Singapore tech blog: Ferrari pushing at Marina Bay

Singapore's Marina Bay is one of the most visually spectacular races on the Formula 1 calendar and also places great demands on the cars.

As a street circuit, the track inevitably requires high levels of downforce and cars capable of sharp changes of direction, added to the ability to cope with bumps and kerbs.

But this is also the sole street circuit in Asia and the heat and humidity, despite the race running at night, put greater thermal loads on the cars' elements.

So it's the brakes that suffer with the heat and the high number of corners on the lap, although the removal of the Turn 10 chicane, which has been replaced by a straightforward left-hander, should ease this demand slightly.

As it is the first of the flyaway races that end the season and coming after two low-downforce tracks, Singapore was expected to be the track where any late-season updates would appear.

In reality, there haven't been as many as predicted, which demonstrates the amount of effort already being expended on the new cars for 2014.

Ferrari has brought a raft of small updates to Singapore © XPB

FERRARI

The Ferrari features a whole host of small updates this weekend, from a new front wing to revised pod vanes, brake ducts and diffuser.

These appear to form the team's end-of-season, high-downforce package.

Although visually similar to its predecessor, the new front wing splits the span into more elements, where previously it was just the very outer profiles that featured slots, with the outer portions remaining a seven-element design.

This suggests a greater portion of the wing is turned over to creating downforce, which in turn suggests that to keep the car balanced the rear end must now be more effective at creating downforce.

The changes to the front wing also set up a sequence of downstream changes, many of which probably aren't perceptible. What can be seen are simpler pod vanes. These vertical fins on the front corner of the sidepods no longer feature a two-element set-up at their lower edges.

Then there are revised brake ducts both front and rear. The rear design has more winglet profiles added and simplifies the slotted upper vane at the same time.

At the rear, the diffuser is the version tested at Spa, with the dramatic outswept design. This follows the Lotus/Mercedes approach, which makes the expansion of the diffuser not only vertical but lateral too.

The new front wing is part of the team's high-downforce package © XPB

Sweeping the side of the diffuser out so aggressively effectively makes the diffuser think it's wider than it really is, which increases the potential to create downforce.

These changes were tested with a variety of different methods in free practice, the car was coated with flow-viz paint to perform visual checks of the surface airflow, while the off-body airflow was tested with two different aero sensor arrays.

One square rig was positioned behind the front wheel to test the effect of the new profile, while a wider flat rig was put behind the diffuser to map the airflow off the new configuration.

A further change for Singapore is the addition of an infrared thermal camera on the front wing. It's very similar to what Mercedes has been running and its proximity to the tyre appears to give more accurate readings.

Ferrari does not have a good record of introducing and retaining new aero parts in recent seasons. Even this year, parts have been seen in practice, sometimes even raced and then never seen again.

These upgrades will need to work and stay on the car in order for Ferrari to pressure for championship positions. Remember, the Scuderia has not won a race since the Spanish GP in May.

McLaren partially tested its new beam wing at Spa © XPB

MCLAREN

Having overtaken Force India for fifth in the constructors' championship at Monza, McLaren has developed a new beam wing for the MP4-28.

This beam was, in part at least, tested at Spa.

What appeared to be a low-downforce, split beam wing design tried in free practice in Belgium was in fact the bare wing that is running in Singapore.

However, the beam wing now has a flap over the open section. This creates a larger, two-element section in the middle of the wing. This is now taking up the full 15cm area that allows the inclusion of slots in the beam wing.

It's logical to assume the larger, double-element centre section works the airflow harder for more downforce, although no obvious changes have been made to the diffuser or top of the rear wing.

Lotus has opted not to bring its long-wheelbase E21 to Singapore © XPB

LOTUS

Having tested the long-wheelbase car in Italy, Lotus has elected not to bring the revised car to Singapore.

But the team will take it to Korea for both drivers.

As expected, the elongated E21 is aimed at controlling weight shift.

Lotus trackside operations director Alan Permane explained to AUTOSPORT: "It should give us a more stable car.

"The main weak point of our car is combined turn-in and braking.

"The problem is when we cure it we then have too much mid-corner understeer".

The Mercedes front wing features a device also present at Spa © XPB

MERCEDES

A detail not noted at Spa was the addition of an extra device to the Mercedes front wing.

This takes the form of an r-shaped vane sitting behind the main cascade winglet, joining the front wing to the endplate.

As with all parts in this area, it's most likely a flow-control device to improve downstream airflow from turbulence off the front tyre, rather than to create more front downforce.

CATERHAM

Although development has effectively been frozen at Caterham for some time, Monza allowed small details to be added to the front-wing endplate.

In a similar way to the Lotus, the endplate has a twisted section on the front top edge to form a small vane. Allied to the curved vane on the cascade winglet, this helps turn the airflow out around the front tyre.

With next year's aero rules narrowing the front wing by 75mm each side, there is still likely to be the desire to bend the airflow out around the tyre rather in between, so flow-control devices such as this one so far forward on the wing are sure to be a feature in 2014.