“Will the other teams be able to recover the disadvantage accumulated against Red Bull during this winter?”. This is the question that insiders and non-experts alike would like to have an answer to, because much of the show will depend on it in the next very long season, which will begin on February 21st in Bahrain, with the now only three days of testing. There is no clearly certain answer to the question, even and above all for the teams themselves, who do not know how much the Milton Keynes team kept in their pocket in the second part of the past season. However, there are aspects that instill positivity within the world champion team’s competitors.
Lots of component crossover between the first and second seasons of these new regulations
Nineteen victories out of twenty-two Grands Prix, two second places, twelve pole positions, over 26 points scored at the end of the weekend. These are the numbers of Max Verstappen and his RB19, which “is already a piece of history” and which “has given us something simply incredible”, Christian Horner told Sky Sports UK. A car which, like others from many teams, retained many components of the RB18 from the previous year. “Parts of the chassis and suspension were the same; the gearbox was exactly that of the RB18. For this reason I can say that the RB19 probably shares 60% of the parts of the previous year’s car” continued the team principal of the Anglo-Austrian team.
Something that concerned many other teams, who once again gave confidence to their initial ideas, largely maintaining the chassis of the previous season. The most striking cases are those of Ferrari and Mercedes, with the former world champion team having once again used those very aggressive technical choices, such as the hollowed-out chassis for the internal housing of the radiators and a very advanced driving position, which they were part of the zero-pods concept, which later proved to be a failure. Even the Italian team has not significantly revised the chassis of the F1-75, keeping the lower anti-intrusion cone in a very high position. Similar speech also with regards to the transmissions, kept very similar if not the same, as in the case of Red Bull, to those of the first car created with the new regulations.
Chassis and gearbox choices which have severely limited the development of Ferrari and Mercedes, but also of Alpine, equipped with a very bulky and resistant chassis, and Alfa Romeo above all. It is therefore not surprising that, last season, the alignment became purely aerodynamic. However, the major chassis limitations made Ferrari choose not to bring two aerodynamic packages to the track, which normally could have been worth even 3-4 tenths of a second. Just as Mercedes or Alpine were unable to progress as much as they would have liked, due to a transmission that was too bulky in the case of the W14 or an equally bulky chassis when talking about the A523. Also for these reasons the 2023 season proved to be one of the most boring in recent yearswith almost no battle for victory on Sunday.
In 2023 there was an important ‘aerodynamic’ alignment, in these winter months it will concern the less visible components
The winter that is now advancing rapidly is giving all teams the opportunity to eliminate those strong limitations that only 12 months ago were considered opportunities. It is true that, as far as Ferrari and Mercedes are concerned, the delay to be made up in the winter is more than what the two Red Bull teams have made up during 2023, but they have done so with cars severely limited by choices that have proven to be incorrect only once the cars have been put on track in Bahrain. Now all the teams have learned a lot about their cars/projects and it is no coincidence that many are intervening in a very important way especially on the chassis and transmission. Ferrari and above all Mercedes, to give the two usual examples. The W15 will have a very different, much more traditional chassis, and a more miniaturized transmission, which will also help Aston Martin to reduce those aerodynamic efficiency problems that affected both the Brackley car and the AMR23, unlike a Williams That had designed a car with a body with very low aerodynamic resistancehowever lacking aerodynamic load.
The work on the transmission is also important for Ferrari, trying to get closer to the characteristics that distinguish the Red Bull transmission, which has an extremely small section. The gain that less bulky gearing gives you is how much you can expand the diffuser, so how much downforce you can extract. The more expansion of the diffuser, the greater load is generated and the greater the efficiency will be given that the bottom component is often evaluated among technicians as “free downforce”, due to the fact that the resistance to advancement increases very little as a function of the aerodynamic load generated.
Many teams’ 2024 cars will have new conceptsand by concept we don’t necessarily have to mean the aerodynamic one (there is much more), they will behave and drive differentlylike the Ferrari 2024 which, according to Cardile, “swill a different car […] which addressed the limitations of the SF-23“. A car that “al simulator behaves differently” – Carlos Sainz made it known who then continued – “We will only know in Bahrain whether the new concept we are developing works”.
The bottom of the Red Bull RB19 of the Monaco GP
In short, after last season we saw all the cars starting to resemble each other from an aesthetic point of view, this winter a certain alignment is underway which will concern the less visible components of an F1 car, those underneath the bodywork and not less important (indeed), which for many teams will unlock important and excellent potential. Precisely and also for these reasons, in addition to strong regulatory and tire stability (not insignificant), there are those who believe that an important rapprochement with Red Bull and Max Verstappen is not so unlikelyespecially during the season, Milton Keynes permitting and if the contestants have done their homework correctly.
Author: Piergiuseppe Donadoni
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