| By Gary Anderson | |
Formula 1's new rules package for 2017 has reignited the development race between the teams, with new areas of the cars opened up to be exploited by the cleverest minds working behind the scenes.
We are bound to see more new approaches spring up over the course of the second test this week, with even more aggressive details likely to appear when the teams unload their cars in the Melbourne pitlane at the end of the month.
So far, we've already had plenty to get our teeth into, with the help of Giorgio Piola's detailed technical drawings, so let's take a look at the most interesting themes on the grid so far.
Mercedes diffuser
Mercedes appears to have put a lot of effort into its diffuser, and compared with the ones on the Ferrari and the Red Bull it is much more detailed.
The main objective of this area of the car is to work in conjunction with the low-pressure area behind the rear tyre. If this can be achieved, and the low-pressure area helps to suck the air faster, the increase in underbody downforce will be significant.
The detail of the outer turning vane is what achieves this, but doing this without optimising the airflow along the full trailing edge would not be enough. The arrows show how each individual item has to work with the others as one.
Also illustrated here are the multi-tier brake duct turning vanes. These help with diffuser downforce by reducing the airflow leakage that would normally go under the diffuser at the side of the rear tyre.
T-wings
As this drawing of the 1995 McLaren shows, t-wings and engine cover fins have been around in Formula 1 for a long time on and off. But, owing to a little slip up when writing the rules for 2017, they have now been re-born.
The Williams version features a little wing across the trailing edge of the engine cover fin. It is one straight aerodynamic section producing downforce in its own right, but also helping to create a turning moment in the airflow that will improve the performance of the rear wing.
The lower version is a twisted aerodynamic profile and is more of an airflow-conditioning component. This influences the airflow coming off the trailing edge of the sidepods and going to the undersurface of the rear wing main plane. Again, this will improve the performance of the rear wing.
Mercedes ran with what might be called a bi-plane t-wing, on the basis of if one is good then two must be better.
Suspension
Both Mercedes and Toro Rosso have raised the height of the outboard ends of their front wishbones to upright pickups (red arrow).
They have done this with the addition of an 'ear' coming off the top of the front upright around the inner edge of the front rim. The lower wishbone is also higher, and is now above the centre of the axle.
In doing this, the wishbones have been moved into a position where they will do less damage to the airflow coming off the front wing. They will also help prepare the airflow a little better for entry into the underfloor and sidepod leading edge.
The suspension geometry can also be a little more sympathetic to the tyre, improving the consistency of the contact patch. This will help with overall grip, and could potentially also reduce tyre degradation.
Sidepods
Without doubt, the leading edge of the sidepods and bargeboards is the area that Ferrari has put most of its winter efforts into. There are more turning vanes and widgets in there than on all the other cars in the pitlane put together, and if it all works well it will be more or less impossible for any team to copy at short notice.
The sidepod leading edge is further back than anyone else (except Haas), and to achieve this some of the turning vanes actually house the mandatory side-impact tubes.
Testing has shown the Ferrari is very stable across a wide range of conditions and tyre compounds, so it does look as if this area is working as the team would have predicted.
Compared with Mercedes and Red Bull, Ferrari has really gone to town in this area, and the sheer complexity of the airflow will take a long time to evaluate and replicate if it proves effective enough for other teams to want to imitate it.
Noses
A lot has been made of the hole in the nose of the Red Bull. Basically, it is there to help the aerodynamics and will improve the consistency of the airflow around this area. As a result, this will improve the performance of some of the components downstream.
The arrows show how the airflow will spill off the upper nose surface and go between the chassis and the inner edge of the front tyre. This flow then gets conditioned by some of the suspension components to improve the performance of the underfloor.
The McLaren version has multiple turning vanes coming off the front wing mounting. These help to turn the airflow into the middle of the car to increase the column of air that is going between the front wheels and the underside of the chassis.
Compared with the Mercedes, which is very simple, the McLaren one is fairly complicated.
Front tyre wake control
With the wider front tyres, controlling the turbulent wake coming off the trailing edge of the front wing is vitally important to the performance of the sidepod undercut - and, in turn, the Coke-bottle area at the rear of the car.
If this airflow is not optimised, the front wing, underfloor and diffuser will all suffer.
Renault has, like most teams, moved the lower part of the vertical turning vane forward, nearer to the front tyre, and turned it into a multi-element component. This improves its performance and makes the airflow more robust. The latter is particularly important since it has to function with varying steering lock.
Ferrari cooling system
One of the more interesting - but simple - solutions on the Ferrari is this area of the floor with the temperature stickers on it.
Basically, cooling fluids have to be moved around the car - from the engine to the radiators, for instance, or from from the gearbox to a cooler buried somewhere under the bodywork. It looks like Ferrari has embedded the necessary pipework in the underfloor.
So instead of normal pipework, through which the internal fluid might pick up heat as it passes around the engine bay, this solution will offer a bit of cooling because of the airflow passing across the floor's upper and lower surfaces. This, in turn, will potentially allow Ferrari to run a smaller cooler.
The only negative would be if you get a wheel in the sidepod, and in turn damage the pipework. Perhaps Ferrari has looked at this and thought that if another car's wheel gets this far into the sidepod, it's going to be game over anyway.
This kind of detail impresses me. From what I'm seeing of Ferrari, I believe we are seeing a team reborn.
DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES
Looking at the three leading cars - the Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull - my suggestion for a development direction for each would be as follows:
Ferrari - diffuser area
The Ferrari diffuser is relatively simple and a reasonable chunk of performance can be found in this area. And it's not so critical to the performance of the rest of the car because the airflow coming off the trailing edge of the diffuser gets left behind for a following car to deal with.
Ferrari can stay away from its front wing for now. The car and its very complicated bargeboard system seems to work, and by changing the front wing characteristics you run the risk of causing problems downstream.
Mercedes - bargeboards
Mercedes already has a relatively complicated bargeboard area, but is not using it to the maximum of the new regulations. By optimising this area, it will be possible to find a reasonable amount of downforce, especially from the underfloor.
Also, Mercedes needs to have a look at why the car seems to suffer from a touch of inherent understeer. Watching on track, this increases between the soft and the medium Pirelli tyres when on high fuel loads.
Red Bull - watch this space
Red Bull has room for improvements on both the bardgeboards and diffusers. The car does look pretty good out on circuit, but if anything gives up, it's the rear end under traction.
I'm pretty sure the car that came to the first test was a simple version. Adrian Newey is renowned for keeping the trick bits until the last possible minute, and 2017 will be no different. I would expect a fairly different package to turn up in the pitlane in Melbourne later this month.
| By Gary Anderson | |
Formula 1's new rules package for 2017 has reignited the development race between the teams, with new areas of the cars opened up to be exploited by the cleverest minds working behind the scenes.
We are bound to see more new approaches spring up over the course of the second test this week, with even more aggressive details likely to appear when the teams unload their cars in the Melbourne pitlane at the end of the month.
So far, we've already had plenty to get our teeth into, with the help of Giorgio Piola's detailed technical drawings, so let's take a look at the most interesting themes on the grid so far.
Mercedes diffuser
Mercedes appears to have put a lot of effort into its diffuser, and compared with the ones on the Ferrari and the Red Bull it is much more detailed.
The main objective of this area of the car is to work in conjunction with the low-pressure area behind the rear tyre. If this can be achieved, and the low-pressure area helps to suck the air faster, the increase in underbody downforce will be significant.
The detail of the outer turning vane is what achieves this, but doing this without optimising the airflow along the full trailing edge would not be enough. The arrows show how each individual item has to work with the others as one.
Also illustrated here are the multi-tier brake duct turning vanes. These help with diffuser downforce by reducing the airflow leakage that would normally go under the diffuser at the side of the rear tyre.
T-wings
As this drawing of the 1995 McLaren shows, t-wings and engine cover fins have been around in Formula 1 for a long time on and off. But, owing to a little slip up when writing the rules for 2017, they have now been re-born.
The Williams version features a little wing across the trailing edge of the engine cover fin. It is one straight aerodynamic section producing downforce in its own right, but also helping to create a turning moment in the airflow that will improve the performance of the rear wing.
The lower version is a twisted aerodynamic profile and is more of an airflow-conditioning component. This influences the airflow coming off the trailing edge of the sidepods and going to the undersurface of the rear wing main plane. Again, this will improve the performance of the rear wing.
Mercedes ran with what might be called a bi-plane t-wing, on the basis of if one is good then two must be better.
Suspension
Both Mercedes and Toro Rosso have raised the height of the outboard ends of their front wishbones to upright pickups (red arrow).
They have done this with the addition of an 'ear' coming off the top of the front upright around the inner edge of the front rim. The lower wishbone is also higher, and is now above the centre of the axle.
In doing this, the wishbones have been moved into a position where they will do less damage to the airflow coming off the front wing. They will also help prepare the airflow a little better for entry into the underfloor and sidepod leading edge.
The suspension geometry can also be a little more sympathetic to the tyre, improving the consistency of the contact patch. This will help with overall grip, and could potentially also reduce tyre degradation.
Sidepods
Without doubt, the leading edge of the sidepods and bargeboards is the area that Ferrari has put most of its winter efforts into. There are more turning vanes and widgets in there than on all the other cars in the pitlane put together, and if it all works well it will be more or less impossible for any team to copy at short notice.
The sidepod leading edge is further back than anyone else (except Haas), and to achieve this some of the turning vanes actually house the mandatory side-impact tubes.
Testing has shown the Ferrari is very stable across a wide range of conditions and tyre compounds, so it does look as if this area is working as the team would have predicted.
Compared with Mercedes and Red Bull, Ferrari has really gone to town in this area, and the sheer complexity of the airflow will take a long time to evaluate and replicate if it proves effective enough for other teams to want to imitate it.
Noses
A lot has been made of the hole in the nose of the Red Bull. Basically, it is there to help the aerodynamics and will improve the consistency of the airflow around this area. As a result, this will improve the performance of some of the components downstream.
The arrows show how the airflow will spill off the upper nose surface and go between the chassis and the inner edge of the front tyre. This flow then gets conditioned by some of the suspension components to improve the performance of the underfloor.
The McLaren version has multiple turning vanes coming off the front wing mounting. These help to turn the airflow into the middle of the car to increase the column of air that is going between the front wheels and the underside of the chassis.
Compared with the Mercedes, which is very simple, the McLaren one is fairly complicated.
Front tyre wake control
With the wider front tyres, controlling the turbulent wake coming off the trailing edge of the front wing is vitally important to the performance of the sidepod undercut - and, in turn, the Coke-bottle area at the rear of the car.
If this airflow is not optimised, the front wing, underfloor and diffuser will all suffer.
Renault has, like most teams, moved the lower part of the vertical turning vane forward, nearer to the front tyre, and turned it into a multi-element component. This improves its performance and makes the airflow more robust. The latter is particularly important since it has to function with varying steering lock.
Ferrari cooling system
One of the more interesting - but simple - solutions on the Ferrari is this area of the floor with the temperature stickers on it.
Basically, cooling fluids have to be moved around the car - from the engine to the radiators, for instance, or from from the gearbox to a cooler buried somewhere under the bodywork. It looks like Ferrari has embedded the necessary pipework in the underfloor.
So instead of normal pipework, through which the internal fluid might pick up heat as it passes around the engine bay, this solution will offer a bit of cooling because of the airflow passing across the floor's upper and lower surfaces. This, in turn, will potentially allow Ferrari to run a smaller cooler.
The only negative would be if you get a wheel in the sidepod, and in turn damage the pipework. Perhaps Ferrari has looked at this and thought that if another car's wheel gets this far into the sidepod, it's going to be game over anyway.
This kind of detail impresses me. From what I'm seeing of Ferrari, I believe we are seeing a team reborn.
DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES
Looking at the three leading cars - the Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull - my suggestion for a development direction for each would be as follows:
Ferrari - diffuser area
The Ferrari diffuser is relatively simple and a reasonable chunk of performance can be found in this area. And it's not so critical to the performance of the rest of the car because the airflow coming off the trailing edge of the diffuser gets left behind for a following car to deal with.
Ferrari can stay away from its front wing for now. The car and its very complicated bargeboard system seems to work, and by changing the front wing characteristics you run the risk of causing problems downstream.
Mercedes - bargeboards
Mercedes already has a relatively complicated bargeboard area, but is not using it to the maximum of the new regulations. By optimising this area, it will be possible to find a reasonable amount of downforce, especially from the underfloor.
Also, Mercedes needs to have a look at why the car seems to suffer from a touch of inherent understeer. Watching on track, this increases between the soft and the medium Pirelli tyres when on high fuel loads.
Red Bull - watch this space
Red Bull has room for improvements on both the bardgeboards and diffusers. The car does look pretty good out on circuit, but if anything gives up, it's the rear end under traction.
I'm pretty sure the car that came to the first test was a simple version. Adrian Newey is renowned for keeping the trick bits until the last possible minute, and 2017 will be no different. I would expect a fairly different package to turn up in the pitlane in Melbourne later this month.
