffuser, Sauber seems to have a good hold here.
Audi Sport clocked three-thousand hours this year in their wind tunnel, and it is believed that Sauber can’t use it as much as it would like too. Sauber makes a lot of money from the wind tunnel, and so can’t turn down requests. Sauber now has to use more CFD than tunnel testing, which isn’t as accurate. The correlation between them is not a stern way to test parts flow patterns and behaviours.
The bar was set high for the C34 after the failings from the C33. Some of the direct carryovers which were effective last year is the undercut below the roll hoop. This neat idea was adopted by Force India a number of seasons ago, and it is a way to make the oncoming air flow travel along the car’s engine cover to the rear wing. In the same area, Sauber introduced ‘dog ear’ inlets which lead to the water and oil coolers mounted at the back of the engine. This was making progress in cooling, albeit rather slowly.
Finally, the back of the car shows how neat it is, you can see the wishbone pickup mounts and transmission mounts all well hidden. Sauber has a relatively neat rear wing which has a high amount of louvres to help reduce the wing-tip vortices. The end plate also has stakes on its outer edges to help pick up and move a lot more flow for the rear wing main planes. Sauber also have a well-integrated DRS actuator packaged well in a Carbon Fiber casing. The back-end is one of the neatest this year. For the tyre squirts it is fairly normal on the car, and just help seal the diffuser edges and stop an overspill of low-pressure flow under the chassis, Sauber have one lined with an inboard fence.
Overall it’s been a tough year so far for Sauber, steering mechanics and electronics in the bulkhead have resulted in steering issues all year-long, while the rear won’t stay planted. The new and updated Ferrari power unit is definitely a big bonus for the team, with many good results from it. Although the C34 has issues the team have learned a lot, Sauber may just be a dark horse from 2016.
