2008 Turkish GP Technical Review

Moved forwards from its more usual late-season slot, this year's Turkish Grand Prix posed no less of a challenge to the teams.

On paper Istanbul Park presents little to test the cars, being medium on downforce, brakes and tyre wear. But the track has its quirks - it runs anticlockwise and it barely used outside of the Grand Prix weekend. This makes the track green until it rubbers in, which exacerbates the lack of grip from the newish surface. Finding grip at this year's race weekend was complicated by cooler weather and overnight rain.

The track's layout features sequences of fast and slow corners, and while this implies high downforce, the long straights push the cars' set-ups back down towards the medium to low downforce end of the aero map.

Each sector is dominated by one type of corner with fast turns in sector one, straights in sector two and the slow chicanes in sector three. Thus a team's relative performance in each sector makes it simpler to asses its pace.

The earlier date for the race eased the excessive temperatures experienced in previous years. Most teams ran closed-off cooling outlets, as the sidepods were prepared back at the factory in expectation of higher temperatures.

Factory preparation is also unusual for Turkey. Despite the country's location on the edge of the European Union, its distance forces the teams to sea-freight the cars and most of the equipment direct from the Spanish GP.

This necessity troubled McLaren, which had to prepare a new car to replace the one damaged by Heikki Kovalainen in Barcelona. Thus, the spare tub was partly built up in Spain and then completed after being shipped to Turkey, while a new spare tub was air freighted from the UK.

Unlike previous seasons where Turkey marked the final end of season development push, this year's earlier date, along with the complication of shipping the cars and no opportunity to test in between races, meant that technical developments were thin on the ground.

But the race came as the fifth race of the year and thus the first opportunity for the reliable teams to replace their gearbox (after four races).

Four-race gearbox rule

2008 is the first year of the long-life gearbox rule. As part of a cost-cutting package, gearboxes have been subject to design restrictions and the majority of the gearbox cannot be touched over the course of four race weekends.

This period covers free practice on Saturday, qualifying and the race itself. Fridays are exempt and the teams are free to run different gearboxes for those first two free practice sessions.

Thus, the end of the opening four races is the first opportunity to ask the teams how the new rule has affected them. The introduction of the four-race rule coincided with the introduction of the control ECU (SECU); thus the gearbox's electronic control system has also changed as well as the mechanical parts.

All teams needed to redesign their gearbox to meet the new rule, not so much to make them last the distance, but meet the gear size, spacing and materials defined within the rules.

Most technical directors felt that the existing gearboxes were capable of lasting with little development, so the demand for a common gear specification forced teams into an expensive redesign.

Other factors, outside of the gearboxes actual design are just as important. Williams technical director Sam Michael told Autosport.com:

"As with all reliability-critical systems on Formula One cars, it requires many procedures and checks at the factory and the circuit, and it's important going forward that we remain diligent even if we have a fundamentally reliable product."

Most teams found that winter testing proved that the mechanicals were up to the job - only late in testing did team find some problems.

Toyota's Pascal Vasselon told autosport.com: "Gearbox development went very smoothly at the beginning, the simulations went well and we had no major problems. Then we had a few alarms in the last part of winter testing and now it seems it is back under control".

Equally, Williams had a clean run in winter testing, only for a few issues to arise before Australia, as Michael explained:

"Winter testing with the new transmission went well. We had a few small issues at the last minute that affected the first practice session in Australia, but these were resolved quickly and we finished four races in Barcelona with the same transmission".

As the problems affected the gearboxes on a Friday, they were exempt from the five grid position penalty. But Toyota wasn't so lucky.

"Unfortunately we needed a gearbox change on Timo Glock's car in Australia after Saturday practice," said Vasselon.

"It was not related to the hardware. It was connected with the control system, a consequence of the standard ECU. It's quite complex in terms of settings and we were still in the learning process. I think several teams had a similar kind of issue to us with various systems, and it is certainly the type of issue that we would not have had with our own system, because we knew it so well."

Thus Glock is the only driver to suffer a penalty for his gearbox failing in the first five races.

With gearboxes being less on the edge of reliability (compared with when the one and subsequently two race rules were introduced for engines) the gearboxes use is not restricted by the rules. This is defined by the duty cycle, the amount the gearbox is used over the four races

(Engines, for example, need to run on lower revs to ensure reliability for two races).

All team aside from Force India race seamless shift gearboxes. These use software control to phase the engagement/disengagement of the gears to reduce the shift time to all but nothing. This places some pressure on the internals, which could affect reliability. However, this year's gearboxes are able to run at their full performance 100 percent of the time.

Having had a season of dreadful transmission reliability in 2007, Red Bull has enjoyed a leap in reliability in 2008, prompting technical director Geoff Willis to tell us, "We have no particular restrictions on shift strategy for the race box."

Equally BMW Sauber, Toyota and Williams all confirmed that their gearboxes are mechanically safe for 100 percent seamless shifting. However with the SECU rules, teams are still finding their way with the control of the gearboxes.

Vasselon expanded on the problems Toyota have faced in addition to the Australia failure.

"We also had a small control issue on Timo's car in the Bahrain Grand Prix which forced us to revert to the back-up system, without using the seamless shift," he said.

"Certainly, with restrictions on how often we can change a gearbox, we have to be more aware of the duty cycle. Clearly, you can imagine that if we see impending issues on a gearbox and we are unable to change it due to the regulations, we may have to modify how we use it. This happened for Timo in the Bahrain Grand Prix, but obviously the move to back-up shift was not planned in advance."

While the new gearbox rules do not freeze the gearbox design (as with the engine rules), the teams do now face a four race period when no design changes can be made to the internals. Thus it was a surprise when none of the teams we spoke to declared any significant changes to the new gearboxes fitted for Turkey.

With the technical challenge clearly under control, has the rule changes actually saved any money for the teams? There is a difference in opinion in between the teams on this point. Mario Thiessen of BMW Sauber felt that "there will be savings over the season due to less parts used," an idea that Michael agrees with.

"It has been a cost saving for Williams already, and it will grow into a significant cost saving going forward," he said.

"The mileage we are achieving on transmission components is four times greater than it was a couple of years ago. With the gear ratios now fully optimised around the regulations (i.e. dimensions and weight), they will now be able to be manufactured much earlier than previously, and this directly reduces costs. For this reason, Williams fully supports the four-race gearbox rule".

But taking a wider view of the total cost of the rules, Toyota's perspective is slightly different.

"At the moment you can say that the four-race gearbox has been more expensive because of the high development costs, but we have yet to see if in the long-term we will make savings," said Vasselon.

"As far as the logistics goes, there is a slight impact as we do not need to bring quite so many parts to the track as last season, but it is relatively insignificant as we still require a full supply of spares."

This latter point has been one that has received some debate between the teams in Istanbul. The need for Friday gearboxes and their spare parts complicates the picture. Willis clarifies the issue:

"The rule change has made logistics slightly worse in that we have to take six boxes racing (two for Friday, two for the race and two spare) due to the need to have a spare gearbox capable of doing four race weekends, should a race box need changing."

Clearly some common sense has prevailed as a solution to the issue has been put forward.

"However the recent proposal from the Sporting Working Group is to allow a replacement box to complete just one event (taking the standard penalty) before restarting a new 4-race cycle at the next event," Willis said.

This means that should a gearbox fail on a Saturday or Sunday, the Friday gearbox could be used for the remainder of the weekend (still with a grid penalty). Then at the next race another new gearbox can be used which will then have to last the full four races. This eases the load of taking two 30kg gearboxes and their additional spares to each race.

Despite the problem with the Friday gearbox, Willis concurs with both arguments raised by the other technical directors:

"Overall we have seen some small costs savings due to reduced rate of consumption of some components but these are probably offset by increased dyno and pre-season testing costs and increased logistics costs."

It seems the case for the four-race gearbox cost reduction rule is still to be won. Meanwhile, the teams have won the technical challenge and the rule is here to stay, albeit potentially in slightly revised form.

Team by team

Ferrari

Ferrari appeared in Turkey without the slotted nose cone used in Spain. Its absence reinforces the fact the slot is tied to the front flap angle, as Turkey demands a lower downforce requirement than Spain.

With the front flap at a less aggressive angle the inlet under the nose cone cannot pick up the flow off the flap, negating is benefit. The monocoque needs a chamber taken out of its top surface to help create the exit hole; the refitting of the conventional nose requires a blanking plate to be fitted and fill the void.

To match the lower downforce front end, Ferrari brought a new lower drag rear wing. Taking the 'W' format seen last year, the wing uses different geometries to maximise the differing directions of onset flow.

Making the most of the cleaner airflow, the off-centre spans have more camber and chord length, while the wing centre and its tips use shorter shallower sections to create less downforce, but more critically, less drag.

McLaren

No obvious updates were apparent on the McLarens in Turkey, although the new front wing endplates were a detail changed in Spain not covered in the previous technical review.

The new endplates do not feature the notch along their top edge which the previous endplate sported. The notch allowed high pressure air to bleed in behind the bridge wing's mounting to reduce drag at the cost of some downforce. The newer version would potentially create more downforce at the cost of drag.

Indeed McLaren's prodigious front end downforce was part of the cause of its tyre problems over the weekend. Despite running Bridgestone's recommended suspension, camber and tyre pressures, the McLaren, particularly in Hamilton's hands, was overloading the front tyres.

The prolonged forces fed into the car through turn eight produced both high vertical loads though downforce and high lateral loads from the cornering. This eventually led to a delamination of the sidewall.

Higher tyres pressures were tried on Saturday to help support the tyre but McLaren was forced into running shorter stints to maintain the tyre's integrity in the race.

Additionally, Hamilton struggled to find a balance with the softer option tyre, leading him to qualify on the better-balanced prime tyres.

Around Turkey, McLaren's high speed aero efficiency was offset by problems in the last sector, where the entry and exit from slow chicanes dominate the sector time.

By McLaren's own admission the cars are not as good in slower corners where mechanical grip overrides aero. This reverses their form against Ferrari from last year, where McLaren's superior mechanical grip gave the team an advantage. This situation doesn't bode well for the upcoming two races in Monaco and Montreal, where low-speed grip is paramount.

Toyota

Having announced another major aero update, any changes to the Toyota were imperceptible as the car outwardly appeared as it did in Spain. The team would not be drawn on the detail of the changes to the car.

Meanwhile, the team announced in a promotional video that it has developed a revolutionary aerodynamic device. This was being tested in private at the team's recent straight-line test, and was described cryptically by dead of aerodynamics Mark Gillan as a "fluid control device". This suggests the now parts are to improve flow the rear of the car, rather than a new wing or floor format.

One new development that was run on the Toyota was the new rear wheel fairing. Evolved from the old fairings, the new version now takes the flat outer surface and forms 16 vanes angled to direct to flow out from the wheel.

This should improve rear brake cooling, potentially allowing slightly smaller inlet ducts, which in turn may improve flow over the diffuser, improving overall aerodynamic efficiency.

Williams

Fresh from bringing a new front wing to Spain, Williams brought a new bridge element to sit above it in Turkey.

Taking some influence from Renault's latest bridge wing, the new version splits the span into three. This increases the downforce-creating function of outer spans and the flow control function of the middle section.

The spilt between the inner and outer sections is aided by a small endplate. A possible purpose of the split is to be more aggressive with the two functions of the inner and outer spans, improving front downforce from the outer spans and more rear downforce from the middle section feeding the rear wing.

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