F1 feature: winds of change
F1’s governing body has returned to the drawing board – and the wind tunnel – in search of improved on-track action
AAs the 2020 Grand Prix season gets underway, all 10 teams will have half an eye on next year. Formula One will undergo its most substantial technical change since the adoption of the hybrid powerplant in 2014. While the engines will remain more or less the same, the emphasis this time will be on the chassis, speci cally the effect of aerodynamics.
The single aim is to improve so-called “raceability”; in simple terms, the ability to overtake. That may be stating the obvious for a racing formula but, considering the current cars are using only 55% of their downforce when running in turbulent air created by the car in front, it is small wonder processional racing is being addressed. The gure shown for the 2021 car is 86%; a considerable improvement but one which is likely to be whittled away as the teams’ technicians come up with sophisticated solutions to clawing back downforce.
These gures have been arrived at by a working group chaired by
Ross Brawn, managing director of F1 within Liberty Media, the company that bought F1’s commercial rights in September 2016. (It should be added that none of these changes would have been possible without the full co-operation of the
FIA since only the sport’s governing body can actually publish and police the regulations.)
Using a vast expanse of knowledge gained as technical director at Benetton and Ferrari, as well as establishing his own team that won the F1 championship in 2009, Brawn pulled together a group of experts. They then bought Manor’s 50% complete wind tunnel from the administrators of the defunct F1 team. This provided a basic spine and running gear of the wind tunnel model at a comparatively low cost.
Having the freedom to try whatever they wished (as opposed to the restrictions placed on the race teams), the working group – led by Pat Symonds, the experienced former F1 technical director – engaged outside companies to provide additional computing power. “This provided some pretty extreme computing power applied to our two-car unsteady flow simulations,” said Symonds. “During one quiet weekend, when we were able to grab a lot of idle machines, we ran 14 cases simultaneously which, including following cars in seven cases, was a total of 21 cars. This led to a CFD (computational fluid dynamics) cell count of over 2,7 billion running on 7 296 computer cores. To put this in context, had we run this on a typical dual-core desktop computer, it would have taken a little over 12 and a half years to solve!”
While focused on the raceability goal, the panel also had to consider the need to impose a budget cap to try and curb rampant spending on minutiae as engineers and designers chase performance. Teams will be limited to an annual spend of $175 million, which applies only to operational design, development and racing activities. By leaving driver fees outside the restriction, it is hoped this will help return the emphasis towards the contribution made by the man in the hot seat.
These particular rules, overseen by ex-mercedes financial director Nigel Kerr, are well structured and detailed but the question of policing them is a tricky one. Brawn says the regulations have teeth. The sharpness of those teeth is likely to be tested sooner rather than later. “If they breach these
[cost cap] regulations, they will be losing their championship,” said Brawn. “There are serious penalties. It’s absolutely essential for the future of F1 that we control spending.”
Of more immediate interest is the interpretation of the new focus on underbody aerodynamics as ground effect returns. When ground effect first appeared (courtesy of Colin Chapman and Lotus) in the late 1970s, sliding side skirts were used to prevent the accelerated air under the car from bleeding out and the ambient outside air from seeping into the venturi tunnels in the sidepods. There will not be a return to skirts but a series of inflexible floor fences will channel air, the initial route of which, as ever, will be influenced by nose wings.
Simpler front wings and low noses are a part of numerous changes that include getting rid of the ugly, complex and expensive bargeboards behind the front wheels. Just as significant is a clean-up of the front wing endplate to avoid the exploitation of wingtip airflow that caused the outwash contributing to problems for a following car. There are also obvious changes to the rear wing. Gone are conventional vertical endplates, the upper wing connecting via curved surfaces to a lower beam. The aim is to raise the rear vortices and have them pass over the top of a following car rather than disastrously affect its front-end, as is now the case.
There have already been complaints about all of the above prescriptions leading to a standardisation of car design. Brawn and his team say there can be three distinctly different solutions but the fact that competitive – and copycat – development will eventually lead to the same result is nothing new. It’s part of racing life as minute analysis searches for fractions of a second over five kilometres. Sadly, the days have long gone when you could easily distinguish a Lotus from a Ferrari or a Brabham if all were painted grey and free from sponsor identification.
Another area of immediate and obvious change for 2021 will be the introduction of 18-inch wheels with narrower tyre profiles more in line with quick road cars. Apart from improved appearance, the thought is the resulting stiffer sidewalls will make steering input even more direct while, on the other hand, the reduction in
Focus on underbody aerodynamics as ground effect returns
tyre flex will make warming the rubber more difficult. Some see this as a shortcoming; others say it’s a problem the driver is paid handsomely to deal with.
Pirelli will remain the sole tyre supplier and much depends on the quality of its product and its resistance to overheating, a fundamental shortcoming that has ruined many races in the recent past. Through a so-called “target letter”, Pirelli has been charged with providing a more robust and consistent tyre. A failure to reach this target could negate all of the foregoing aerodynamic work; an outcome Pirelli will wish to avoid given the negative publicity that comes with being in the invidious position of not being seen to win races but being blamed for losing them.
“What’s really important is the target letter,” says Lewis Hamilton, the reigning world champion. “They [Pirelli] have never had a good target letter in terms of what to deliver, so the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association has been working closely with the FIA to make sure it is written well. I don’t know who wrote it before but it wasn’t great; hopefully, this time they will have a better idea and will be able to develop a tyre more in the direction of what people need to help us race better.”
Hamilton has been critical in the past over the weight of an F1 car. He has maintained a diplomatic silence – for now – following the revelation that the 2021 car will be even heavier, rising from 743 kg to 768 kg. This has been unavoidable thanks to the adoption of the heavier wheel rims and cost-saving measures within the construction of the chassis and power unit.
The retention of the complex hybrid motor has been disappointing for those who felt more should be done to make F1 cars sound dramatic rather than have the exhaust note muffled by a turbocharger. In the end, with no sign of new names joining, the wishes of the existing powerplant manufacturers – Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda – prevailed.
“We have the most efficient engines on the planet in terms of conversion of energy to power at the rear wheels. We felt changing that would be a step backwards,”
“We have the most efficient engines on the planet”
said Nikolas Tombazis, former chief designer at Ferrari and now the FIA’S head of single-seaters.
Sustainability has been high on the committee’s agenda as environmental concerns continue to underpin much of the thinking. Grands Prix will be reduced from four days to three, Thursday’s scrutineering and media briefings taking place on Friday morning. Free practice will be cut back, the two 90-minute sessions on a Friday are considered too long even though the reduction will deny race fans – perhaps seeing F1 cars once a year on their home patch – the chance to enjoy the action.
Looking at the bigger picture (and arguably contradicting environmental concerns), this reduction in time and cost will be used to chase F1’s debatable ambition of staging 25 Grands Prix in a season (there will be 22 this year). Of course, whether people will want to come and watch depends very much on the raceability these dramatic changes eventually achieve.