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Up until the end of 2011, all teams had been using a pushrod suspension at the front and a pullrod suspension at the rear for almost a decade. But last year, Ferrari went against the norm and adopted a pullrod layout on the front suspension. The team recently announced that they are going to continue with the pullrod layout for this season too and the new version will be an evolved one, cancelling out the negative points of last year’s version.
Now, why all this fuss about pullrod and pushrod and why do they need to be used? Let us understand and for that first let us know what is the basic difference between the two in geometry and in working.
This excellent video will clarify what exactly pushrod suspension is:
Now the pullrod suspension:
As we see from the two videos, each of the two layouts have their pros and cons. Let me list them down again for quick reference:
Pushrod suspension
Advantages:
1. Helps maintain the car at the same level
2. Aero benefit from the geometry of the control arms and the pushrod
Disadvantages:
1. Higher CG (centre of gravity)
Pullrod suspension
Advantages:
1. Lower CG
Disadvantages:
1. Higher load on the upper control arm
2. Aero disadvantage
So, how do these advantages and disadvantages relate to Formula 1?
As mentioned earlier, all teams, for many years, have adopted a pullrod suspension at the rear. The reason for that is the whole assembly consisting of the rockers, dampers and anti-roll bars are mounted on the gearbox (a stressed member). The gearbox is a heavy unit and thus it is beneficial to keep it as low to the ground as possible so as to increase stability in the corners.
The pushrod suspension has an aero advantage over its pullrod counterpart and hence using a pushrod layout at the front helps channel the air properly towards the sidepods and the diffuser. On the other hand, at the rear, channeling the air is not such an important factor and so one can do away with a small aero benefit for getting a lower CG.
It seems as if Ferrari have adopted the same strategy for the front of the car where they must be doing something so as to negate the aero disadvantage with the pullrod layout. The front wing might be coming into play where the cascade wings and the endplates might be channeling the air in such a way that the pullrod cannot disrupt it.
