Spanish GP technical blog

Barcelona has typically been a pivotal race for Formula 1 teams' development programmes, but while there were plenty of updates on display the anticipated raft of new parts did not materialise this time.

Unusually, the track has not been used for winter testing and the chance to run here outside of a grand prix weekend next week has perhaps led teams to be more conservative with untested components.

The track features a range of corners, a long straight and an abrasive surface. It's the mix of long turns and the track texture that is the most challenging for teams, and if a car works well around here it is normally good at most circuits.

Good aero is required for speed in these turns and then the front left tyre is worked hard, leading to premature wear. For this year, the high torque output of the power units, allied to warmer than expected temperatures, could lead also to rear tyre degradation in Sunday's race.

MERCEDES

Mercedes arrived with the biggest performance advantage and one of the biggest upgrade packages. Its W05 now features a revised front wing and redesigned sidepod bodywork.

Attached to the shorter nosecone introduced at the last race, the revised front wing has only subtle changes. The footplate at the wing tip now has slots corresponding to those in the wing itself.

Additionally there's a new turning vane fitted inside and the turning vane outside of the endplate has been reshaped.

More subtle changes have been made to the sidepod panels, but these appear to be a new shape wrapped around the same internal cooling package.

Most notable are the smaller inlets and the hot air outlet at the tail of the bodywork.

Whereas the tail of the sidepod previously had a central exit and two separate side outlets flanking the tail, the new bodywork now merges these into one smaller outlet at the very back of the car.

Reducing these two areas and a general shrinking of the bodywork around the internal mechanical package will increase the car's efficiency, leading to more downforce with reduced drag.

RED BULL

There might have been more new parts to appear on the Red Bull but Sebastian Vettel's electrical problem on Friday morning potentially scuppered any plans to roll new parts into practice.

On his second run in the morning, the car's electrics died completely and he stopped out on track. Clearly something fundamental had failed and this was reported as an issue with the wiring loom.

Although this is made from many sub sections, at its core there's a central spine of cables. These connect the various electrical systems to the other looms and it would appear that the problem, possibly heat, damaged this part of the car's wiring loom.

Even though Vettel's machine was swiftly returned to the pits the damage to the loom was such that it could not run again on Friday.

One detail that did catch the eye was the new infrared cameras mounted inside the wing mirrors. The reflection off the lens gave their location away.

Here, the front tyres get a hard time around some of the longer corners and more accurate reading of tyre temperatures will help the team make the most of the tyres on the longer runs.

Aiding Red Bull's chase of Mercedes are new updates for its power unit. Despite the engine specification freeze some of these updates are hardware, but the major gains are with new software.

These are expected to bring better drivability, if not more peak horsepower.

Such progress is possible as the coordinating of the power delivery from both the petrol engine and Energy Recovery Systems is largely a software mapping exercise.

Large gains can be made without the need for physical changes to the engine. These updates are available to all the Renault-powered teams.

FERRARI

Although a larger upgrade was expected, the F14 T did not appear with any major changes.

Instead, Ferrari's two cars ran in slightly different specifications. Fernando Alonso's car sported the blown front axles seen in China, along with a new exhaust and wings. Kimi Raikkonen's car had a new rear wing mount, sidepods and the pointy unblown front axles.

Of all the updates, the rear wing mount on the Finn's car was the most interesting upgrade. It follows McLaren's concept of an inverted Y-shaped wing mounting pillar.

This works efficiently both because the top rear wing is not obstructed by two pillar mountings and the way the base wraps around the exhaust aids extracting hot air from the sidepods.

But Ferrari has gone further. The pillar passes in front of the rear wing and curls back 180 degrees to support the wing from above.

This is often termed a 'swan neck' mounting. It helps aerodynamics as the upper surface of the wing is less upset by the obstruction of the pillar joining the wing.

This was popular up until 2011 when the area in front of the wing was excluded from having bodywork, including these mounts. To make Ferrari's design legal, the rear wing must be a little shorter to allow the pillar to squeeze in between the wing and the exclusion zone.

Ferrari has changed the exhaust tailpipe design slightly for a new tapering design. However, this is a performance upgrade and not a sound boosting 'megaphone' design as being tested next week by Mercedes.

As the exit of the tailpipe is restricted to a maximum circular cross section, the section of tailpipe exiting the turbo must now be smaller. The pipes section then tapers to the maximum diameter in the last 100mm.

All the other changes were in detail only, with the cut-outs on the endplate of both the front and rear wings being altered and the sidepods being slightly slimmer around the Coke bottle area.

McLAREN

The MP4-29 appeared in familiar guise for free practice.

While many updates may have gone on unseen beneath the skin, the only external difference appears to be some front wing tweaks and a regression to the launch style rear brake ducts.

At the car's launch, the rear brake ducts sported a tear drop profile section around the upper wishbone mount.

This profile had inlets moulded into to feed the rear brakes with cooling air. Subsequently at the last test, this was replaced with a complicated vaned set up.

Now, the earlier concept appears to have been reworked with a less teardrop shaped duct formed at the top of the suspension.

LOTUS

A couple of nice details appeared on the E22, showing the team still has some interesting ideas to introduce.

Firstly, there's a small new winglet fitted above the tail light structure, known as a monkey seat. Due to the asymmetric wing support, its connection to the winglet requires an intricate twisted mounting to sit in its correct position.

Further forward on the car, the left-hand sidepod has an odd bulge and crease on its top surface. This sidepod houses the water cooler for the engine and the turbo intercooler.

I suspect that the shape is to create an extraction effect for the cooling outlet mounted next the cockpit.

The bulge sits ahead of the outlet and the crease is in line with it.

The resulting step will create a low pressure area aft of the outlet, which would help pull hot air from the radiators.

FORCE INDIA

To complement the revise sidepod shape introduced at the Chinese Grand Prix, the team has made detail changes to the floor.

One interesting incident on Friday morning was when the left-hand mirror on the Sergio Perez car broke off.

For the practice session the mirror houses a thermal camera, similar to that on the Red Bull.

The USB cable connecting the camera to the logging system held the camera pod in place until the car was able to get back to the pits.

That left Perez struggling to downshift, with the housing in the way of the gearshift paddles.

WILLIAMS

Like many teams, Williams had detail changes to its sidepods. While the bodywork was a little narrower, the bigger change was to the mirror and vane set up beside the cockpit.

Williams has run intricate double mounting stems for the mirror pods, flanked by triangular fins. Now, the mirrors are far more conventionally mounted and below the single mounting stem is a trio of fins.

This change is not likely to be for an improved rear view, but to alter the vortices that are shed by the mirrors and fins.

TORO ROSSO

It is the rear of the car that has been updated on the STR9. Both the rear wing its endplates and the diffuser below are new for this weekend.

SAUBER

Having run the car overweight for both its drivers for the opening races, the early season development priority has been to get lighter.

This has been achieved largely with a reduced cooling set-up. With smaller aluminium radiators, weight has been shed, with the added benefit that the sidepods can now be slimmer, with smaller inlets and outlets.

Aerodynamics has also been revised with a new front wing cascade winglet set up and new vertical turning vane in front of the sidepods.

CATERHAM

There were just small changes to the chassis for Caterham, affecting the front and rear wings along with the floor seeing detail changes.

MARUSSIA

At its launch the Marussia followed Red Bull's keel nose solution.

This created a high and conventional nose, with the mandatory lower tip formed by a pod hanging off the front of the upper nose.

The square fronted keel pod was faired in rapidly to be flush with the upper nose tip.

In Spain this abrupt design was smoothed with a trim to merge the pod with the upper nose much further back for better streamlining.

The new nose design now resembles the more common anteater noses of other teams, although the fairing is not part of the crash structure as it is on the other cars.