Piola: How teams chased downforce for Monaco demands

Monaco is completely unlike any other Formula 1 circuit, and it's an especially hard place to give new parts their debut as the race around the streets of Monte Carlo is totally unrepresentative of everything else on the calendar.

With such a focus on downforce, teams like to bring a few specialist parts to find as much traction as they possibly can. Getting the front end to turn into the ever-tightening corners is vital, and anything to alleviate the symptoms of understeer is readily welcomed.

Thanks to Giorgio Piola's illustrations, we can pinpoint those vital upgrades developed in the pursuit of downforce - and the approaches to preparing for Monaco across the grid were rather varied.

Red Bull's nose job

The snorkel nose is a concept that Red Bull has stood by for the last couple of seasons. It's quite a novel way to sidestep the low crash structure the regulations require, picking up some clean air and using it to trim any high-pressure air produced by the underside, where it may begin to separate and develop a small pocket of lift.

But Monaco is a different kettle of fish, and you don't need to worry quite so much about the minutiae of boundary layer mechanics and such. You need downforce, and lots of it.

Changing the nose crash structure to something more conventional - similar to what it had run prior to the 2018 season - allowed the team to redefine the pressure distribution at the front end to create more front-end downforce. Sure, it might not have been a low-drag solution, but that's rarely a consideration in Monte Carlo.

This gave Max Verstappen the tools to stay close to Lewis Hamilton throughout the race, and the car looked far more assured in the corners - albeit as Hamilton's tyres continued to show signs of wear.

It remains to be seen whether Red Bull's new-old nose will continue to be used throughout the year - though the very different Montreal track in Canada in a fortnight will give us a clue.

On the flanks, Red Bull added a quartet of fins along the floor, next to the first slot. Twisted at the top, the fins were developed to guide low-passing airflow out through the slot, but to also take the airflow on a higher plane around the sidepod undercut and towards the Coke-bottle sculpting at the rear to enhance the overall suction produced.

Although Verstappen seemed to have the strongest car on pace, the Dutchman was hampered by having to run the race with his starting torque map, as he forgot to change it during his pitstop. As this map develops a little bit of lag between the depression of the throttle and the turbo spooling up, it limits wheelspin off the line, but into the race it then becomes a problem to manage - especially around Monaco.

"In the pitstop we forgot to go back on the torque map," explained Verstappen. "I had my start map in it, which was not ideal. I had massive lag - I can't say the exact number, but quite a lot of percentage of going on the throttle. So I had nothing and then the power kicked in. It wasn't nice to drive but I managed to drive around the problem.

"It has to be done in the pitlane. Once on track you're stuck with it and we only did one stop.

"Normally I would always go back, but of course with the touch, looking in the mirror all the time, and then I think the team were also a little bit shocked with the whole thing, they were also checking for damage... Normally they remind me but obviously it's my job to still do it. I forgot with all the hectic scenarios."

Wish(bone)ful thinking

Even if a car's got a good front end around Monaco, it's useless if a driver can't take the steering from lock-to-lock without interference from the suspension wishbones.

Both Ferrari and Red Bull emerged with cut-outs on the trailing edge of the wishbones to facilitate that turn-in, eliminating any threat of the inside of the wheel rubbing against the suspension.

Red Bull's multi-link suspension at the front end seems to give the car a little bit of latitude in this area to cope with the heavy turn-in; at the Loews hairpin, you can often see the inside wheel lock. As this is liable to take some of the surface off the tyre, some rotation would be far more desirable; and Verstappen - giving chase to Hamilton - seemed less affected by that throughout the race.

Renault's changes offer improved performance

This season has been something of a nightmare for Renault so far, and the TV feed's sporadic shots of a pensive-looking Alain Prost harked back to the early 2000s and his misery with his own team. But there were signs of a recovery in Monaco - although it might not have been entirely reflected on the scoreboard.

Externally, not too many changes were made; Barcelona's upgrades reappeared on the car, but were augmented with a pair of deflectors on top of the chassis bulkhead either side of the S-duct.

These help to direct airflow over the top of the suspension components, building small tip vortices that can be used further down the car. There's also the opportunity to use them to increase the suction at the outlet of the S-duct, pulling the airflow through from the front of the car to keep airflow attached over the top side.

The team also benefited from redesigned engine components. Having traced the unreliability that had forced it to run lower power modes down to a conrod (the part that connects the piston to the crankshaft), Renault redesigned it and after a trial in Spain allowed the engine to go back to full power for Monaco.

While power is never really a factor at Monaco, it has certainly renewed Renault's hopes; Daniel Ricciardo managed an excellent sixth in qualifying, but was one of the drivers who made a pitstop during the safety car - which emerged as the wrong call to make. He salvaged ninth, while team-mate Nico Hulkenberg sustained a puncture after his incident with Charles Leclerc, and felt that a stronger result than his eventual 13th place was definitely on the table.

"It went wrong where it could, basically," said Hulkenberg. "It was quite frustrating because I feel from a car-pace point of view we should be much more ahead, but it's frustrating not to get it done if the car can do it. The racing circumstances prevented that and we need to find new, fresh traction for Canada."

Alfa bets on new endplates

Alfa Romeo struggled for pace in Monaco, with a small upgrade seemingly failing to make much of a difference.

Taking a leaf from Toro Rosso's book, Alfa emerged with new rear wing endplates, turning the leading-edge tips inwards. This seems to be an attempt to take in airflow marginally closer to the centreline, also altering the flow patterns reaching the rear wing in order to improve its efficiency.

As the top portion of the endplates must now form a continuous section under the 2019 rules, this has redefined how teams work with this area - producing solutions such as the one seen below.