2006 German GP Technical Review

It was a hectic week in Formula One, with the teams having been busy testing ahead of the German Grand Prix and the FIA making decisions on some of the technology that has been developed this year.

For round 12 of the season, the German GP was not expected to throw up so much technical interest. Yet surprisingly it included the launch of the new Super Aguri car, the FIA banning three different solutions, and every team bringing new parts to the race.

Hockenheim is now a fairly typical modern GP track without the long straights of yesteryear, is has the usual mix of fast and slow speed corners and only its abrasive surface sets it apart from other tracks. It demands medium to high downforce, good brakes and plenty of engine cooling. As a result, developments brought there will remain on the cars for the balance of the season (Monza apart).

The rough track surface, similarly to the Barcelona, punishes tyres, and the lack of really long corners means it's the rear tyres that take the loading from powering out of the slower sections. Hence the outside shoulders of the rear tyres tend to suffer and often blister in the hot ambient temperatures.

The teams and tyre manufacturers also had problems with the short notice of the banning of the mass damper systems. Despite a favourable decision by the stewards, the devices remained off the cars throughout the weekend, and this left the teams with little time to perfect a set-up through track testing, while no doubt the seven post rigs back at the factories were in use throughout the weekend, feeding back suggestions to the race engineers on revised set-ups.

Banned technologies

In the lead up to the German GP, the FIA announced two developments used in recent races would be banned, and one system brought to the race weekend was also banned at Hockenheim.

There doesn't seem to be any specific reason for the FIA's sudden intolerance of new solutions, but clearly these new technologies do not fit in with the FIA's view of what should be used in F1 and have acted to prevent their use becoming even more widespread and also to stop any team gaining an advantage from them.

The first announcement came in the week before the race, when BMW's nose fins were deemed to obstruct the driver's view and had to be removed from the front of the car. This ruling seems sensible, even though all three BMW drivers claimed that the devices did not obstruct their view of the track at the last race in France.

Then, only a week after autosport.com showed evidence of the Ferrari's mass damper system, the FIA then sent out a directive effectively banning the systems. These systems were used to varying degree by seven of the eleven teams.

Mass dampers are a new solution in F1. Fundamentally, they are sprung ballast weights that are used to overcome the tendency of the front of the car to pitch when braking or encountering kerbs. The mass damper's weight is suspended by a linkage and a spring/damper mechanism; this is tuned to the frequency of the car's tyres and suspension settings.

As the car's attitude changes during braking, cornering, or over kerbs, the mass damper effectively makes the front of the car lighter and less prone to ride height changes as the weight has to overcome its damping mechanism and inertia to react to the pitching movement. The net effect is that the tyres see a more uniform loading, and the car's front aerodynamics run at a more consistent ride height.

It is this latter point that has allowed the FIA to step in and suggest the solution contravenes the ban on "movable aerodynamics", while although the device does not directly see any airflow, the reduction in ride height change makes the car less aerodynamically pitch sensitive.

Renault responded that their system was only intended to make the tyre's contact patch more consistent and that the mass damper only constitutes part of the car's normal suspension. This is a compelling argument and as the FIA does not specify what components form the basis of the car's suspension then the mass damper could be considered as such.

This year, the FIA made a revision to the rules to allow innovative technology to run for the balance of the year before a ban on the system is written into the rules. This allows teams to benefit form their development investment, but as Renault had run the system since last year, the FIA have been slow to act and fuels the conspiracy that the championship is being manipulated.

In my view, the system should be allowed to be run by all teams until the season's end. So far only McLaren, Toyota and Honda have declared they have never raced the system, leaving perhaps only Super Aguri without the system.

Lastly, the tyre warming system intended for Super Aguri was banned. All teams use tyre warming blankets to heat up the tyres in preparation for a run. These blankets use copper resistive elements to heat up the surface of the tyre and take up to two hours to warm the outer tread of the tyre.

Under the rules, tyre warmers must use resistive heating elements and a blanket format. Some teams have tried to run mini ovens and microwaves to heat up the tyre and wheel assemblies more effectively, but these have all been banned.

Super Aguri brought a new type of the tyre warmer to Germany. Produced in the UK by Tyre technology Limited, their system meets the wording of the regulations by using a patented system of carbon emitters; these use resistive elements which are said to be better for heating the tyres. The emitters are set inside an aluminum frame with rollers to rotate the tyre past the emitters, and the whole assembly is covered by an insulating blanket.

This set-up can heat the tyre more effectively by heating deeper inside the construction of the tyre and can also bring a tyre up to temperature much quicker in around ten minutes. But, clearly this interpretation of the "blanket" requirement did not meet with the FIA's intentions, and they were ordered not to use the new set-up.

The new Super Aguri

Having run their update of the Arrows chassis along with small race-by-race developments, Super Aguri finally rolled out their new SA06 car in Germany. The term "new" is accurate, although not every element of the cars design is currently new. The car is still based around the Arrows monocoque, whose external shape is still recognizable, but the aerodynamics and rear-end are all completely new.

Starting at the front, the deep fairings that surrounded the twin keels have been trimmed back, and now the twin keel sports a much simpler fairing and turning vane (yellow). This approach has allowed the team to retain the old nose-cone complete with the old front wing, although this set-up will change for Turkey, where a new nose and front suspension will make their debut.

The unseen work inside the monocoque in the lay-up of the carbon fibres has been completed to allow a "zero keel" front end. This would be similar to Toyota's reworking of the TF105 into the zero keel "B" spec car, although Aguri will probably be able to shorten the titanium keel in order to remove from the airflow. Technically this would change the chassis' weight and hence requires a new crash test; it's not clear how Aguri have organised this.

While the front end is in mid-change, the rear end is definitive for the rest of the year. Its design is based around two requirements: the Honda-provided seamless gear cluster, and new rear suspension geometry for the Bridgestone tyres.

The quick shifting gearbox is provided complete, and Super Aguri have had to alter their controls systems to suit the new set-up. The old Arrows-inspired carbon fibre gear case is gone, replaced with an aluminium casing with new mounting points for the rear suspension and a neat torsion bar and damper layout.

This area in particular is now a lot neater and in line with other teams' designs. Additionally, the gearbox provides a mounting point for a strut to support the upper rear wing. This has allowed Super Aguri to create a split lower beam wing, similar in some respects to the Ferrari solution.

The benefit of the rear end change, aside from the gear shift and geometry benefits, is the loss of weight and improvement to the aerodynamics. The bodywork around the rear of the car is a lot lower and tighter to the internals. Such has been the shrinking of the sidepods that the front crash structures are now bulging through blisters in the front of the sidepods (curiously now without the shoulder fins).

All the changes have freed up an extra 20kg of weight to be put into ballast to tune the chassis. Plus the ten weeks in the wind tunnel have produced around a 10% increase in downforce from the new parts.

With such a late roll-out of the SA06 (it was originally expected for Imola), the team are still working on a definitive 2007 car, with the plan to have an all new car launched along with the other teams in 2007.

Renault

After their poor showing in France, Renault arrived in Germany with a new front wing and revised rear suspension geometry.

The addition of a Ferrari-esque bi-plane front wing (yellow) replaced the cascades merged into the end-plates. The new upper elements still mimic the shape of the outer section of the cascade but now meet the nose-cone with a tall arched aerofoil. This bowed inner section act with the nose wings to counter the upwash created by the front wing and improves flow to the rear wing. Also, the front wing profile was altered with a wider, flatter spoon section.

Although running without the mass damper system was suggested to be Renault's handicap this weekend, the lack of speed was probably more to do with Renault not having a good enough set-up and tyre combination prepared for Germany in the time available.

The mass damper will allow a very different front suspension set-up in terms of springing, damping and ride height. This would need to be matched to the natural spring rate the tyres provide. Renault ran a new Michelin tyre construction at Hockenheim. With more track or seven post testing Renault could be expected to gain the loss in lap time we saw in Germany and return to their more familiar pace.

The team's poor performance in the race could be attributed to the fact that the rear tyres were suffering most. This in turn points to the revised rear suspension and the unusual heat and abrasive track surface in Germany. Renault have stated they will revert to the old rear suspension for Hungary.

Ferrari

Adding further to the host of aero and suspension modifications in recent races, Ferrari came to Germany with a small revision to the sidepods and new rear suspension. This suspension was allied to the new front suspension, both aimed at getting better performance from the tyres in the race.

On the sidepods, a small extra flip-up (yellow) was added below the usual larger one. Also unnoticed, at the last race Ferrari had also added a second aerofoil section to the front brake ducts.

Toyota

Allied to the new suspension from the French GP, Toyota have a new floor/bargeboard set-up (yellow).

Persisting with the smaller array of turning vanes, Toyota altered the rear placed vane. Mid-season the team have run a pair of small vanes attached to the split fin at floor level in front of the sidepods. Now the team have made the floor fin much larger and squarer, and the single turning vane attached to it is larger.

In preparation for the expected heat in Germany and the next round in Hungary, two apertures (yellow) have been added to the sidepods below the flip-ups. The team ran these closed for most of the weekend, but a louvered panel was tried in the rear most hole.

Red Bull-Ferrari

Red Bull's big technical development for Germany was the debut of their own seamless shift gearbox. Little technical information was released on the unit, which sees Red Bull join Honda, McLaren and Williams with this technology.

It is suggested that with the shifts being so fast, the gain in lap time could be up to 0.3 seconds some circuits. Additionally, the car is able to shift up and down gears without the car being unsettled and affecting the aerodynamics.

Red Bull also played with the nose fins. The larger versions seen in France were tried with and without endplates, and even some transparent endplates were run on Friday.

Williams

Williams announced some new aerodynamic parts to add to the sidepod alteration reported in France. One visible alteration was the front brake ducts, where the usual doughnut-shaped ring around the outer face of the disc was halved and only covered the rear half of the disc.

BMW Sauber

Having had to remove their much talked about nose fins, BMW kept up their promise to bring new aero to every race with two updates.

Firstly, the front wing endplates were altered (yellow) - the plate now has a notch in its upper edge and the cascade fitted to the inside edge is masked by a taller leading edge. This set-up would reduce the vortex created at the wing's tip, in turn reducing drag.

Secondly, the team adopted the Honda-esque shoulder fins (yellow) on the sidepods.

These devices act to separate the flow heading along the sidepods between that which will reach the rear wing (inside the fin) and that which will be spilled around the wing.

Torro Rosso

After a year where no visible changes were made to the car, the team arrived in Germany with two developments seen in testing at Jerez the week before the race.

The team added both front wing cascades and Ferrari-like rear wheel fairings. As neither of these developments have been seen on the Red Bull, it suggests the team are responsible for their own development, even if this year's (and potentially next year's) cars are effectively the old Red Bull chassis.

Midland

After some detail alterations to the car's aero and front suspension, the Midland team also released a new rear suspension in Germany.

Unfortunately, in post-race scrutineering both cars failed a rear wing deflection test - the lower beam wing was showing excessive flexibility. This was blamed by the team on old components being "softened" by use and their exposure to exhaust heat.

As Midland are one of the teams that use a strut to support the upper rear wing, the lower beam wing is lighter and in some respects is similar to the front wing, which often shows signs of flexing at speed.

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