2007 Italian GP Technical Review

Monza was once paired with other ultra high-speed tracks that demanded a low-drag set-up.

With these other tracked being sanitised or dropped from the calendar, Monza now sits alone as the home of high speed in F1, just as Monaco represents the classic low-speed street circuit.

Thus, the set-up seen on the cars is unique to Monza, the teams having to develop parts especially for this race. Many parts are developments from previous wing designs and hence are not totally new, but the cost of developing a package for one race are not in keeping with F1's current cost-cutting mentality.

Fortunately, some of the changes to the cars are as simple as removing parts fitted at other races to improve downforce. So the proliferation of winglets, tabs and fins are taken off and the F1 cars look a lot better for their new simplicity.

Aside from aerodynamics, the teams have to revise the mechanical set-ups. The slow chicanes and their aggressive kerbs require a high ride height that would otherwise be set much lower for high speed stability.

As the speed varies from slow to over 220mph, the cars experience a wide variation in loading from downforce. Despite the tiny wings run at Monza to stop the car being squashed against the ground at high speed, the third springs added to manage ride height for each of the car at set much stiffer in Italy than nay other track.

As with the springs, the tyres are run at high pressure to maintain the carcass's stability at high speed and when decelerating under braking.

Monza has some of the heaviest braking demands of any track, but such is the speed around the balance of the circuit that the brakes can be adequately cooled without resorting to large drag-inducing brake ducts.

Team by Team

Ferrari

Compared to their direct rivals McLaren, Ferrari appeared with a simple Monza set-up. Aside from smaller front and rear wings, the majority of the other aero add-ons were retained for the race.

Only the roll structure mid-wing and the pyramid on the rear impact structure were deleted to save on drag. They adopted a delta-shaped flatter front wing and waisted rear wing endplate to match the flat high-mounted two-element wings.

It has also been reported that Ferrari has adopted a new system on the rear of the car. In the Italian press this is suggested to be a form of mass damper, but since the rule clarification last year this is unlikely.

The spring/damper set-up on the rear of the Ferrari is kept well hidden, not only by judicious use of covers when the unit is removed in the pits, but also by the hydraulic cooler mounted above the gearbox.

Judging from the reports of a horizontal mechanism, I would guess the system is a form of roll damper. Like Spyker (see below), Ferrari use rotary dampers on the rear for better packaging of the suspension.

These lack the fine damping of linear dampers, and as a result the car can suffer from mechanical grip issues. This is area where Ferrari has performed poorly against McLaren all season; to improve this would allow Ferrari to improve their pace, particularly through the kerbs at Monza.

Thus, I would expect the alleged system to be a damper-mounted concentrically with the rear anti-roll bar, to manage the rate of roll. This in itself is not an illegal solution; although no other team adopts such a solution as their better-controlled linear dampers for each wheel fulfill an element of roll damping, and as a result do not need the dedicated damper.

This roll damper is believed to be the part that failed on Massa's car in the race. No doubt the mention of a new damper on the rear of the Ferrari prompted media misinterpretation that it was in fact a mass damper.

McLaren

McLaren had an extreme set-up for Monza, as the team sheared the aero add-ons off the car in search of top speed. Indeed, in the race both McLarens topped the speed traps.

The low drag set-up revolved around the flattest of rear wings. The single element wing was mounted by a revised pair of supports, which had an additional flap set between them.

The sidepods' t-wing were removed, and in testing viking wings were tried, but not brought to the race weekend. Towards the front of the car, new cockpit fins were adopted. These mimicked previous McLaren designs, but were mounted lower down the side of the monocoque.

Their lower placement may be related to the flatter front wing used for Monza, as the wings upwash is correspondingly lower. A small dispensation to cooling was created by opening a small duct on the left-hand sidepod.

Toyota

Several solutions were tried by Toyota during testing the week before the race. The team's characteristic low-drag wing sets were tested with both the conventional nose cone with its bi-plane wing as well with the new drooped nose first adopted in Turkey.

This dropped nose was tried both with and without the bi-plane element. This drooped set-up with the extra element removed was raced at Monza. The change was supplemented by new pod wings with a larger profile and a small support to steady the wings at speed.

At the rear of the car the T-wings were removed, as was the pyramid on the rear crash structure, and a two-element rear wing was raced, despite a single-element version being tested.

Also seen briefly in testing were new static front wheels inspired by Ferrari. These are expected to debut at the Japanese GP, along with other aero updates.

The team raced with their usual rear wheel fairings - these are different to Ferrari's, as the duct aims to collect the flow passing out through the wheel a route more effectively. The Ferrari design effectively blocks flow passing out through the rear wheel.

BMW Sauber

As has been the case for several seasons, BMW Sauber discarded more aero parts than most other teams for Monza.

The car appeared without its T-wings, shelf wing and with cut down sidepod flip-ups. To match these deletions, the front and rear wings are specific for this circuit, with the team going to effort of creating a complex twist to the rear wing elements, as opposed the to the simpler straight wings adopted by other teams.

To further cut drag, BMW Sauber ran a serrated gurney along the trailing edge of the rear wing flap. The rear wing endplate was also revised, with a distinctive notch removed from under the flap.

Williams

Williams retained most of their usual aero add-ons, but did produce a new rear wing with oversized slot gap separators and new front wing.

The front wing adopts a bridge format, similar to McLaren's. But the Williams nosecone is not as low as McLarens, so to make use of the extra span in the middle of the wing the flap needs to twist upwards to hook over the nosecone.

The shape where is arches to bridge the nose is complex, and Williams must have worked carefully to make sure the wing is not sensitive to yaw or side winds.

Spyker

Following its successful impact tests, Spyker were finally able to roll out their B-spec car for the Monza race weekend.

The car is a major upgrade, although most of the changes are very subtle. But despite the limited visual changes, the car is significantly different from the sidepods back.

The two main areas leading the changes are the revised cooling set-up and the new rear suspension.

The changes to the rear suspension are mainly for aerodynamic reasons; the designers wanted the wishbones in different places to work better with the diffuser. This required a new gearbox casting to create the pick-up points for the suspension legs.

While doing this, the team also revised the rear damper layout. Having used rotary dampers for the past two seasons, the team have found the units are not as effective in damping the rear of the car.

In fact, a lot of the damping at the rear comes from the third damper. The downside in this is that when the car rolls there is little damping to control the roll movement, so most of the damping effect comes from the front dampers.

But, when the car lifts a front wheel into a corner or over a kerb, the damping effect is lost and the drivers feel a sudden change in balance. This makes the car unpredictable to drive in slower corners.

The new rear end uses linear dampers operated in a similar fashion to what Williams tried a few years ago, with the pushrods operating a second bell crank mounted to the anti-roll bar.

This se-up was probably chosen as a quick workaround to mount the larger dampers within the space available, to save completely redesigning the gearbox casing.

Along with the revised gearbox and radiators, the rest of the aerodynamic shape has been altered. The sidepods now sweep in even more tightly around revised exhaust pipes. The old louvered cooling panels have been replaced with smaller optional louvers. Along the top of the engine cover, the spine see a curved dorsal fin as adopted by many team this year.

To clean up the coke bottle area above the sidepod, the T-wings are now mounted to the chimneys, deleting their old support attached to the engine cover.

The rear wing is also new, now being supported by a single strut, with endplates that incorporate a small set of Ferrari-like gills to ease the pressure created where the lower beam wing meets the endplate.

As we know the rear structure is revised and the driveshaft is now contained with a large Renault-like fairing extending to form part of the brake duct. The new rear wishbones and driveshaft fairing are designed to work in conjunction with the revised diffuser.

Overall, the changes should allow the car to be more efficient at producing downforce, particularly low-drag downforce produced by the underbody. However a Monza Debut was never going to prove how well the new improved package was going to work, as the track demands so little downforce.

The next race at spa should give a better indication of how the new specification will fare.

Honda

As with the other teams, Honda adopted Monza-specific wing sets and deleted their T-wings.

A new design noted on the car for Monza was a new rear beam wing. The new part dipped noticeably above the diffuser tunnels, suggesting the outwardly unchanged diffuser has also changed for Monza.

The reshaped beam wing will act to improve the exit of flow from the diffuser. The closer and steeper the wing can be above the diffuser, the lower pressure it creates, to encourage more flow through the tunnels for more downforce.

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