Tech focus: the 2010 cars

The design implications of the 2010 regulations

The regulation changes for this year, including the ban on refuelling and the narrower front tyres, have had obvious implications on the design of the 2010 cars.

Last year was the beginning of a new set of regulations and, as we saw, some teams found solutions to those pretty quickly and some teams didn't. So, this year will really be a case of optimising that regulation package.

Front wings and narrow tyres

This work starts right at the front of the car - with the front wing endplate design and the front wing treatment. We can see on most cars that this is an area that has had a reasonable amount of attention - it is an area that has dramatic implications because the rest of the car only works as well as that front wing assembly airflow wake allows.

That is why people pay so much attention to the nose area, which the chassis section between the front wheels, the front brake ducts and the front wing plus front wing endplates. There are various solutions in there, with different levels of complexities - from the Toro Rosso that is very similar to last year's Red Bull, through to probably the Virgin car which is one of the least complex, compared even to the Renault.

How good the research level is, and how complicated you can go with it, determines what level you go to. But it is really a vital part of the car because it affects the rest of the car dramatically.

Because the front tyre is narrower by 25mm on the inboard side, that will change the front wing and front wing endplate slightly. It is not a matter of bolting on last year's one and getting the best out of it. It is a matter of starting to play with it again - because the wake that comes off the back of the front tyre affects the car quite dramatically. That wake will be reduced a bit and, because it is narrower, you can work the front wing differently. That is one of the areas that you are going to see some attention over the first couple of months because people are finding their feet with it.

Bigger fuel tanks

The fuel tank size is obviously bigger this year. It will add about 20 centimetres to the length of the car if you just cater for a bigger fuel tank. And that has lots of implications for weight distribution and the general centre of gravity of the car, which you need to take into account.

The big thing this year is qualifying, because qualifying on low fuel and racing on high fuel will be tough. To get a car balance that will suit both and be good to the tyres in both conditions - be able to warm up the front quickly in qualifying and not overheat and overwork the rear tyres in the race, is going to be a big compromise in design and one of the areas that the teams are going to have to look at very deeply.

The answers to that are really going to come from testing. It is quite difficult to do much of that from your vehicle dynamics studies, because it will be down to the durability of the tyre - and that is an unknown thing. So I think we will see cars at the front of the grid who may not be as good in the race, performance wise, and cars further back at the start who are better in race conditions. That is always good for a bit of excitement.

The fuel tank size is big enough, once you have used a bit of fuel, to affect weight distribution by trying to trap the fuel, either forward in the tank or rearward in the tank. You can affect the weight distribution at, say, two-thirds race distance by baffling the fuel in the tank and controlling it in the area that you want it to be controlled.

Regarding the design of the tanks, there is a bit of a trade-off in height. You cannot really go stupidly high because of the way the aerodynamics work. The top of the head rest area automatically gives you a limit to where you can put the fuel tank to.

If you imagine the centre of gravity of these cars is 15cm up from the bottom of the car, then fuel up to that height lowers the centre of gravity, because it is below the COG. After you go above it, it starts to raise. So there is a point where the car changes its characteristics - slowly, but dramatically, because of the COG height.

So you don't want to go stupidly high with it for either mechanical or aerodynamic reasons. The width of the fuel tank is defined in the regulations. It has always been there - overall 0.8 metres wide, 0.4 metres from the centre-line - and the sides of the chassis have always been aerodynamically shaped to allow the radiators to fit in nicely and get good flow through the sidepods. I think most teams will now have made the monocoque shoe-box shaped, squareish, to get the maximum fuel tank in there to minimise the length. But there is a compromise in the whole thing.

Fuel economy is going to be a big issue. There are cars out there that will start the race 10-15kg of fuel lighter than the others and that is a significant difference if you consider that 10kg is roughly 0.3 to 0.35 seconds. That is 0.2s per lap average over a 50-55 laps race - so that is a significant influence if you have good fuel consumption.

Tweaking the double diffusers

After everyone learned about the regulations a bit more from the double diffuser saga, the gearboxes have taken a big hit this year. The end result is, to make the double diffuser a lot better, then the gearbox needs to be a lot narrower; a lot higher, so once you come off the back of the engine you want the diffuser to come up underneath the gearbox, which is the route I would take; and longer - or a combination of all three. And looking at the cars we've seen so far, I think most teams have done a combination of all three.

The double diffusers are being covered up by the teams' skulduggery - so we haven't seen much of them yet. But that will all be revealed as time goes by. I think there are a few out there, having looked at it, who have pushed the limits pretty far.

You can still read the regulations, and still not understand why it is legal, and there is one area of the rules where theoretically it doesn't say that two surfaces have to join up - and that is what the teams are exploiting. But it is where you go with that - because you could be in dreamland and get pretty excited with it and turn it into a horrendous piece of kit. I suspect some teams have done that.

Time will tell whether they a) do comply with what the FIA says is legal now and b) if it does give them the performance that they think.

The trends of the 2010 designs we have seen

The high noses

Most of the teams have gone for a more symmetrical nose high-up. If I was looking at something and trying to find what I would classify as the right solution, I think the Mercedes GP answer is a pretty nice compromise. It has a lower nose, it has got a change of section from the front of the nose to underneath the nose - coming into a V-section to try and get the air off the front wing.

All of that is to try and help get as much air as possible between the front wheels. That airflow, and the percentage of free stream airflow you can get against the percentage of front wing affected airflow you get, actually makes the diffuser and underfloor work better. As for the high nose solution - it raises question marks for me. I am not a great believer in that type of nose - the Mercedes GP route is a very neat solution to it.

There are two or three penalties from doing this. A droopy nose is difficult for the crash test because you get a turning moment, when the front of the nose wants to bury itself underneath the car. That structurally can be achieved okay, though. The high nose is easier for the crash test because it is a fairly symmetrical unit - all the panels in it are doing the work so you can end up with probably a slightly lighter nose. However, it is higher up, so it is a compromise. I doubt very much if the high nose really does give you anything super on airflow.

Whenever you have a curved surface, like the Mercedes GP nose for example, the air is accelerating off the top of it down into the sidepod area. Then on the top of that nose, you will get lift - because you have a low pressure area there. So the more in line with the flow that nose is, the less lift you will get off it - so there is a little bit of a compromise in that.

If there is treatment like the Mercedes GP has got, the little fins on the side of the nose, and the Red Bull bulges further up, then they are stopping that airflow getting off the top of the nose. In doing that, they are reducing the low pressure area on the top of the nose so there will be a minimum amount of lift on it.

Everything is a compromise, but it depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for that last one kilogramme of difference in downforce, then the difference between the Mercedes nose and the McLaren nose could be as small as that. It's tiny numbers.

The shark fin engine covers

When the car is in the middle of a corner, theoretically it is sliding at about 5-degrees to the airflow. So the engine cover is not really a symmetrical thing with flow down each side of it. One side is more hidden to the airflow - and if the air can spill over the top of the engine cover at that 5-degrees, then it gives you lift on the outside of the car. So putting that fin up there reduces this lift. It helps keep the engine cover more symmetrical and keeps the flow attached to a) help the rear wing and b) stop the negative effects at the top of the engine cover.

To take it a bit further you will start seeing sportscars with that type of thing - and that is to stop them flipping over when they spin. There is such a mass of bodywork there that they get a lot of lift on the top of the body, that is what makes the car fly.

If you look at the Mercedes GP engine cover, that little bit of fin is enough to stop that happening. It does not have to be as stupid-looking as some of the others. But then being stupid-looking doesn't hurt, because you can put a bigger sticker on it!

The Mercedes GP engine cover and airbox treatment is a very neat solution. It is very well done and detailed, like its nose. There are some really nice things on that car, but then there are some other things that are a bit clunky.

Undercutting the sidepods

There is only a certain amount you can do to the cars within the regulation boxes, but I suppose one of the main themes we have seen is the undercut sidepod, radiator inlet area - and trying to get that to work harder with whatever bargeboard you can get in there.

That is a very powerful area because the bargeboards are scavenging the airflow out from underneath the chassis, and trying to increase the velocity of it. The faster you can get the airflow to arrive at the leading edge of the sidepods, the more the diffuser can use it. If you are travelling at a certain speed, and if you can double the speed of that airflow at the front of the sidepods, then that is four times the downforce you can get from the underfloor. So, you really want to try and use that air - and that undercut sidepod trend is giving it space for the more restricted bargeboard position to drag that air out and present it at the sidepods at a much better quality, and at a much higher velocity.

At the outer corner of the sidepods, that vertical wing section - the twisted device - is to try and stop the wake from the front tyre getting sucked into that area and spoiling the undercut working. That area to me is an area where the trends differ and some people still have to catch up with it a bit I think. It is an area that can be very beneficial to the underfloor of the car, and you are talking there of maybe five or six per cent downforce - which can be half a second per lap. That's in just small detail in that area.

The cars

We've seen seven of the current teams test their cars at Valencia this week. Here are some first impressions of what we have seen so far

McLaren

The McLaren is, I think, a very logical car. The front wing is good, and has all the complexity that you would expect from that team. The details in their car are excellent - as was the detail with its car at the start of last year. But the actual performance wasn't there then.

Looking at this year's car, it is a step forward in that it has got a better front wing package, a better front endplate package, a better front of the sidepods - and the sidepods themselves are better. The exhaust outlets are better positioned, and the whole package seems to be a very co-ordinated thing right through.

I've seen one picture of the diffuser, and I was a bit worried that some people might be getting carried away, and it could be a step too far. And that can affect the car's performance and consistency quite a lot. I think the McLaren is a good package, as far as everything we know about it, but I might just question the diffuser.

Ferrari

The Ferrari has gone to a longer gearbox as a way to optimise the diffuser. And the with the launch package - that really seemed to be the big area that the team was pushing in.

Having stopped development halfway through last year, I was expecting more from Ferrari - especially in the front wing area.

But now it has run a different front wing during testing, it looks a bit more exotic. I am not a big fan of a two-piece front wing, a main plane and a flap, and I think whenever the downforce levels change because of the wing's inevitable airflow separation, you get a bigger percentage change on it.

If you have got the opportunity to test with it, play with it and set it up, and get everything right, then okay. But as a general rule of thumb, the multi-piece wing, either a three-piece or five-piece, is more resilient and has a wider working window. Ferrari seem to be able to make it work on a one-off run, because they have been very quick, but I am not so sure it is the thing I would like to go racing with. And the effect of traffic on turbulence is greater on a two-piece wing than on a multi-piece wing as well, so there could be consequences later in the race with that solution.

Mercedes GP

There are a couple of interesting things on this car. Last year Brawn had the steering track-rod in line with the bottom wishbone, which was quite a good thing for stiffness and for aerodynamic control.

With the front wing being lower, the bottom wishbone has more control over the front wing wake. But the team has moved it this year in line with a lot of treatment at the front of the chassis. That area of the car is very aesthetically pleasing, and because of that it has a very narrow front wishbone pick-up, and you can't get the steering rack in. Mercedes has probably moved it for logical reasons, but it was a good solution and would have been nice to keep.

The treatment around the front of the chassis, between the wheels, the top of the chassis - like Red Bull Racing last year but a little bit nicer - all that stuff is, once you see it in detail, pretty good.

And again the detail around the engine cover package and airbox inlet is all a very neat and tidy solution to getting good airflow, and good quality air, from the drivers' helmet and the airbox.

There are a couple of areas like the diffuser where the team has not gone as far as it could have, or should have, done. I think everybody has pushed pretty hard on it, and they may have stood still a little bit in that area and tried to make other things better.

And for me the sidepods are a little bit clunky. There is not much to them, as far as the exits and how the details and exits of the exhaust pipes get out of there. I am sure it is stuff that functions okay - but visibly it doesn't look as good as I would have thought detailed wise.

Williams

Williams probably had its best season last year in performance, but didn't actually bring home the results. And I question the fact that the team stated it had a good handle on last year's car, so it started with a clean sheet of paper this year. I think that was a bit of an illogical thing to do in a way because the car last year was neat and tidy.

It had a low nose, the COG was lower, it had reasonably conventional front suspension, and had a lot of good little things that didn't go right out one end of the compromise list, if you know what I mean. I would have had a tendency to hold onto a few of those concepts, but Williams seems to have gone and built a new car. It is so easy to lose yourself when you build a new car - especially when you are trying to climb-up as Williams is doing at the moment. The team needs to put a couple of solid years of results behind it.

There is also the switch to Cosworth engines, which was always questionable. I would have gone the other way and said let's try and optimise a few bits here - let's not just throw the baby out with the bathwater. And I am afraid that decision might have hurt Williams a little bit. At best they could have stood still and at worst they could have gone back a little bit.

Renault

The colour scheme is lovely, but that is about it! It seems that the launch car was quite a bit different from the car that has run on the track - which I found to be a little bit confusing.

I don't see anything on it that is really on the limit. The rear suspension is a push-rod format, but they have got very wide-spaced wishbones and the dampers are really well forward. The very angled push rods are to tidy up and minimise the cross-section at the rear of the car. That is good detail but it is small detail.

I would worry a little bit, and feel that the team needs to regroup and rediscover what they are trying to do. The front wing endplate treatment isn't as exotic as it could be, or probably needs to be. To me, this is one of the most basic cars of the current teams that have been involved in F1 before. I don't think there is enough in there to be honest.

Scuderia Toro Rosso

I think it is just last year's car with a bigger fuel tank. And rightly so, I suppose. The car at the end of last season for Red Bull was very good, although Toro Rosso underperformed.

Why, when it was setting itself up to build a new car, would it try and reinvent the wheel? Tidy up a few bits and pieces on it and it is not a bad vehicle. So put a bigger fuel tank in it and try and optimise a few bits, know the car you have got and go and get on with it. I don't think they have done the wrong thing.

BMW Sauber

The team obviously learned a lot last year, because whenever you make a mistake, that is the one time that you learn a lot. If you are good, then you learn very little, which is what Brawn/Mercedes will find out this year.

The car has been quick so far, but being quick in testing this year is very different to being sure it is going to work out. The car doesn't look anything exciting, but that is probably because it is black and white - and that makes it very difficult to see the car.

There are all the right bits on it. If you look at the sidepods, look at the nose, and look at the front wing endplates - the parts that make the thing function - they are all good, and lap time wise they seem to be working.

Testing: First impressions

Testing this year is going to be more confusing than ever because of the different fuel loads, and who runs what. But at the end of the day, it usually washes out that somebody has a go with a close enough fuel load - and the Ferrari was quickest on all three days in Valencia this week. It does look like it is there, and the Sauber looked consistent too.

I think we have seen people learn from being in a poor condition last year, and that will make it interesting. Brawn and those teams at the front had not got very far to go, whereas Ferrari, BMW and McLaren had a long way to go.

I think that Ferrari is in good shape, and the Renault is not anything special. Williams is probably nothing special, and I think McLaren are okay but not as good as Ferrari.

We have to wait for a few more days testing to find out some of the answers - and this time next week we will have seen the new Red Bull Racing RB6. These are interesting days.

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