What ended with the Monte Carlo GP is a first third of the season not to be underestimated, with five victories for Red Bull, but above all two for Ferrari (Australia – Monaco) and one for Mclaren (Miami). The Maranello and Woking teams have come significantly closer to the world champion team, after the introduction of the first important update packages, which were worth 4 and 2 and a half tenths on the MCL38 and SF-24. The strong approach, to be evaluated in the next races, with Spain and Silverstone considered as the two most anticipated events in this regard in the next four races, have also highlighted some ‘problems’ of the Red Bull RB20 more clearly.
Ground Effect Cars: The Most Difficult Car Generations to Correlate in the Wind Tunnel and Simulator?
At the end of the Monte Carlo qualifications, Max Verstappen has explained how his RB20 suffered problems on the kerbs in an important way, something that the Milton Keynes team will carry with it from 2022. A weakness that the team managed to mask last season thanks to the global performance advantage over the other cars, but now that the margin over its rivals has narrowed, those that should not be considered macro problems may emerge more clearly. “The problem is one of correlation between the simulator and the track since in the factory we can climb the curbs without problems, while on the track the car bounces like a kangaroo”Helmut Marko announced over the weekend in Monte Carlo.
According to many engineers, this generation of cars is terribly complicated to correlate between factory and track in all its many aspects and, as happens in terms of overall speed at the various speeds, also regarding simulations (more specifically in terms of modeling) compromises need to be made. This leads to unexpected differences between what the teams see in the virtual world, in the factory, and in the real one, i.e. on the track. And then, in those cases, we need to understand. “The car behaves well at low speed, perhaps a little more than we had predicted based on our development tools” – said Andrea Stella of Mclaren in Monte Carlo – “It’s still about something we need to understandso we have the right information to further develop the MCL38.”
Aston Martin: the new simulator and the new wind tunnel operational since autumn
It is in fact essential to continue the development of a single car after understanding what led to the certain misalignment between what was expected and what was actually seen on the track. This was also the case for Haas, with the VF-24 performing better than expected with the Launch Spec package, less than what the American team technicians expected with the package introduced between China and Miami. “It’s always about understanding”, it wasn’t such a wrong sentence that was stated several times by Mattia Binotto, the then TP Ferrari. Mclaren has made important steps forward, thanks above all to understanding of which parameters are really important in the wind tunnel. “Over the last year we have learned to understand which numbers to look at in the gallery, the most important ones that tell us if a certain innovation will work as well as in the factory on the track. If you focus on the maximums, for example let’s take the load points, it’s easy that you won’t find them on the track. There are other important numbers, which give you a clear idea of whether a package will work or not” said Andrea Stella in Monte Carlo Formula One. This is a big difficulty for Aston Martin, the worst team in terms of correlation of all current F1. And it is not just a question of men but also and above all of infrastructure.
The Silverstone team is the only top team not to have its own wind tunnel, given that it makes use of the Mercedes wind tunnel (located about half an hour’s drive from the Aston Factory), the second leading team which coincidentally also had significant correlation problems, 2024 included. While the works regarding the new factory have been completed, with the opening of building 1 which took place a few months ago, those linked to the new wind tunnel and the new latest generation simulator, i.e. buildings 2 and 3, are requiring more time. The goal is to have them up and running in the fall, so as to be able to use them already for the developments of the AMR25 and thus hoping to be able to make those important steps forward seen at Mclaren. The Woking team has been using the new Woking wind tunnel for a few months now, after abandoning the Cologne one. Because in what is considered the most complicated era of F1 in terms of correlation, the quality of each team’s infrastructure is not fundamental, but rather crucial.
