Piola: How F1 teams coped in the Austrian heat

Only a week separated the French and the Austrian rounds of the 2019 Formula 1 season, and therefore there were no wholesale technical changes of which to speak at the Red Bull Ring. Instead, there was a modest selection of scheduled tweaks and little debugs made to cope with the demands of the Spielberg track.

The biggest changes were made to the cooling packages on the cars to help them cope with the sweltering Austrian conditions - a phrase that's seldom in a meteorologist's lexicon.

With Giorgio Piola's images and illustrations, we can take a look at those changes - and also assess the theory behind what was causing Renault's curious rear wing quirks in free practice.

Big cooling packages, tied up with string...

Conditions in Austria were sweltering; after the changeable weather at last season's race, the thermometer mercury rarely bothered anything below 30C.

In response, most teams decided to open out their cooling outlets to keep powertrain temperatures in check, and also bolted on the larger openings that most have primarily positioned next to the halo to build on that effect.

Even throughout the weekend, the cooling apertures began to open out more. Mercedes opened another cooling window next to the halo after Friday's running to compensate for the escalating temperatures.

Here, the cooling outlets are positioned to create a low-pressure zone behind, which allows the hot air to be drawn out through the suction that develops. In this area, the heat of the radiators is being drawn out; within the sidepods, the radiators are angled and so these openings are positioned behind them.

Red Bull duct and (re)cover

For all the plaudits Red Bull received for a successful Austrian Grand Prix weekend, it was arguably still piecing things together in Saturday's final practice session.

As spotted in FP3, Verstappen and Gasly took to the circuit bearing different nose solutions. Gasly had the more conventional latest-specification of nose - a simple extension forming the crash structure, while Verstappen was running the Red Bull-pioneered nose duct solution.

Both designs offer very different aerodynamic properties, and the distribution of pressure will vary with each. The duct offers a solution where the oncoming airflow can peel through and escape to the underside of the car with less resistance, while the ductless design builds greater high-pressure regions on top and can use the underside to accelerate airflow harder between the nose and the wing section below.

Ultimately, Red Bull elected to run the duct once more for the rest of the weekend, putting the wing assembly largely back into the specification in which it ran at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Ferrari's new nose put out of joint

If Charles Leclerc had held on for two more laps, the following aftermath in the stewards' room might not have happened and Leclerc fever would have quietly engulfed the streets of Monte Carlo.

But, if his car had two wheels, it would be a motorbike. Ferrari was within a sniff of a win, thanks in part to the massive speed advantage the SF90 had on the three straights at the start of the lap.

The team brought a minor aerodynamic upgrade to Austria, slightly redefining the under-nose turning vane geometry. This was brought further forward to accommodate an extra strake at the nose's attachment point, while the leading edge was raised slightly to welcome the passage of air taken from the inside of the front wing elements more adeptly.

In its redefinition, Ferrari has merged the concepts of those front wing strakes with the 'cape' solution pioneered by Mercedes to use more of the allowed front-end bounding box for downforce. This also pairs up with the enhanced transit of airflow towards the bargeboards to boost the overall effectiveness of the floor.

In addition, a small straight edge has been placed on the front wing mounting pylons to add a little more control over the direction the airflow takes at the front.

Renault's Friday wing worries

During the first two free practice sessions, Renault suffered from an extraordinary problem with its rear wing. When DRS was activated, the top element fluttered alarmingly as the cars moved along the straights, seemingly with reckless abandon - or, as recounted by Daniel Ricciardo post-practice, "she was pretty flappy".

Ricciardo reckoned that the crosswinds might have had something to do with it, and on closer inspection it appeared that the full rear wing assembly displayed signs of abnormal oscillation in the early stages of the weekend.

Given the rear wing was much in the same specification as it ran in Paul Ricard, it suggests that the conditions in Austria were enough to bring the wing close to what's known as its natural frequency.

Everything has a natural frequency, and once any inputs match that then things begins to shake uncontrollably - and at that point, things liable to pull themselves to pieces. Even in humans, approaching any kind of natural frequency creates strong feelings of nausea - so anything can be affected.

It seems that the motion exerted by the car around the circuit - mixed with the strong wind - developed a waveform close to the natural frequency of the rear wing. Apart from the suspension and engine mountings, there's very little damping in the aerodynamic components, and since it's so rare that these kinds of events happen there's very little that can be done to combat it.

Ultimately, if that's the case, then it's a bit of a freak occurrence. Renault reinforced the wing to quell that issue, and it was just one of many that the team had to endure in Austria after a somewhat-encouraging weekend in Paul Ricard last time out.