How a bad car creates the ultimate engineering challenge

Engineers love to solve problems, it’s the day job. So a comprehensive rules change can be a fantastic opportunity to show off your skills. However, there are a couple of key challenges: how do you set the performance targets; and are there any loopholes that you have missed?

Setting a performance target isn’t usually overly difficult. Formula 1 cars are on a continual development schedule, mainly aerodynamic. The mechanical development tends to be done to make the aerodynamics work better. This is why you have to have regular rule changes – to slow the cars down and prevent them exceeding the safety level of the circuits.

So, vehicle performance sits in a narrow band, which you sawtooth your way through, heading up at a steady positive gradient until a regulation change resets you to the bottom of the band and the process starts again. Sometimes teams press their own reset button, as McLaren did in 2013, but we won’t go there today. That was a very painful season.

However, the 2022 rules were a massive change designed to make racing closer – on which they have delivered spectacularly – but performance was unknown. It is testament to the quality of F1 engineers that the grid is as close as it is, although they are probably all too young to have worked through F1’s first foray into ground-effects over 30 years ago. Porpoising – yes, been there…

Fortunately no one has found any loopholes [perhaps in the floors? – ed]. Unlike 2009. Quite late into 2008 people were returning from the Technical Working Group meetings at the FIA worried that they had missed a trick. Ross Brawn was intimating that performance wouldn’t drop that much with the new rules, implying that his team had recovered most of the lost downforce. How could this be possible? We certainly couldn’t see how to do it and clearly most of the other teams couldn’t either.

However, one guy had. He had discovered a loophole allowing a significant improvement to the rear diffuser, now known as the double diffuser. Not only did it win back that lost downforce but it also gave the car excellent rear stability – win-win.

Brawn got the jump on the majority of its F1 rivals at the start of 2009 with its double diffuser

Photo by: Sutton Images

When everyone arrived in Melbourne for the season opener, the writing was already on the wall. Brawn was quick in pre-season testing and dominated the weekend. Toyota and Williams had also developed double diffusers. If the concept wasn’t banned for exploiting a loophole and being against the spirit of the 2009 regulations, then everyone would have to follow suit. Because it’s impossible to define ‘the spirit’ of a regulation, clearly it wasn’t going to be banned and besides it did spice up the championship. So double diffusers were allowed and the race to develop one was well and truly on.

The first half of the season was clearly going to be a challenge. Jenson Button won six of the first seven races with Brawn. Lewis Hamilton, as world champion, was racing with McLaren to be the third or fourth-best team! When you have been successful in every formula you have raced in, this was a whole new experience.

It is possible to turn a slow car around providing you know why you are struggling. Identifying the problem is the key, then you might just make a breakthrough. But if you are simply behind on downforce production and everyone else is already running to stand still, you will struggle

What kept Lewis, Heikki Kovalainen and everyone going was the knowledge that once we understood the double diffuser we would be back challenging for the win. It was a very clear focus. However, producing a new piece of complicated bodywork takes time.

PLUS: Hamilton's first experience of turning silver into gold

Notwithstanding the windtunnel development time, there is the production aspect – tooling has to be designed and made before you can make the first part. Then you need to make spares in order to go racing. So it wasn’t until round 10 that we were in a position to deploy our best solution. Nine difficult races, where the theoretical best position you can finish is seventh, is challenging because a lot happens in the midfield. It’s a vulnerable place to be.

Hamilton clinched victory in Hungary as McLaren pulled off a steady recovery

Photo by: Sutton Images

Meanwhile, we had our own challenges with our KERS implementation. It’s a testament to both drivers that they stuck with it. What is very important is keeping them informed with regard to development progress. Driving the latest development in the simulator knowing you can’t race it for a few months is rewarding yet depressing.

So, it is possible to turn a slow car around providing you know why you are struggling. Identifying the problem is the key, then you might just make a breakthrough. But if you are simply behind on downforce production and everyone else is already running to stand still, you will struggle. It may take a whole season and longer to get back to where you would like to be.

While racing can be such a cruel sport, if you love a challenge, for an engineer it’s a great place to be. As designer Ralph Bellamy once said: “When you’re winning, all you learn is how to smile.”

Comparisons have already been made between Hamilton's 2009 and 2022 seasons, but will he be able to win this year?

Photo by: Sutton Images