PAT SYMONDS PICTURES
MAKING A CASE FOR DIVE INTERVENTION
When the latest cars were properly revealed in Bahrain we were able to see what had really been going on in design offices up and down the grid. The replicas and renderings now commonly used for car launches have never fully represented the finished article, partly because Formula 1 is the ultimate ‘Just In Time’ industry with components arriving sometimes just hours before they are needed – and partly because designers don’t want to show their hand until the last minute.
One might think this secrecy is misplaced but showing the spark of an idea two weeks before you really need to enables your rivals to gain two weeks in the whole research-design-produce cycle. That could mean a replica of that idea appearing on a rival’s car a full two races earlier than might otherwise be the case.
In the initial renderings this year the standout was the Mercedes front suspension. It appeared to show an additional suspension element. Had it been another team I might have put this down to artistic licence on the part of the person producing the render but, since the Brackley team has a reputation for suspension innovation, I spent some time pondering what it was up to since what was shown didn’t appear to comply with the rules.
In Bahrain it wasn’t until the last day of the test that all became clear when the car was run with the rear leg of the top front wishbone in a new, lower position where it attached to the monocoque. This gave the suspension the highest degree of anti-dive I’ve seen on any car. There was precedent for this. Last year Mercedes had lifted the forward attachment of the wishbone to the chassis with a similar but far less extreme effect. It wasn’t alone. One major change on the Red Bull between 2022 and 2023 seemed to be an increase of anti-squat on the rear suspension, anti-squat being similar to anti-dive but applied to the rear of the car.
So, what is anti-dive and why has it become a talking point in the past couple of years? To understand this we need to appreciate the common suspension layout used on competition cars, which is known as double-wishbone suspension. In this layout two suspension arms, which resemble the wishbone of a chicken, attach the wheel to the chassis. Forget about springs and dampers
