Australian GP tech blog

The veils of secrecy of pre-season testing have finally been lifted during the opening grand prix weekend of the 2014 Formula 1 season, meaning this is the first time we have been able to get a good look at the cars without bodywork.

The developments glimpsed this weekend are a mix of new and those that have not been spotted before. But most teams have played relatively safe with their aero parts and opted to run their Bahrain test specifications, allowing them to focus on coping with the complexities of the new power units.

RED BULL

Much of the set-up on the Red Bull was as seen in testing, with the addition of a revised front wing and the fitting of front camera pods.

It's these pods that have drawn the most attention. They have to be higher this year to prevent teams placing them in line with the front wing for an aerodynamic benefit, and most teams have therefore fitted them to the side of the nose and aligned them with elements of the front suspension for a small aero gain.

But Red Bull has scrutinised the rule book and merged the pods into the nose itself.

With the camera pods teardrop-shaped in profile, the bottom half of the pod has been sunk into the nose's vanity panel. The nose therefore sports a small bulge corresponding to the upper shape of the pod.

The camera's presence is given away by the small aperture in the top of the nose, which allows the lens to film the car on track.

The team's revised front wing varies in detail in several areas, but the key difference is the cascade-winglet set-up.

The winglet is now attached to the wing's endplate, has three elements and features a vertical vane halfway across its span.

The Red Bull has also been seen without bodywork in the garage. The large size of the cooler package and in particular the turbo intercooler, which is split into two with one part in each sidepod, is immediately apparent.

The intercooler is about four times the thickness of the radiators and far larger than other teams' set-ups.

That suggests the Renault unit needs a far lower charge air temperature to make power reliably, which of course comes at the price of the aero penalty of larger sidepods.

FERRARI

Ferrari has run largely the same set-up as seen in testing. This includes the revised front wing, larger engine cover and the simpler rear wing without the slats of the launch version.

MERCEDES

Like Red Bull, Mercedes brought a revised front wing, again with new cascade winglets and new endplate vanes.

In Mercedes' case the two endplate vanes are now merged into one longer vane, albeit still with the Lotus-style downswept vane on the outer face. The cascade winglet set-up has been simplified into one winglet with an r-shaped vane to the inside of it.

It is interesting to note that there are small shark teeth on the wing below, designed to create tiny vortices, which aid flow.

Overall this appears to be a simpler, less aggressive wing, perhaps tuned more towards a different sensitivity than greater downforce.

The unique horizontal winglet mounted below the front suspension, which was first spotted in Bahrain testing, has also been updated. The device has gained a more scalloped shape, akin to the Batman motif.

With the nose removed, the car's internal suspension details can be discerned.

Mercedes has retained the well developed FRIC interlinked suspension set-up, which uses a heave-and-roll spring to support the car, and uses the FRIC set-up to tune the car's response in pitch and roll.

Beneath the vanity panel there's a sprung damper-like device and, on the front of the bulkhead, an anti-roll bar.

MERCEDES ENGINE

With the all-new power units being so different to each other this year, it's worth noting a design detail on the Mercedes engine.

As far as we can see, the turbo installation on the Ferrari and Renault engines places the entire turbo low down behind the engine.

By contrast, the Mercedes turbo is split.

The exhaust-driven turbine is still mounted behind the engine, but the larger compressor is mounted ahead of the engine.

The two units are linked via a shaft passing through the 'V' of the engine, most likely with the MGU-H mounted between them.

The placing of the large aluminium compressor at the front of the engine means it's far removed from the extreme 900 degrees C heat of the turbine, which will reduce charge air temperatures.

The routing for the intercooler plumbing is also much shorter, which is good to reduce turbo lag.

A possible downside to this set-up though is the long shaft, which could be a reliability concern when spinning at varying speeds up to 125,000rpm. On this front, Mercedes appears to have proved its reliability over the pre-season.

LOTUS

Lotus has what is effectively an all-new front wing, although it hardly varies visually from the version used in testing.

It's mainly the endplate area that's new, but the wing also uses just one flap for downforce adjustment, rather than a pair of conjoined flaps as previously used.

The endplate joins the wing with a larger, more rounded profile, while the vertical vanes mounted to it are more aggressively turned outward.

The wing profile itself, meanwhile, has gained an extra slot, making it a five-element wing. It's not obvious if this wing will be used for all circuits.

With its nose removed, the E22 shows a similar thinking to Caterham in terms of its front-torsion-bar set-up.

Lotus and Caterham both use the torsion bars for roll control rather than supporting the car's weight at each corner. The car's mass is instead supported by a heave spring, leaving the ends of the torsion bar joined with a diagonal linkage that twists the bars in roll.

As with Mercedes, the Lotus has an interlinked set-up to tune the car's response in pitch.

One unexplained detail is a large metal box-like device situated near the exhausts within the sidepods.

It's possible that Lotus is running the heavier-but-more-aerodynamically-efficient water-to-air intercoolers to reduce the charge air entering the engine from the turbo.

McLAREN

The only evident addition to the McLaren is a tiny vane fitted inside the front-wing endplate, to complement the arched vane fitted to the outside of the endplate towards the end of the Bahrain test.

These devices are both used to refine the front wing's ability to turn the airflow outward and around the front tyre.

While the external elements of the McLaren therefore remain largely unchanged, a unique cooling layout is revealed when the car is seen without bodywork for the first time.

The coolers are laid out nearly vertically and almost in line with the car.

This means the air passing into the sidepods has to be redirected 90 degrees outwards to pass through the cores. The sidepod then collects the hot air and ducts it to the twin outlets at the tail of the car.

The turbo intercooler is in the left-hand sidepod, while the engine and ERS water radiators are in the right. The engine and gearbox oil coolers are mounted above the engine and fed by the rollhoop inlet - a very neat, if unusual, set-up.

Another detail exposed, even if not fully understood, is the inboard rear suspension.

Externally McLaren still runs the suspension 'blockers' seen at the first test. A complex lever and torsion-bar set-up appears to be attached to the gearbox, however.

The normal bellcrank operates both vertical torsion bars with something similar running laterally across the bottom of the gearbox. This is operated by secondary rockers coming off the pullrod linkage. It will be interesting to see what McLaren is doing in this area.

CATERHAM

While a multitude of technical problems hampered its running on day one, Caterham had a radical looking front wing to test.

The cascade winglets were new, with each endplate being fitted with a trio of deep L-shaped vanes, with another smaller vane being fitted to the existing endplate vane.

It's good to see Caterham going beyond the conventional ideas of aerodynamics.

Although the car has not shown pace yet, it does feature several good ideas.