Leclerc’s victory in Monaco wrapped up the first third of the 2024 season. The first eight rounds ended with five victories for Red Bull, two for Ferrari, and one for McLaren. Both these teams have massively reduced the gap to the reigning Champions. McLaren gained 4 tenths from their latest upgrades, whilst Ferrari unlocked 2 tenths from the updates SF-24.
The upcoming sequence of races are critical. Canada, Spain, Austria and Britain will uncover more of the strengths and weaknesses of the top teams. Silverstone will be especially significant, with many upgrades set to arrive at the British driver.
GROUND EFFECT CARS: THE MOST DIFFICULT CAR TO CORRELATE IN THE WIND TUNNEL AND SIMULATOR?
After qualifying in Monte Carlo, Max Verstappen explained how the RB20 suffers from significant problems on the curbs. This has been a theme at the Milton Keynes team since 202w. Last season, this weakness was masked by Red Bull’s dominance. With a far more competitive situation at the front, this is no longer the case.
“The problem is the 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,“ explained Helmut Marko in Monte Carlo.
According to many engineers, this generation of cars is terribly complicated to correlate from factory to track. This means that in the wind tunnel and the simulator (more specifically in modelling terms) 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 on track. Understanding these difficulties is essential.
“The car behaves well at low speed, perhaps a little more than we had predicted based on our development tools,” said Andrea Stella in Monte Carlo.
“However, this is an aspect that we need to understand so we have the right information to further develop the MCL38.”
ASTON MARTIN: THE NEW SIMULATOR AND THE NEW WIND TUNNEL WILL BE OPERATIONAL IN AUTUMN
For many teams, correlation problems have been their undoing in the last few years. Haas are experiencing this with the VF-24, which performed better than expected initially but underdelivered after its first updates arrived.
“It’s always about understanding” is what Mattia Binotto often emphasised as Ferrari team principal. McLaren has achieved a high level of understanding in terms of optimising its parameters in the simulator.
“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 to Formu1a.uno. This is a big issue for Aston Martin, the team suffering most from correlation inaccuracies
This is not just a question of personnel but also infrastructure.
Aston Martin is the only top team without a wind tunnel, instead using the Mercedes tunnel. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the Silver Arrows have also suffered, with significant correlation problems.
While the new factory at Silverstone (building 1) is complete, the team is still waiting for the new wind tunnel (buildings 2 and 3) to come online. The goal is to have them functioning in the autumn so they can influence 2025 development. Ideally, Aston can emulate the progress achieved by McLaren.
The Woking-based team have been using their new wind tunnel for some time now. For Andrea Stella’s team, the use of new infrastructure has been central to their rapid progression.