UNDER THE HOOD
UNPICKING THE NEW PECKING ORDER
Writing this during the last stages of 2023 pre-season testing, one might hope to make a clear prediction for the coming season – but, as happens every year, the picture only really becomes apparent a few races into the season. That doesn’t prevent us, as competitive people, from analysing every bit of data, scrutinising every comment, and applying judgement to visual clues to try and establish the pecking order.
Restricting the pre-season test to just three days means there’s a lot of work for the teams to get through. The new-car sign-off lists have to be worked through laboriously and yet precisely. The sheer volume of work requires perfect reliability in order to get everything covered and yet that very testing is there to try and establish the reliability. A virtuous circle it is not. However, an increase of 28% in total laps covered compared with last year shows reliability isn’t holding the teams back.
The 2022 cars were, of course, extremely different to their predecessors. Finding out how best to exploit the characteristics that were effectively baked in to the regulations took an enormous amount of simulation – and a not inconsiderable amount of testing. The 2022 pre-season tests in Barcelona and Bahrain were extremely difficult to interpret. While the 2023 cars are much more evolutionary than revolutionary it’s proving as difficult as ever to really establish who has made progress and who hasn’t.
There have been two main areas teams have focused on over the winter. The first is to get weight out of the cars. Many, even the frontrunners, were still running over the weight limit at the end of last year and, while weight reduction is expensive, it gives a guaranteed payback. Shave 5kg off the car and it will go 0.15 seconds quicker around an average circuit. It’s pure physics and, barring a few nuances of tyre temperature and centre of gravity height, a reduction in weight will give the result that’s expected. Unfortunately, for the fans and even the seasoned observer, it’s virtually impossible to see the areas where the weight saving has taken place. They will consist of a bit of rationalisation here, a bit of stress optimisation there. A couple of the teams have shown me examples and, believe me, they’re subtle.
The second area of focus is, as always, aerodynamics. The FIA introduced new regulations for the floor geometry for this year as part of its attempt to limit porpoising. This change lifted the edges of the floor by 15mm and the lowest part of the floor by 10mm. In reality, many teams were already on top of the porpoising by the last part of the 2022 campaign but, nevertheless, the rule has been introduced. This will have reduced the downforce on the car by around 5% and, as has been the case so many times in the past, when a rule reduces downforce, the aerodynamicists’ first thought is to wrest it back.
Talking to the engineers at the test and looking at the lap times, I would say they’ve been very successful. While one can never be sure of the exactitude, it’s safe to generalise and say that most cars are looking significantly quicker than in last year’s test. Of course this can be down to track conditions, but track temperatures during the quickest part of the evening were within one degree of last year and the wind was similar. Equally, Pirelli’s new front tyre may have helped a bit but the engineers I asked about this felt it wasn’t a discernible difference.
So, assuming teams were running similar test conditions to last year in terms of fuel load and engine settings we see most teams around a second and a half quicker than last year. With that established we see the biggest gains year-on-year for single-lap pace are Mercedes, Williams, Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin. Arguably the first two needed to improve the most and, indeed, Mercedes made good headway during the
course of 2022. Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin, though, do look like genuine improvements – probably by half a second over the average. Those that didn’t show so well were Alpine, Mclaren and Haas. While Haas was probably abnormally fast last year due to running after the other cars, Alpine and Mclaren definitely have work to do.
All teams are busy on upgrades now and some will have already been seen at the first race by the time this issue of GP Racing reaches the shelves. They may alter the pecking order slightly but I suspect, even though I always advise against making predictions based on a sample of one, that we’re likely to see further Red Bull domination this year. The excitement may well be in the battle behind the leaders, though. The midfield was close last season and the early indications are that it will be even closer this year.
A final word should go to porpoising.
Twelve months ago it was the talk of the paddock. This year it was barely mentioned. Looking at some data I could see Mercedes had made huge improvements. Vertical acceleration was around one third of last year’s levels while Ferrari, at times, showed similar levels to last year. The compromise that teams seek is still there – how much aero efficiency gain can they find by running the car low and stiff while keeping the bouncing at an acceptable level. I suspect Ferrari was simply trying to find that answer when its car was bouncing heavily.
It may also show that one of the secrets of the Red Bull performance is that the car has benign aerodynamics and compliant suspension. Red Bull appears to be able to run its car softer while maintaining downforce. I think this is still the secret others are trying to unlock.
THE EXCITEMENT MAY WELL BE IN THE BATTLE BEHIND THE LEADERS. THE MIDFIELD WAS CLOSE LAST SEASON AND THE EARLY INDICATIONS ARE THAT IT WILL BE EVEN CLOSER THIS YEAR