A LOOK AT THE CIRCUIT WITH AN IMAGINARY DRIVER
One of the things I miss the most from my past life as a race engineer is going through a circuit map analysis with my driver before the race event and after each session. Those are very precious moments for a race engineer as they provide the chance to “sit in the car” and immerse him/herself into the competition. The driver puts notes on the track layout highlighting the key points for the car performance (see right).
Although it is not easy to predict the behaviour of the Tarmac used to build this track, I tried to visualise what an F1 driver would recommend for this new, fascinating layout. With the available information, it looks like the main characteristic will be the traction (T) for the corners T1, T3, T8, T9 and T11. In particular, after T3, T9 and T11, the drivers won’t attack the entry to be sure to have a more stable and clear acceleration on exit because of the straights that follow.
Traction means rear grip, which calls for high rear downforce and propulsion driveability. But this may induce also understeer (US) especially in mid to highspeed corners such as T2, T6, T7 and T12. You may be lucky and have an aero map providing enough front aero balance for the ride heights involved in those corners, and in this case the race engineers “only” need to set up the car to be in that magic zone. Otherwise, you will have to push the front flap or the car rake to the limit. The former is a drag-free solution, but the maximum angle may have the cost of a dirtier flow going to the rear of the car. The rake introduces some drag (you won’t really care about this at Zandvoort) with the risk of getting the car in unstable regions of the aero map for higher rear ride height. Another option is to adopt a suspension geometry that introduces a progressive stiffness on the rear for speed greater than (say) 180 km/h.
A strong rear may affect