Monaco tech: Ferrari engine revealed

Monaco has long been about maximising downforce without worrying too much about drag, but with Formula 1 teams having to exploit ever-more restrictive aerodynamic regulations, they are already running near or at the maximum in most races.

So the traditional Monaco-specific set-ups are now becoming more of a simple variation on the baseline.

As a result, the developments seen this weekend are subtle, but there are still some interesting changes - and practice also revealed one of the pitlane's remaining 2014 tech unknowns.

FERRARI

For a team steeped in F1 tradition and proud of its engines, Ferrari has remained secretive about its 2014 power unit. No images of the engine have been revealed and technical personnel have been kept away from the track and the media.

The exact format of the engines was exposed when the unit was being removed from Kimi Raikkonen's car in free practice.

Ferrari has the turbo at the back of the engine like Renault, but like Mercedes it has split the exhaust driven turbine from the compressor.

The separation is far smaller than the Mercedes arrangement, with just enough space to mount the MGU-H in between the two components.

With this set-up, Ferrari can mount the turbo much lower, as they do not need to fit these parts within the 'V' of the engine. This means the turbo can be much lower within the gearbox for better aerodynamics and a lower centre of gravity.

Now the turbo needs to cool the charge air and route it to the front of the inlet plenums. This was unclear until Thursday, but Ferrari fits the water intercooler in between the inlet plenums, within the 'V' of the engine.

Then the intercooler has a U-bend to duct the cooler charge air to the inlets. Separate water pipes then take the heated to water to a smaller radiator in the sidepods.

This keeps the hardware out of the sidepods and fuel tank area for better aero, and the pipework short for less turbo lag. In this guise, the Ferrari engine architecture is at least as elegant as the Mercedes. But it does come at the cost of some extra weight for the water intercooler.

It's unfortunate for Ferrari's two customers, Marussia and Sauber, that they also get this set-up as part of the complete Ferrari powertrain supply.

They are less able to reduce weight from the rest of the car to accommodate the heavier engine installation.

MERCEDES

During last week's Barcelona test, Mercedes revealed a little of its Monaco package. It ran a monkey seat winglet with a more curved profile and the endplates curling underneath to partly encircle the exhaust

I suspect this will be the format for future races, but for Monaco the team added a top element to the set-up. It has created a near three-element wing formed of the new upper flap, the middle winglet and the curled under endplates.

These winglets are wider this year, 20cm up from 15cm in 2013 and they do add a little downforce. But the blown effect from the exhaust is limited and they tend to be a tool to keep the rear wing airflow attached to maintain a more consistent feeling for the driver.

Mercedes also tried a subtly different flick-up on the front wing endplate. This has changed in detail since the start of the season.

Fitted to the later version of the front wing with a single large vane forming the endplate, the flick is still downturned and has a slightly more twisted profile.

This will be used as a flow control device aimed at controlling the wake coming off the front wing and passing around the front tyre.

RED BULL

The most obvious change was the fitting of new front camera pods.

In Melbourne, the team unveiled its camera pods merged into the top surface of the nose cone. While legal, this did not provide a sufficient aperture for the front facing camera to record from.

At the Spanish GP, a revised nose was brought with a more pronounced hump to fit the camera into and a larger aperture but FOM was still not happy and asked that the camera fittings be changed.

So Red Bull has been forced to lose the tiny aero advantage it gained from the merged cameras and fit outboard camera pods, in the same manner as Mercedes and Ferrari.

The new r-shaped fittings place the camera in the new higher for 2014 position.

A double element monkey seat winglet has also been introduced. Usually Red Bull has run with a simple winglet fitted below the exhaust tail pipe but now this wing gains tall endplates with a winglet also fitted above the exhaust tailpipe.

Test runs with flo-vis paint applied to the set-up crosschecked it was working as expected and it will remain on the car for the weekend.

McLAREN

More subtle upgrades for McLaren, which had a new rear end of the car in Spain. This went almost unnoticed, despite having a nearly all-new diffuser as part of the package.

This weekend, the only noticeable change is on the front wing endplates, which have been revised to a two flick-up arrangement.

LOTUS

Like most teams Lotus has brought a revised vane arrangement of the front wing endplate, and two flicks are fitted for this weekend.

The monkey seat winglet, which was new in Spain, has been upgraded to a larger two-element winglet for the specific demands of Monaco.