As part of a push to be more aggressive with its 2024 C44 design, Sauber has made some extensive changes to the car that Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu will race this season.
One of the most intriguing design shifts is in its suspension layout, with the squad changing to the pull-rod front suspension layout that Red Bull and McLaren have exclusively put to good use in the current ground-effect era.
While a pull-rod layout at the front had fallen out of favour with the previous generation of cars, the potential aerodynamic advantages it offers for ground-effect machinery have started to become more obvious.
Sauber technical director James Key, who oversaw McLaren opting for the pull-rod front when he worked there previously, reckons the aero gains far outweigh what is clearly not an ideal solution from a mechanical perspective because components end up in a difficult to access location.
“Aerodynamically, it's absolutely the right thing to do and it does have a positive effect,” Key told Autosport.
“It is all about managing your front tyre wake, and there are many other complicated functions you try to generate around the tyre.
“It's one of the few devices you've got between the front wing and the rest of the car. So you want to use it to good advantage aerodynamically.
“The disadvantage of course is mechanically. It's absolutely not what you want to do at all. It's inside-out and back-to-front: it's not a nice suspension design as such.”
Source: Autosport