The tech tweaks required to conquer Baku

Though ostensibly a street track, the Baku layout is dominated by long straights - which makes this weekend's European Grand Prix a unique headache for Formula 1 teams.

Like most new circuits, it's designed by Hermann Tilke and it bears many of his hallmarks: long straights ending in heavy braking for tight turns. But the pattern also goes in a new direction. While confined by the architecture of Baku, the layout is sometimes tight and twisty but other sections are wide and flat-out.

Even the surface is all-new asphalt. It's not without ridges and bumps, but it's a step above basic road surface, albeit with white lines and manhole covers.

This combination means teams are using wing set-ups at Spa levels, focusing on low downforce and minimal drag. That boosts top speeds to a worryingly high level on the two straights and leaves the cars scrabbling for grip in the lower-speed sections.

The high speeds also then force heavy braking and the drivers and engineers have concerns over brake wear during the race.

The longitudinal nature of the track also puts an emphasis on traction, with the newly laid asphalt offering little grip but conversely little wear or degradation.

Pirelli had set precautionary high tyre pressures for the high-speed demands, which has added to the teams' search for traction and braking stability.

The other worry for the race is fuel consumption. The 100kg limit could force teams to manage fuel for the race, but this is somewhat offset by the high likelihood of interruptions and safety cars.

MERCEDES

As predicted the curvy rear wing seen briefly in Canada was brought into action for Azerbaijan.

This wing is similar to that used in Spain and Italy last year - a low downforce and low drag device, the curved shape trading downforce produced at the wing tips for less drag.

Other teams' low drag wings work the change in angle of attack the other way around, with flatter centre section and steeper tips.

In Mercedes' case the shallower angle at the wing tips reduces the pressure difference at the endplate, and this reduces the drag induced by vortices created behind the wing.

Mercedes is not using a monkey seat this weekend, in common with most other teams, as the wing is not run at such a critical angle to require the stabilising effect of the small winglet beneath it.

FERRARI

Both the front and rear wings have been trimmed for the long straights of Baku.

At the front the wing has reverted to a version of the early-season two-element flap specification. But the rear-most flap is trimmed to about half its old length, to reduce the downforce produced by the wing and balance the lesser downforce created at the rear of the car.

The top rear wing has been flattened by raising up the main plane and shortening the flap.

With the wing in a higher, flatter positon, the endplate is revised with just two drag reducing louvers above it and no slots beneath it.

WILLIAMS

Again running the low downforce/drag rear wing seen in Canada, Williams also continued to run a nose development not initially noticed in Montreal.

Based around the newer shorter nose cone introduced in Bahrain, the pylons that mount the front wing have been reshaped.

Whereas before they curved immediately rearwards toward the nose, now they rise up vertically before curving acutely back towards the nose.

This small change makes more use of the pylon as a turning vane, to direct the airflow back along the edge of the car.

FORCE INDIA

Force India is also running flatter wings, but the more important change to the Mercedes-powered VJM09 has been to the ERS cooling.

In a move similar to that taken by Mercedes last year, the ERS water cooler mounted over the gearbox has been scaled up to improve cooling.

The larger cooler is wider, necessitating a bulge in the bodywork in the area of the Kingfisher logo high up on the engine cover.

With the heavy braking demands of the high speed street circuit, more energy recovery can be achieved if energy recovery hardware such as the MGU-K and control electronics are cooled effectively.

Upscaling the cooler means the team can work the energy recovery systems harder through the race, without risk of de-rates due to overheating.

McLAREN

Another team that has fitted a flatter rear wing to its cars to boost straightline speed, McLaren has also made changes to the rear brake ducts.

It needs to improve the efficiency of its chassis to cover the fuel consumption concerns and power shortage of the Honda engine. Running less downforce helps to reduce drag, but changes to the rear brake ducts appear to be a mix of drag reduction and performance upgrades.

The horizontal flap fitted near the brake duct inlet has been removed, while the cascade of flaps behind the rear axle line has been subtly reshaped

TORO ROSSO

With Toro Rosso having opted to run very skinny rear wings in previous races, in an effort to mitigate the horsepower advantage of its rivals, it's no surprise that the low drag rear wing first seen in China was also run in Azerbaijan.

This time the undersized rear wing is mated to a similarly cut back front wing, the team having trimmed the front flap to be both shorter and unusually narrower. The square edge cuts create a far smaller flap, in turn creating less downforce to balance the smaller load produced at the rear.

Carlos Sainz Jr's small brush with the barriers in practice one pushed the front wing back into the car. Due to the angle of the impact, rather than the wing itself or its joint to the front wing mounting pylon breaking, it was the joint between the wing pylon and the nose itself that broke.

When the car returned to the pits, the wing pylon could be seen to have broken away from the nose. This surprised many, but the breakage belies the nose cone's inner structure.

Most noses' outer shape is also the basic structural shape of the nose's inner crash structure. In Toro Rosso's case the structure of the nose is more like a cone, tapering from the square-shaped chassis mounting down into the small nose tip.

This inner shaping dates back to the more extreme shape and structure of the 'anteater' noses of 2014. With a simpler inner structure, easier to design, crash test and manufacture, the outer shape of the nose cone is largely made of bonded on sections, with less of a crash protective role.

The pylons are bonded to shoulders, which in turn bond onto the inner cone shape.

So when the front wing was pushed back, this less-than-structural part failed and showed where the two parts are bonded for form the net shape of the nose cone.