How 2019 designs were maximised for extreme Monza

By:

Jake Boxall-Legge

Co-author:

Giorgio Piola

Sep 9, 2019, 1:53 PM

As Monza is the only circuit that really requires Formula 1 cars to find every last bit of speed thanks to its many straights, the designers face a one-off challenge at the Italian Grand Prix every year. Here's what they came up with in 2019

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A Formula 1 throttle pedal gets its biggest workout of the year at Monza and, for three-quarters of every 3.6-mile lap, each driver pushes theirs to its limits. To borrow parlance from a driver's lexicon, each straight must be 'maximised' to tempt the speedometer to tick over one more digit before the brake pedal is similarly abused into the corners.

Each year at the Italian Grand Prix, a single extra Newton of drag is about as unwelcome as an ant at a picnic, and hence all the cars are trimmed out as much as they possibly can be to service each team's desire to have the slipperiest car of all. But at the same time, they actually need to have sufficient grip to navigate three Variantes, two Lesmos and a Parabolica without having to tip-toe around them.

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Jake Boxall-Legge

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Jake studied engineering at university, as his original ambition was to design racing cars. He was bad at that, and thus decided to write about them instead with an equally limited skillset. The above article is a demonstration of that. In his spare time, Jake enjoys people, places, and things.