What controls the frontline in the latest F1 design tech battles

With Formula 1’s pre-season test in Bahrain now in the books, the 10 new car designs have shared the track together, offering a platform for technical comparisons between them. The direction that most of the field was taking this season had already been seen during their launches, but there were still many questions that needed to be answered in the three days at Sakhir.

Some of those questions are the result of the regulations remaining relatively stable, and how this might lead to further convergence up and down the field. In the areas where the regulations have changed, the teams will be looking to see if they can recover the performance that’s been lost and find workarounds to what the FIA intended.

It’s an intense time of the year for every F1 team, as they work their way through an exhaustive checklist in their own test programmes. Before the season begins, each team aims to find the various strengths and weaknesses of their new cars, check how robust their procedures are and, if time permits, maybe even have a cheeky poke around the other garages to see what everyone else is up to.

Testing was considered even more critical this season too, as the teams had just three days of running prior to the season getting underway to overcome any issues, gather data that can be used for ongoing development, and work on the cars’ set-up for all manner of scenarios that they’ll face in the coming months.

Here’s what we saw in Bahrain.

Red Bull RB19 finally breaks cover

The Red Bull RB19 only broke cover at testing as the team hid the car away during its launch

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

After it spent the 2023 launch season being evasive with the design of its RB19, Red Bull finally unveiled its new machinery at the pre-season test. It’s clear to see that it’s an evolution of its forebear, which is unsurprising given the team’s superiority in 2022.

PLUS: Why Red Bull's 'evolutionary' RB19 does not disappoint

While the core DNA has been retained, the car has been embellished with many new details and those that remain have been thoroughly optimised. The RB19’s nose is similar in concept to its predecessor but is wider and squarer around the tip section.

It also features a NACA-style inlet duct for driver cooling, rather than the oval design employed last season.

To match those changes, the front wing’s overall design has been reworked to suit as the arched upper elements have been swapped for something more traditional.

Having acted as one of the trendsetters in the sidepod department, it’s no surprise that many of the key features from the RB18 remain. The changes that have been made revolve around the much tighter bodywork and an increase in the length and depth of the sidepod undercut.

The sidepod’s flank is now flatter and results in a deeper underbelly that fuses with the ramped section at the rear. This not only helps boost the aerodynamic performance of the sidepod but also frees up potential in the floor edge. It’s here where Red Bull has perhaps made its most obvious changes, reacting to the alterations in the regulations that require the outermost portion to be raised.

This has resulted in revisions to both the floor’s edge, with a C-shaped cut-out that’s arched upward at its trailing edge to create a wing profile. This cut-out is accentuated by the edge wing, which is similarly shaped in this region to create a pair of winglets that will work in conjunction with one another, before the edge wing follows the contours of the floor.

Red Bull has also made changes to the airbox for 2023, reducing the size of the inlet, which has the net benefit of reducing the size of the car’s centreline and results in an optimisation of the shelf-like section of the engine cover. The cooling gill panel has also been repositioned as a consequence, with the panel now draped over the shelf’s corner, rather than on top of it, allowing the airflow passing by to be less affected by the heat being rejected by the internal components.

Mercedes responds to 2022 wing clampdown

The Mercedes front wing gained focus both in 2022 and during pre-season testing last week

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Tasked with regulating the all-new car concept put forward by F1, the FIA had to fight the teams on several fronts throughout 2022. And, in order to help retain the original design intent of certain aspects of the car, the regulations have been revised for this season.

One area where this was considered important was the design of the outboard section of the front wing and the endplate. Under the previous regulations, teams were constantly looking for ways to increase the amount of outwash that could be generated here, which altered the airflow’s passage around the front tyre and in turn helped with the floor’s performance.

As part of an update package for May’s Miami Grand Prix last season, Mercedes introduced a design that carefully negotiated the competing regulations that govern this region. This required the outermost section of the flaps to be angled back on themselves, opening up a space in the lower section of the endplate, as the flaps were no longer connected to it.

The FIA looked at this solution and made significant changes to article 3.9.3 of the technical regulations for 2023, in order to prevent this sort of design.

The perennial problem for the FIA is that without rewriting the entirety of that article and the ones adjacent to them that also have a bearing, the teams will continue to poke holes in them – quite literally in this case, as the W14 emerged with a similar solution to last season, albeit adapted to suit the changes that had been made to the regulations.

In this instance, the mainplane has a much deeper chord, where it connects to the endplate when compared with its predecessor. The flaps thereafter are no longer angled back on themselves, rather the rearward flaps have been rolled over and sit slightly inboard of the endplate in order that each element creates its own tip section.

To comply with the regulations each flap is connected to the endplate with a slender metal support bracket, which also allows for each flap to be stepped away from the main body of the endplate.

Additionally, the W14 has two winglets mounted on the endplate above the flaps. The rearmost of those intersects with the most rearward flap, and both of the winglets are angled downwards and will undoubtedly help with the outwash effect that the team is looking to create.

Front-wing winglets hint at prevailing trend

Mercedes wasn't the only team to gain attention for its front wing design

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Mercedes was not on its own in noting the possibility of housing winglets on the inboard rear corner of the endplate, as they can also be found on both the Haas VF-23 and Red Bull RB19.

There are obvious differences in the make-up of their solutions when compared with Mercedes, but their intent will be similar: encouraging more outwash than would ordinarily be available without the winglet in place.

Red Bull has the most simplistic winglet of the trio, a single element mounted with a minimal angle of attack applied to it. The winglet should enhance flow in the outboard portion of the wing, with the elements both wound tightly and angled outwards as they meet and follow the contours of the endplate.

Haas has also mounted a winglet in the lower rear inboard corner of the endplate but, by comparison, it’s opted for something a little longer. Its winglet also has a slot midway along the surface that creates a two-tier arrangement and aligns with the slot gap in the last two front wing flaps below.

Aston Martin also played around with this region of its front wing, albeit in a slightly different way to the aforementioned designs as the Silverstone squad hasn’t added a winglet, but rather looked for a different way to connect the upper flap to the endplate (above).

The aim again is to help create more outwash than the regulations intend, helping to alter the wake created by the tyre behind and improve the performance of the floor downstream.

In order to achieve this, the upper flap isn’t fully connected to the endplate and its angle is skewed relative to the endplate above, while a metal insert takes care of any structural issues this might create.

Ferrari bares its front wing teeth

Ferrari SF-23, front wings

Ferrari revealed a front wing design solution at the SF-23’s launch that many had considered consigned to the long list of items that F1 had banned before they had ever seen the light of day.

This is a design solution that Mercedes had looked to introduce last season but was quickly quashed by the FIA, as the governing body raised questions over the primary purpose of the slot gap separator brackets. Given their shape and position, they appeared to offer more of an aerodynamic purpose than the horseshoe-style brackets everyone traditionally uses.

The FIA asked that they be removed and, even though Mercedes felt it could argue compliance, it opted to race its new wing specification without them, as it was also plausible that a rival could protest the design if raced.

Following these discussions, the FIA made changes to the regulations for 2023, deleting the section in question:

“The following components will be permitted in addition to the Front Wing Assembly: for primarily mechanical, structural or measurement reasons…”

This was supplanted in the slot gap separator section as follows:

“Up to eight slot gap separator brackets, per side of the car, which connect provide a structural connection between consecutive FW Profiles. These Each brackets must…”

In that, there is no mention of a primary function in the new section (in bold), as it’s very difficult for the FIA to argue how much influence a component has, given everything has an influence over the air passing around the car.

This means that the slot gap brackets first run by Mercedes and seen on the Ferrari are now compliant and might be a solution that others apply their own interpretation of at some point during 2023.

What technical innovations will appear after pre-season testing?

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images