How F1’s tech war has transformed in 2024

At the height of 2023’s most predictable phase, when Max Verstappen victories were as assured as death and taxes, much of the Formula 1 fanbase and fraternity medicated itself on the notion that convergence was around the corner.

This isn’t the sort of pursuit that happens overnight. Red Bull’s grasp of the 2022-spec aerodynamic regulations needed to be fully autopsied by the other nine teams to understand where their own interpretations had gone wrong.

Even by the start of 2024 
it hardly looked as though the teams had made meaningful inroads into the energy drink giant’s advantage. It was hard to assume things would change either, especially on the back of three Red Bull 1-2 finishes in
the opening four rounds.

Yet, in a surprisingly sudden twist, everything changed. Sure, it wasn’t quite an instant swing – instead Red Bull’s lead slowly dissipated into the ether, accompanied by squeaky bums on the pitwall. The matte-blue, yellow-nosed RB20s were no longer odds-on favourites to clean house throughout the remainder of 2024; Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes have all taken wins away from Verstappen thanks to their progress over the season – and Red Bull’s comparative lack of it.

Red Bull knew it would be this way. A crossover point was always going to materialise when the crux of the current-gen regulations eventually became clear, be it through the sheer force of development will,
or from piecing together Red Bull’s floor concepts through photographs of Sergio Perez’s car dangling from a crane...

Even if convergence was anticipated, albeit accompanied by Red Bull’s higher-ups mockingly suggesting they were surprised it had taken the others so long to catch up, that doesn’t mean the team is pleased with its here-and-now. Indeed, technical director Pierre Wache’s comments prior to the mid-season break laid bare his dissatisfaction
with the team’s dwindling power.

Red Bull has been caught by its rivals, and hit development stumbling blocks it has rarely encountered in the ground effect era so far

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“I would say [we’re] not really [happy],” Wache explained. “We improved compared with last year, without doubt, but we didn’t deliver what we expected in some areas – especially in the high-speed corners, we expected a little bit more. Without thinking about the competitiveness of the car, so just based on our own references, we expected a little bit more with our tools.”

Red Bull still has an excellent car, relatively speaking. It’s a multiple race winner, used to devastating effect by Verstappen in the early-season run. But, against its 2023 record, Red Bull cannot see that the RB20 is anything more than a disappointment. The in-season improvement of the other teams is moot when viewed through the lens of a hyper-competitive racing outfit, for it hasn’t matched the time gain the likes of McLaren and Mercedes have achieved.

Where Red Bull has fallen in comparison with its nearest rivals has its genesis in 2023’s Singapore Grand Prix. In a season where Red Bull probably could have won every other race from the back of the grid, it flopped at Marina Bay and neither car could progress from Q2 on genuine pace. The team’s hopes of going one better than McLaren in 1988 and winning every race in a season were derailed, not because of a Jean-Louis Schlesser-esque moment, but because of its own weakness in bumpy, short-radius corners.

Those are the kinds of corners that need plenty of compliance, an innate kinematic framework that allows a car to glide over bumps and kerbs. This is in contrast to the accepted conditions needed for a ground-effect style floor to work, where stiffly sprung suspension keeps the car at a consistent height. It should be possible to swing between the two with a wide set-up window, and Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren did that weekend. Red Bull could not.

And it’s a problem that seems to persist with the RB20. On the flat, even surfaces of Bahrain and Jeddah, it looked unassailable as the car could work within comfortable boundaries. Even without Verstappen’s brake failure in Melbourne, the bumpier climes of Albert Park presented further challenges for Red Bull. Imola and Monaco exposed growing concerns with the car’s kerb-strike ability and difficulty contending with short-apex corners when the downforce hasn’t been steadily accrued by the floor.

McLaren, meanwhile, has been able to develop a car that matches Red Bull in the faster bits but is much more effective in slower conditions. Note its 1-2 in Hungary. Contentious as the final finishing order was, the result rather underlined the Woking team’s development over the year. The MCL38 seems to be a bit easier to handle in corners that require a lot of changes in direction and kerb-wrangling, suggesting there’s a bit more give in the suspension package.

Mercedes has made progress too, as it continues to widen its set-up window. Assessing the W15’s evolution from lower-top-10 mainstay to three-time winner, it rather underlines a crucial effect that teams are cottoning onto in the third iteration of these cars: the significance of front wing development. Certainly, front wings have always been important, having the dual role of providing front-end downforce and dictating airflow to the rest of the car, but their impact on the floor has perhaps been underestimated until now.

Mercedes has developed a greater understanding of what it needs from the front wing

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

This comes amid the usual returning debate over flexi-wings, where teams are understood to be using aeroelasticity within the regulatory bounds to improve their aerodynamic platform. Linking the front wing to the floor has become of paramount importance, but this might be a result of converging development rather than
a cause thereof – according to RB technical
chief Jody Egginton.

“As people are converging on optimised areas of the car, it’s natural that the wing becomes a thing to facilitate further development,” Egginton says. “That’s certainly what we found. Had the floor potentially taken more precedent and authority over the front wing early on? Yeah, I can believe that. But as people get more optimised, there’s some convergence and people are focusing on different things.”

The impact of new infrastructure is also beginning to show; McLaren is reaping the rewards of its new wind tunnel, while Red Bull – Wache reckons – feels that the impact of the aerodynamic testing restrictions are starting to bite more because the team’s wind tunnel is comparatively older. Small wonder, then, that Aston Martin is eagerly anticipating its own coming online next year.

Verstappen might remain odds-on for a fourth title but, if this period of convergence is a prelude to an explosive 2025, a fifth might have to wait...

Red Bull

Few could have anticipated the extent to which Red Bull's early season winning form would collapse in the manner it has

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Many wondered how Red Bull would move the game on once again after its RB19 had conquered all before it across 2023. The new RB20 was visually very different from its predecessor, with overbite sidepod inlets and the high-shouldered engine cover that looked similar to Mercedes’ design from last year. Further additions were made throughout the year, with the addition of small inlets to either side of the cockpit, and a Hungary bodywork overhaul that deleted the cannon-like outlets from the engine cover.

But it seemed Red Bull had hit something of a design ceiling heading into the break, and the upgrades introduced through the first half of the year had done little to preserve the team’s advantage over McLaren and Mercedes. A "subtle" floor update introduced for Baku seemed to pull the team back to the right window, as balance issues caused the team to stray further from the front.

McLaren

McLaren's car has emerged as the fastest in F1 over recent months

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Aside from a large package of upgrades introduced for the Miami round, McLaren had been somewhat sparing with its update trajectory in the opening half of the year. The parts introduced in the state of Florida was pretty comprehensive and included a new suspension package, bodywork, floor, and front and rear wings.

The sparseness of upgrades after led to suggestions that the team had focused the aerodynamic testing allowance from the first half of the year into upgrades for the second. There had been small, track-specific modifications throughout the pre-interval rounds, along with a new front wing for Austria that added details to the joint between endplates and elements, but nothing major after Miami - at least, until the team introduced a new floor edge and suspension at Zandvoort.

But it's perhaps been its Monza/Baku spec rear wing, and 'mini-DRS' effect, that has courted the most controversy...

Mercedes

A more conventional approach has helped Mercedes rediscover its winning habit in 2024

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

A clean-sheet design for 2024 was based on Mercedes’ inability to dig out the performance promised by the “zeropod” sidepod concept, although the early season performance of the W15 suggested that the team had taken another backward step. Cynics might have suggested that this was the car it should have begun 2022 with, but it became apparent after the opening flurry of races that the new machinery had a much more obvious development path.

After understanding how to run the car at its optimum, Mercedes ditched its radical front wing design for something visually more conventional – and this brought the new car alive. The team has since grown into the 2024 season and chalked up three victories, as the team also introduced suspension upgrades in Austria and a new floor in Belgium – a design that the team later rolled back on with the intent of developing a new version for Austin.

Ferrari

Ferrari's form has ebbed and flowed, although there have been bright spots on street tracks

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

Ferrari started the year with a car that was clearly very strong in low-speed corners, and general performance appeared to pick up from a strong end to 2023. But high-speed corners have proven to be problematic, and a floor upgrade introduced at Imola seemed to introduce bouncing around those turns. Instead of alleviating the issues, further floor changes for Barcelona rather exacerbated the problem, and the team rolled back on that underbody for Silverstone to quell the SF-24's instability.

The Prancing Horse pushed out another version for Hungary, and the drivers continued to experience bouncing as the fuel was burned off in Belgium – although, per Charles Leclerc, it “wasn’t crazy”. Although the car fell from the second-fastest prospect at the start of the year, to the fourth by the summer break, it has found a strong vein of performance across the likes of Monza and Baku. Low-drag performance, along with its further upgraded floor and sidepods, proved to be strong.

Aston Martin

Aston Martin's lack of progress has been disappointing after its standout 2023 campaign

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Like Ferrari, Aston Martin introduced a new aero package at Imola with the hope of moving its season along, only to find out that it had brought ill effects to the surface. In the Silverstone team’s case, the combination of a new front wing, floor, and sidepod/engine cover bodywork had made the car a lot more difficult to drive. Fernando Alonso’s wayward weekend in Italy rather demonstrated the precariousness of the recently upgraded AMR24.

The team hoped it could calm the storm with a new front wing introduced for Silverstone, and it at least helped to pause a difficult run. Yet, Aston Martin sits in technical limbo, as its new wind tunnel slowly gets pressed into service. The team is also waiting for the arrival of Adrian Newey in March 2025, and thus has started to pin most of its focus on 2026.

RB

RB has balanced trying to find improvements without losing its prowess in slow-speed corners

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

The late-season surge that the team formerly known as AlphaTauri enjoyed in 2023 provided a handy basis for this season, as its prowess in low-speed corners helped set a foundation for the incoming VCARB 01 to work from. The car has been demonstrably the sixth-fastest package of the year, although suffered a hit with a Barcelona package that failed to deliver as expected.

A series of trials in Austria and at Silverstone led the team to determine that the new floor was the root cause, although technical director Jody Egginton noted that there were elements that would play into an updated design. The team’s aim is now to continue to build its performance in other areas without losing its slow-speed prowess, as it seeks to lock down sixth in the championship over Haas and Williams.

Haas

Haas has bucked tradition by bringing updates that have helped its cause

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

The American squad anticipated that it would start the year at the back of the grid, but steady progress under new team principal Ayao Komatsu has defied those lowly expectations. Komatsu focused upon improving the relationships between its UK-based staff and the Italy-based design team and, rather than regress over the season, the team’s developments have come on song.

Having identified a high-speed corner weakness, a British GP upgrade to the floor helped to alleviate some of those issues and retain the downforce it had built up, leading stalwart Kevin Magnussen to note “it's the first time in Haas' history that we brought upgrades to the car that made it faster”. Part of Komatsu’s remit was to make sure that the team was more efficient with its admittedly smaller resources, and he appears to have made a strong start.

Alpine

Double points finish in Canada a rare feat for Alpine in 2024

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Promising a “brand new car, front to back”, Alpine launched its new A524 distinctly short on livery. It didn’t take long to find out why: the car was reportedly 10kg overweight at the start of the season and considerably short on downforce. Technical director Matt Harman and aero lead Dirk de Beer left the team, and a restructuring of the engineering department into a technical triumvirate coincided with a concerted effort to slash the excess weight.

A lighter floor was brought to the China round to set the changes into motion and weight-shedding exercises have extended into the chassis itself. With the technical department now led by Moby look-alike David Sanchez, the team is continuing to make strides with bolting more downforce onto the car over the second half of the year – with a view to those changes feeding into its 2025 design.

Williams

Another upgrade for Williams on Albon's car in Singapore should cement the team's midfield credentials

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

The previous Williams cars could be considered one-trick ponies, with great straightline speed but lacking in the corners. Thus, a change of design direction had been instigated by team principal James Vowles and technical chief Pat Fry to build a car for all weathers, but the first iteration did not offer the initial step up in performance hoped for.

Instead, it emerged in the Imola paddock that Williams’ FW46 had - like Alpine - been running overweight, and the team’s development efforts over the first half of the year had been spent mitigating that. Thus, any lap time gains have largely come from putting the car on a diet rather than genuine aerodynamic progress.

This was bolstered by a new floor at Zandvoort, one that was initially illegal by being microns too wide, but seems to have thrown the British squad truly into the thick of the midfield. This was packaged with Red Bull-like sidepods, and a new suspension package for Singapore should be the last of the team's major updates for 2024.

Sauber

Sauber has been rooted to the back of the grid all year

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Whatever Sauber has thrown at its C44 chassis: new front wings, sidepod and bodywork updates, et cetera, it had barely changed the course of a car destined to prop up the championship order before the summer break. Although the heavily sculpted sidepods and aggressive front wing design had turned some heads at the start of the year, the performance yield was limited.

Rather, the team’s best chances at a result were frittered away by early season teething issues in the pitlane, as newly designed pit equipment came with glitches that reared their heads at inopportune times. Zhou Guanyu also took a new chassis at Imola, which he reckoned had made the handling of the car much more difficult to contend with. He thus swapped back to the old one in Spain, returning comfort but with few results to show for it. Revised bodywork for Zandvoort added a little performance, but not enough to pull the team from the back.

Sauber's disappointing year has prompted calls from new bosses at Audi for major improvement

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images