The tech battlegrounds for F1 2024

In days of yore, the response to a single team dominating a Formula 1 season might have been met with an arbitrary rules change with the intention of closing the pack for the following year. Remember when Ferrari’s run of dominance in the early 2000s was ‘miraculously’ ended by 2005’s no-tyre-changes rule, and Bridgestone got its compounds wrong?

There have been no such kneejerk reactions to Red Bull’s total and utter devastation of the rest of the field in 2023. Unlike last year’s tweaks to the ground-effect formula, which detailed a small change to the floor height dimensions to limit the deleterious effects of porpoising, the 2024 rules are effectively the same as last year’s.

‘Convergence’ is the key buzzword here. The prevailing theory is that, with settled rules, Red Bull will start to reach a point of diminishing returns while the other teams continue upon their trajectory. It appears that most are set to follow the Milton Keynes team in its highly lucrative development direction, although we’ll only see to what extent later.

With relatively few changes from 2023 across other facets, it almost appears that 2024 will be ‘2023-plus’, giving the teams the opportunities to right the wrongs of last season. You can bet that they’ll take that opportunity as they hope to dislodge Red Bull from the top of the pile. Not that the championship-winning team is going to so easily give up control of the reins…

What will 2024’s design trends be?

Usually, we open our season preview features with the standard exploration of new rules and elements – but there are very few changes. It’s much more pertinent to look at the features that most teams will likely include in their 2024 designs; two years of a largely static ruleset should offer plenty of data to inform whether a certain design philosophy is worth continuing with.

The most visually obvious marker of that over the past couple of seasons has been with regards to sidepod design, an area that has become inextricably linked to floor design – the real high-value vein of development since the venturi underbody was reintroduced back into F1 parlance. And, owing to the scarcity of pictures showing the floors in their full glory, these have remained a closely guarded secret. At least, until Sergio Perez’s Red Bull RB19 was lifted out of harm’s way by a crane after his Monaco Grand Prix qualifying crash, prompting a flurry of flashes from the opportunistic snappers…

Photo by: Matthew Fiveash

The F1 pack appears to be converging towards Red Bull's sidepod design, but it is the floor which holds the greatest performance differentiator

In theory, most teams will follow Red Bull with their 2024 designs. After all, the evidence of the past two seasons has shown that the RB18 and RB19 have been the class of the field. But even copying last year’s car exactly will only offer a similar performance point; the remaining teams must not only understand the key threads underpinning Red Bull’s successes, but also add their own value.

PLUS: The real concept differences that will define F1’s 2024 Red Bull clones

What we don’t expect to see is Ferrari or Mercedes rolling back to their previous sidepod concepts. Rather than the Red Bull-style downwash solution, Ferrari and Mercedes had initially persisted with their own variations on inwashing solutions. The initial difference here was in differing methods of activating further performance available in the floor, be it through the surface pressure distribution on top of the floor, or in building a larger low-pressure expanse behind the car to improve the underbody suction. Although both teams stuck to their guns for the start of 2023, Mercedes binned off its ‘zero-pod’ solution and switched to a downwashing variant at Monaco (initially planned for the cancelled Imola round), before Ferrari ditched its ‘bath-tub’ ’pods for a downwash design in Spain.

Both teams were restricted slightly by the infrastructure already in place, since chassis and internals cannot be so easily changed in today’s cost-cap-managed championship. Mercedes technical director James Allison revealed that the team had lost 0.2s in its switch to a downwashing design, but this was a worthy sacrifice for the greater development potential it offered. With a clean sheet design for 2024, building their cars around this is much more achievable.

"The downwashing concept, we can all sit there and draw it, it’s not a problem. The devil is the detail, and we’re moving ourselves forward with lots of small details on the car" Jody Egginton

It would be surprising to see any deviation from the ramped sidepod design, unless someone finds a wild interpretation that delivers a steady stream of downforce and lap time. The variations will be in how the aerodynamicists choose to implement those downwashing sidepods; the likes of Aston Martin and Alpine – along with a handful of other teams – sought to enhance their direction of airflow over the top of the sidepods with a clear channel built into it. But the cautionary tale remains; building something based on a successful design is one thing, building something successful is quite another.

As AlphaTauri technical chief Jody Egginton said, the key details are important as the cars converge. “People do converge in any regulation, and Red Bull and McLaren and a few of the teams have shown some really interesting development directions, and everyone’s looking at what everyone’s doing,” he says. “And at top level, our concept is a downwashing concept, not dissimilar to a number of other teams. But the devil is in the detail.

“There are cars that are not scoring podiums every weekend that have got some really nice features on them. We’re always looking at what people are doing, and it’s about bringing all that together and understanding it. The downwashing concept, we can all sit there and draw it, it’s not a problem. The devil is the detail, and we’re moving ourselves forward with lots of small details on the car.”

Photo by: Matthew Fiveash

Each team has a risk vs reward dilemma when it comes to floor design and ride height

It’s underneath that counts

It’s floor technology that remains the biggest ticket item. Ever since the rules were revised for 2022, the nature of the venturi tunnel floor has produced a swing in the performance envelope of each car, with performance shifting from low-speed corners to the high-speed turns. Building the floor around the widest range available across all cornering types has been the main target, particularly in slow-speed conditions. Because downforce generated increases with the square of velocity for a wing body, which a venturi floor closely resembles, this puts the focus on maximising the other variables that affect downforce to collect more load at low speed.

If Red Bull was to have a weakness, it would be in those conditions; its reduced performance ceiling in Monaco and later struggles in Singapore suggest this will be a key area of research for the RB20. As suggested by a couple of paddock figures, it is likely no coincidence that its sister AlphaTauri team has found incredible strength in this area, particularly with its floor upgrade for last year’s season-ending Abu Dhabi GP.

Last year’s 15mm reduction to all floor surface height offered a slight challenge for the teams; as Allison explained, Mercedes was unsure whether to use the height reduction to lower the car, or continue to pursue downforce gains by running at a higher ride height: “There was a big debate internally: should we cash in that 15mm and drop the car down, operate in a window that’s 15mm smaller because the cars will be less bouncy inherently? Or should we do more of what has done us well over the course of the [previous] year, which is force ourselves to keep looking for downforce where it’s difficult: high up?

“The debate raged internally for a while and the logic was sort of like this: it’s very hard to predict, because the tools [F1 teams can use] are not especially good for this, where bouncing is going to be incurred. It’s much harder to back yourself out of having driven off the end of a cliff and finding yourself bouncing, than it is to be too high, not bouncing, and then lower yourself towards it. As it turns out, it was too cautious…”

The importance of suspension design

A few years back, an ex-F1 designer once described suspension design as purely aerodynamic; teams had largely converged upon the best solutions, and arranging the wishbones and the pushrod/pullrod decision were solely based on which worked best in the wind tunnel. With modern floors, the suspension package has become an increasingly important platform to build upon.

Retaining a stable platform for the floor to operate is vitally important, particularly given the tools used along the floor’s edge to keep the underbody sealed. It’s why the teams have started to experiment with the positioning of suspension members at the front end, as their placement relative to the overall centre of gravity can imbue the car with anti-dive properties. This ensures that, if load builds at the front, the floor does not lose performance with any pitching moments.

Photo by: Matthew Fiveash

Suspension changes will also be a key focus point when this year's F1 cars are launched

The field is currently split on rear suspension design. McLaren, Red Bull, Alpine, Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri all opted to run with a pushrod rear suspension arrangement for 2023, likely in the interests of packaging, while the rest opted for the time-tested pullrod rear. With front suspension, all teams opted for pushrods apart from McLaren and Red Bull. Mercedes will have an all-new suspension package for 2024; whether it will cross the aisle to implement a pushrod rear arrangement remains to be seen, but the addition of a new gearbox would allow for it to be reformatted.

It’s a difficult balancing act. In 2022, most teams attempted to run their cars low and with stiff springs, and encountered porpoising as a result. But Red Bull excelled through its ability to generate a comparative level of downforce while running the car slightly less low, while Ferrari was able to dial in a healthy level of compliance over kerbs to assist its prowess in slower-speed corners over 2023. Finding the layout that offers a bit of everything in the handling department will be the goal for the vehicle dynamicists.

2024’s tiny technical tweaks

The status quo in 2024 largely remains in the regulatory framework, but there are minor touches, albeit ones that should have minimal impact on performance. The main new technical allowance over last season is for a small vent on the chassis that can ensure that the drivers receive some degree of cooling in extreme heat. This follows the intense humidity of last year’s Qatar GP, from which Logan Sargeant had to retire with heat exhaustion issues, Lance Stroll complained that he was “passing out”, while Alex Albon and others also required medical attention. The cooling scoop will be on top of the chassis bulkhead, and its size is strictly regulated to ensure no team can glean any kind of advantage from it. The inlet will only be small, but it should have a tangible effect on driver comfort should any similar levels of humidity prevail.

For the good of the spectacle, it is hoped that the common understanding of the best way forward with the current set of regulations will finally offer the convergence that was promised by a static ruleset

There are also restrictions to the number of permissible power unit components; the allowance of internal combustion engines, turbochargers, MGU-H and MGU-K have been cut from four to three, despite the longer calendar for 2024. This naturally shifts focus onto reliability, although the power unit freeze means that the manufacturers are largely stuck with what they already have. Expect a few more grid penalties, then, as the season reaches its second half.

The floor fences and edge wings also require minor changes to their construction; no metallic components or inserts will be allowed, except for any brackets, fasteners and small areas of wear protection. This is likely to be a safety consideration, particularly if any of those components break away from the floor. Wheel tethers have also been strengthened to limit the possibility of detachment.

On a somewhat lighter note, regulations pertaining to an LED-augmented wheel cover have been removed; these were initially included to “provide visual information to the spectators”, but have never been employed since wheel covers were reintroduced for 2022.

Photo by: Matthew Fiveash

Cooling, fewer power unit components plus floor fence and edge wing construction are the minor 2024 technical rule tweaks

The importance of the development curve

Defining a concept for an F1 car is one thing, but ensuring that it has the potential to respond positively to developments is quite another. Take Haas’s malaise over 2023, for example: the team struggled to implement updates throughout the season when simulations showed little in the way of progress, and its big-ticket upgrade for the US GP in October featuring the downwash sidepod concept did not yield the promised step in performance. Rather, it offered such negligible improvements that it simply ended up being a matter of preference between the two drivers; Kevin Magnussen preferred the newer-spec car, while Nico Hulkenberg rolled back to the old design.

Conversely, McLaren put together a car that was not particularly quick in its initial trim, but was receptive to a series of upgrades throughout the first half of the year. These catapulted it from the back of the order to podium contention, a progression that most will be looking to replicate. For the good of the spectacle, it is hoped that the common understanding of the best way forward with the current set of regulations will finally offer the convergence that was promised by a static ruleset. If that’s the case, then 2024 could be a season to savour.

Photo by: Matthew Fiveash

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