<WARNING: Wall of text.. with some possible ranting involved.>
Sigh.... Ground effect is more dangerous than active suspension:
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2007/06/07/banned-ground-effects/It allows the cornering speed to climb too high with too high a risk of losing the effect due to changes in body height or attitude or many other factors (like breaking a part of one of the skirts on a corner edge, etc), which makes it pretty useless for a road car, like most extreme aerodynamic tricks. While active suspension does increase corner speeds, the increase is nowhere near the amount allowed by ground effect cars.
In essence the primary benefit of active suspension is not having to "load up" the suspension when accelerating, braking or changing direction, which allows the car to be more reactive to the driver's inputs without losing grip. The pressure at the relevant wheel is adjusted to give immediate grip where needed. It does also mean you can gain a small amount of aerodynamic efficiency by keeping the attitude of the car steady in the flow, but with all the bans on underbody designs it won't benefit corner speeds massively.
It can prevent a car from going "out of control" in many situations where a standard suspension system would cause the tyres to lose grip. For instance, in a rapid left-right-left movement, the suspension loads up alternating sides of the car, but it's out of phase with the movement, so can make the car lose control. Active suspension loads up the tyres as the driver moves the wheel (it also takes into account the various positions and accelerations of each of the four corners of the car), allowing the maximum grip for each part of the maneuver. Improves safety. Banning it by calling it a "moveable aerodynamic device" was a bit silly. I mean the entire car is a "movable aerodynamic device", so why not just ban the whole thing.
"Active suspension has its roots in the row over ground effects and skirts in 1981 – and the controversial banning of the Lotus 88.
The teams were searching for means of running skirts down the sides of the cars to generate massive downforce as air passed underneath the car. An essential part of this was ensuring an even ride height"
Which is why active suspension or a dual chassis is essential for an
effective ground effect car.
How about four wheel drive? Or McLaren's extra brake pedal? <- this one was completely driver controlled, so couldn't exactly be called an electronic driver aid like some of the other tech that's landed under the ban hammer.
Scenario: Team X has this new innovation that fits the rules and is making them better (and could be of benefit on a normal car if given the opportunity to be developed) - FIA: "Let's change the rules again!".
You say innovation is rife in F1... anything actually ground breaking? Anything that's not ONLY very specifically relevant to F1? Anything that will change the car you buy 5 years from now in any significant way? Like say, fuel injection or turbo technology, known about for ages (fighter planes in WWII were using both technologies), but developed and refined in F1 to the point that further development could be done by "normal" manufacturers and integrated into their cars. What was the last F1 tech to filter down and end up in a road car? Anything in recent years? Anybody?
The rotary valve design is a great example of a tech that could have been developed and refined in F1 and would benefit normal cars. Without the benefit of high cost, high speed development and problem solving found in F1, many technologies will either never see the light of day due to the prohibitive cost to iteratively develop them, or will only come about in many years time, when some technique or material comes to light that makes the development feasible. Active suspension has been tested on cars, but it's an expensive and difficult system to develop.
Even KERS, hybrids and efficient electric drive systems were pioneered by normal car companies before being added to F1 cars.
It's all gone upside down.Anyway, I think we can both at least agree that a little more leeway for innovation would be a good thing. Perhaps?
