Tech analysis: winter testing

Following the last race of the 2005 season, nine of the ten Formula One teams refrained from testing until the end of November. The agreement on a testing 'ban' was meant, theoretically, to allow the teams to rest after the long slog of a 19-race season. In reality, the teams have had little time to rest.

The designers worked flat out on the new car; the production department was split between making the tooling and parts for both the test cars and the new car; and the mechanics were all back at the factory, building up the test cars in preparation for the dawn of the winter testing season.

How the teams tackle winter testing depends on the state of development of their old car: how much needs changing for the new car and also what rules have changed ahead of the upcoming season.

Some teams with greater resources will make interim cars for testing - or simply complete lots of mileage with an old car. At the other end of the pitlane, lesser-funded teams are lucky to get any testing done, with their new car not being ready until the last minute.

The aims of winter testing

A lot of emphasis is placed on the launch of the chassis, but these days the chassis (i.e. the central monocoque) is not critical in the wider scheme of things. The car is made up of many different systems: engine, gearbox, electronics, suspension, and aerodynamics. Each can be tested, to a large extent, independent of the others. Only at the first couple of races will the full definitive car be revealed.

Some teams opt to test an interim car, with the engine and other systems from the new car mated to an older chassis. Others release their new chassis and only add the aerodynamic parts in preparation for the first race. There is no right or wrong way; it all depends on how much development time and resources they need to prepare the car.

Typically, engines and gearboxes need a lot of time for design and test on track. Tyre development probably takes the largest share of track time; but fortunately other systems can be tested during tyre test runs.

Who sets the fastest times is another elements that draws much attention. However, the large range of test programmes that the teams need to get through makes laptimes almost irrelevant. Some test runs require the car to be driven in a certain manner that is not conducive to fast time, i.e. fixed speed or coast down runs on the straights.

Moreover, there have been occasions where some less funded teams have put in lightly fuelled runs at the end of the testing day purely to be seen at the top of the time-sheets. However, for the vast majority of the teams, their tests are set against a strict running order, with little space for either ego-boosting fast times or deceptively slow runs.

For each day of each test, the team will have a pre-agreed schedule of runs, which were decided back at the factory based on requests from the various department heads and the technical director. The car is built up and the transporters are stocked according to the planned test schedule. Then, each morning starts with a briefing for the team, drivers and any other supplier participating - particularly the tyre and engine suppliers.

The car is accurately prepared and fuelled for each run to keep the results consistent. There is usually a single aim for a run - e.g. testing a set of tyres - then other secondary tests can be included in the run, such as a launch practice at the pitlane exit, or new gearbox control software.

Each test run ends with the car being refuelled to the same level and tyres changed, as tests are often repeated to corroborate the results. During each run, the cars are wired up with extra sensors for data logging, and the results are sent back to the pits for the technicians and test engineers to analyse, either to guide subsequent tests that day or for more in-depth review by the factory staff.

The other input to the test results does not come from the car's electronics, but from the driver.

The driver's perception of the car's behaviour is critical in understanding how the car is working. His comments are related to the test engineer at the end of each run - and even after a longer run of around fifteen laps, a good test driver would be able to recount corner by corner, lap by lap, how the car was behaving. He would break this down further into how the car behaves under braking into the corner entry, mid corner and corner exit. He reports what attitudes the car is at through these sections of the corner and how things like electronic controls and gear changes affect the car.

In some respects, the ideal test driver does not want to develop the car, but simply needs to detail what is going on with the car, without offering alternative set-up advice or trying to drive around issues the car might be having. As such, the practice of using younger and less experienced race drivers as testers is somewhat counter-productive.

It is telling that the top teams tend to use experienced race drivers who understand how a car behaves and can provide some insight to the engineers as to how this might be useful in a race weekend. This maturity and experience helps particularly with tyre testing, where the degradation of the tyres' performance can be related to how this might affect the car in a particular situation.

Of course, for the younger drivers the testing routine is a good training ground on how to give feedback to the team, and such a driver gains a close understanding of how the team works.

Race drivers are also involved in testing work, although they generally run less days of testing than the dedicated test drivers, and as a result their time is more precious and spent on set-up and other areas of race preparation.

Team by team

Renault

The Renault F1 team have been active in testing and are one of the few teams not to be testing a hybrid car. Renault is also the sole manufacturer not to have run a V8 engine on track by the year's end. Instead, the team tested with R25s in similar spec to the end-of-season cars, except for a detuned engine.

While the V8 runs on the test beds in Viry-Chatillon, the detuned V10 is still a realistic option for testing. Renault altered the power delivery to mimic the V8, and as the new V8s are ballasted to the weight of the current V10s, this is a true representation of how the new car will drive.

This allows Renault to test tyres and other systems ahead of the new chassis/engine being released in January. There is perhaps an element of risk associated with this, but if the team are content that the V8 installation will not have teething troubles out of the box in January, then the extra time and resources can be spent developing the definitive car and not diverted to an interim car.

The new car is due to roll out at testing this month, with the official launch in Monaco (to allow for tobacco advertising) on the 31st of January. For a team that have just won the championship, there have been surprisingly few rumours on how the new car will look - indeed, in testing there were no new parts visible on the cars.

McLaren-Mercedes

As an early tester of the Mercedes V8, McLaren have appeared strong in testing. Since the testing ban was lifted, they have run both V10 and V8 engines in the MP4-20.

As always in testing, McLaren keep their garage barriers or shutters closed, and their almost paranoid sense of security has made it hard to judge what else has changed on the car. Externally, the car appears as per the end of 2005 season, with the frequent addition of the infrared cameras for tyre/set-up work. Moreover, no launch or rollout date has been set for the new car.

With the 2005 car working so well, however, I wouldn't expect a huge change to the design of the MP4-21, but as the "no keel" front-end was a late addition to the MP4-20, I'd expect the nose of the chassis to be much tidier.

The team's loss of technical director Adrian Newey will not adversely affect the design of the new car, nor will it affect its performance over the course of the year.

McLaren's strength and diversity in their design team means the car will be well understood, and its development path well planned. Only in future years will we be able gauge the value of Newey's loss to McLaren, as with F1 design teams so large nowadays, the impact of a single person is much smaller, even at the level of Adrian Newey.

Ferrari

After a dismal season, where both its aerodynamics and the tyres stymied the F2005 car, 2006 may be a chance for the team to regain lost ground.

The various rule changes are a double-edged sword for Ferrari, who have been known to struggle with major rule changes in recent years. This year, the move to V8 engines, reintroduction of tyre changes during the race, and static aero rules play into Ferrari's hands. But, equally, the change of the V8 engine to the layout of the car and the very different race strategy calls may catch them out, much as the Parc Ferme rules did in 2003.

As with McLaren, Ferrari were early testers of V8s, and engines are known to be a Ferrari strength - even if they have little racing experience of V8s. Ferrari have been testing two V8 engines: one is a cut down V10, and the other an all new V8 made to the new dimensional rules. As the engines are so different, they run in different chassis. The F2005 runs the modified V10, and the F2004 runs the definitive V8.

The use of the F2004 appears to be a retrograde step for Ferrari, but the choice makes some sense. The F2004 was a successful chassis, winning both championships easily two years ago. But this was also a car with suspension built with tyre changes in mind. The F2005 had different geometry to cope with single race tyres, and as such the F2004 - with upgraded aerodynamics and the V8 rear-end - would be a good basis for the rules in place for 2006.

Meanwhile, the more current shape of the F2005 has been used for aerodynamic testing, with the car appearing with several new parts. One curious part was a new cover for the top of the chassis. Ferrari tried this before, but this time the cover is subtler and raises the chassis' top in front of the driver by a few centimetres, reshaping the section in front of the cockpit with a smoother shape.

This small change may aid airflow over the back of the car but is not likely to provide a significant gain. Also, Ferrari tried new brake ducts on the front of the car. The Williams-inspired set-up uses a larger duct covering the front discs, keeping their heat away from the front wheel rim and routing it more efficiently out of the wheel.

These small changes do not give any great secrets away on the design of the 2006 car, and as usual there are rumours of how the car will look, taking cues from McLaren and Renault.

These rumours are usually wide of the mark, as Ferrari tend to be conservative with their design, and the new car is normally an iteration of the previous car. Maybe this year could be different, with new front wings mated to a different keel layout, and as the cooling outlets were altered throughout 2005, these could be further altered for 2006.

As yet, though, Ferrari has not announced the release date of their new car.

Toyota

At the first off-season official test session, Toyota surprised by rolling out their new car, the TF106. First glance was confusing, as this car appeared the same as the TF105B - which raced in the last three rounds of 2005.

What Toyota have, however, in the TF106, is the new V8 rear-end mated to a close derivative of the B-spec chassis. Of course, the aerodynamics will change during the course of the build-up to the first race.

That said, the TF106 chassis will clearly remain very closely related to the TF105B. the shapes around the floor and cockpit are near-identical, as is the keel-less front suspension set-up.

Although the car does away with the keel to mount the front lower wishbone, the keel itself still appears to be in place. It's not clear if this keel is still structural and serves only an aerodynamic purpose, or if the team have retained the option to return to the older suspension layout.

To the rear, the V8 rear-end is where most of the attention has been paid. The V8 engine, designed by Luca Marmorini, has been reliable - although a major failure did occur to one engine after clocking a lot of mileage.

The engine has been mated to a new gearbox, apparently still a cast titanium case. The familiar Ferrari-esque damper layout has changed, and whereas recent Toyota cars have used longitudinal torsion bars and Sachs rotary dampers, the new car mounts the springs and dampers in a Renault like layout, using vertical torsion bars and linear dampers exposed on the top of the casing.

Having felt satisfied with improvements to the rear suspension performance on the TF105 over TF104, technical director Mike Gascoyne's change to the car is puzzling.

With the sidepods taken wholly from the TF105, it is clear these will change significantly for the first race of 2006. A clue to this direction is the new exhaust seen in testing. Much akin to the Ferrari/Sauber set-up, the exhaust collectors point forward and the secondary pipe curls back around to point backwards.

This puts the bulk of the exhaust forward in the sidepod and allows the coke bottle shape to be much tighter. The result of the U-turn in the exhaust is that the pipe exits the sidepod much further forward with a simple rounded outlet.

Despite the car already running, Toyota will still hold a media launch of the car on the 14th of January. Then, in the last tests leading up to Bahrain, the new aero step will be released.

Williams-Cosworth

Now running without support from BMW, Williams arrived for winter testing as a truly independent team. They have modified the FW27 to take the Cosworth CA V8 engine; this has been quite an achievement considering the shortened timescales both companies have had to work to.

In addition to the new engine installation, the car has been repainted in a solid blue colour, which incidentally makes the car's shape very hard to distinguish. Thus externally the car appears to be very much the same as the racecar from 2005.

Teething troubles were affecting the car with the drivers frequently stopping out on track or spinning. The causes of the problems may be related to the mating of the various systems to the engine, as it does not seem that the engine itself has been unreliable.

In fact, Cosworth has had a V8 engine running for over a year and the pukka 2006 V8 was ready earlier than planned once the Williams deal was signed. But the Cosworth v8 had not run in a car up until the start of the testing season, as Red Bull were unwilling to revise the RB1 chassis to accept the Cosworth engine, as they were already signed for Ferrari engines.

Honda F1 racing

What was formerly BAR now appears as Honda F1 Racing since the final part of the buyout was completed late last year. Honda were prepared for the first tests with the all-new V8 ready to run in the "concept car" chassis. In fact, Honda have been running two chassis - one with the V10 and one with the V8, the latter identifiable by the red stripes on the engine cover.

Outwardly both cars are similar, with the new gearbox apparently making up for the shorter engine. Aerodynamic testing has included some rear-wing variations and revised brake ducts covering the discs.

The new car launch is scheduled for January 25th, and a very different car is expected to be revealed. In testing, the front suspension appeared to be with a revised pushrod location on the upright, and the belief is that the new car will have the front suspension raised up to form a neat "keel-less" layout.

Red Bull-Ferrari

For most of the Spanish tests, Red Bull Racing arrived with a RB1 still fitted with a Cosworth V10 engine. Then, just as the last test in Jerez was ending, they appeared at Silverstone with their all-new Ferrari powered RB2.

Only a few pictures have emerged of the new car, but it is clear the RB2 is very different to the RB1.

Although the front wing appears similar to the 2005 version, it is mated to a new nose and chassis, which adopts a Renault-like "V keel". This keel appears longer and more sculpted than Renault's truncated version. The mounting method for the rear ends of the wishbones could not be seen, but it appears it might be to the "V keel".

The cleaner nose leads to deeply undercut sidepods with a large amount of the floor shadowing the inlets. As the area now taken up by the sidepod undercuts was previously taken up with electronics, the engine's ECU appears to be sited in the floor and the grey heat sink fins exposed to cool the unit. The sidepods then sweep back into a very tightly waisted shape, with new chimneys jutting out with mounting to the winglets.

Red Bull do not plan to officially launch the car until the week before Bahrain, although the car will be testing publicly before. It will be interesting to see how this departure from the conservative line of Jaguar Racing\Red Bull fares and progresses throughout the year, especially under the influence of Adrian Newey, once he starts work with the team next month.

BMW Sauber

With the purchase of Sauber now complete, BMW set about on a low key testing programme based on a Sauber C24 modified to accept the BMW V8 engine.

Again, the testing appeared to be on the systems on the car rather than any suspension or aerodynamic alterations. With the new car launching quite early, on 16th January, BMW-Sauber have a lot of work to do to be ready for Bahrain.

Midland F1 (MF1) - Toyota

Yet another team renamed over the winter, the Midland F1 team carried out a few tests with a Jordan EJ15 running a Toyota V10 engine.

The new V8 car is not expected to roll out until just before the first race, as the car's gestation has been difficult, with the original Dallara car plan being changed to a Midland/Jordan design with input from Dallara.

Although Jordan was hindered by lack of budget, the Midland ownership promises better and more stable funding. With this in mind, the new car can be expected to be an all-new one, rather than the reworked cars deployed by Jordan for the last three years.

Scuderia Toro Rosso (STR) - Cosworth V10

With Minardi officially ending their run in F1 with an emotional public test in Italy, the new Red Bull ownership soon made its presence felt with the team appearing at the Spanish tests with a modified Red Bull RB1, identifiable by the gold paint rather than the yellow on the Red Bull Racing's car - whereas Minardi was rarely able to go testing and rarely appeared with a new car until the first race.

The test car still ran the Cosworth V10 engine, which is the unit they plan to race in 2006. However, in 2006 the V10s need to be rev-restricted (16,750 rpm) and feature an air restrictor (77mm diameter), thus the car appeared in that format with the circular restrictor set into the air intake snorkel.

What STR will run next year in terms of the chassis and engine restriction still seems to be undecided. As the Chassis rules demand the team to own the rights to the car and build it themselves, STR cannot simply buy RB1 chassis. Instead, they are probably going to buy the rights to the RB1 and manufacture a revised version of the chassis.

Working from the Minardi factory in Faenza, Italy, will be a struggle as the team do not have all the manufacturing facilities of the top teams and do not have their own wind tunnel (Minardi only bought time in the Fondmetal tunnel). The manufacturing and development of the new car will therefore be handicapped, until the planned relocation to a single site for both the Red Bull and STR teams in 2008.

Although the team were running a restricted Cosworth, other teams are wary that the potential of the revised RB1 chassis and a restricted V10 would be very different to that expected form Minardi running their old chassis with a restricted engine, as was the case when the rules were decided.

But the FIA is going to wait until the testing and initial races to see if the equivalence formula of V8 versus restricted V10 needs amending. It could be that, if STR regularly beat anyone other than Midland, they will be further handicapped by the FIA, effectively keeping them at the back of the midfield.

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