Formula 1 - The 2011 season

The rain session today might not have helped the teams very much, but it sure set the stage for some beautiful shots:

 

This one's my favorite, check it out in full size:

 

Maybe I should also talk technology. It's another thing I love about F1. It's just as much about technology as it's about driving skills.

This season, the big task is to perfectly utilize the diffuser. The new rules put some restrictions there, so this is even more important than before.

But first, let me talk about what this is for. The diffuser is basically the lower rear end of the car and it's an important piece in utilizing the ground effect. I'm not an expert here, so if you want detailed info on that, I guess you have to ask google or Wikipedia.
Anyways, the ground effect makes the car stick to the ground, like the wings do, but unlike the wings, it doesn't cause as much drag. So it's the preferred means to achieve more grip.

Back to this years developments. The "classical" way to achieve better airflow towards the diffuser is to go the Red Bull way and to make the side-pods as short as possible:




Red Bull pioneered that idea two years ago and most teams tried to follow their lead this time around. But Red Bull still managed to build the shortest side-pods.
As a result, you can see the exposed floor-plate in front of the rear tires. This means that there's more room for air to flow to the back where the diffuser desperately waits for it.

 

Red Bull achieved such a small side-pod design, by having the airflow from the radiators move up and exit above the gearbox through a bulged opening:



This comes at a cost though: Less air will hit the rear wing. But since grip from the wings is generally less desirable than mechanical grip, this a trade off that seems to be well worth it.

Other teams went different routes. Mercedes for example also has a multitude of gill-like openings where the hot air can exit:

 

Another trend is to have undercut side-pods. Again, most teams went that route, but this time, it is Toro Rosso who have the most radical design:





The idea is to funnel extra air to the rear end of the car where the diffuser can do its magic and produce more downforce.

 

The team that went for a completely different route is McLaren. They pretty much did the opposite. Instead of making the side-pods small, they made them bigger and instead of undercutting them, they try to have the air go over on top:





The other teams usually have the inlet for the radiators as close inboard as possible, because that's where the "best" air is, meaning that it's the most undisturbed air. Further out, the air is disturbed by the front tires, that's also why you usually see the fins behind the front tires, it's done so that the "bad" air is directed away from the inlets:


(here the fin is the part that has "Santander" written on it")

Moving the inlets further outboard therefore means that they also have to be bigger because there's less undisturbed air coming in.
Of course there are also good reasons for it. The reasoning most likely is that this way, McLaren hopes to bring the undisturbed air over the sidepods right back to the diffuser, where it would help more than cooling the engine/gearbox/KERS/etc.

We'll have to wait and see whether this design will help more than it hurts. It certainly is creative though, that much is clear.

 

Another very creative design is that of Williams. They managed to build the lowest rear end in the field, again in order to have more air reach the diffuser:



They way Williams managed to do this is by developing a new kind of gearbox that is packaged differently so that it could be fit into this low rear design.

Of course this also came with further technical ramifications. So the Williams driveshaft has the greatest angle ever seen at around 14° (compared to 6-7° which is considered normal). Also unique is the pick-up point for the suspension's top wishbone which is mounted directly on the central rear wing pillar.

 

And then there's the big topic this season: exhausts. Once more, this is because teams want to better utilize their diffuser. One important way is to use the energetic exhaust fumes.

Lotus Renault caused the biggest stir with their front exhausts (McLaren later debuted a similar layout):





This design accelerates airflow underneath the car and hence increases downforce.


Red Bull went a different, more conservative route. Their exhausts are still in the back. The long flat pipe blows into the area just in front of the rear tires (red arrows). In this section (highlighted in yellow) the underbody has been cut away so that the air can blow directly under the side channels of the diffuser:



This solution has since been copied by Force India and later also Ferrari. Interestingly, during the latest tests, Force India had a system similar to that which Ferrari came up with before they copied Red Bull, so apparently there's still no real consensus on what is the right approach.

 

Mercedes has a different philosophy regarding their exhausts. They're somewhere in the middle:





Ross Brawn explained: "The exhaust fumes have high energy. The longer the path on which you can use that energy, the better."
Norbert Haug expanded: "We have a different philosophy as Red Bull, because we blow onto the underbody instead of underneath it."

 

Time for a break...

 

I found some detail shots of interesting technical aspects of the different cars I wanna share:

First of all the Red Bull. Here you can clearly see the exhaust, the hole that is cut into the underbody as well as the very short sidepods. Also, the experts out there might appreciate the suspension details:




Next we have an interesting shot of the new McLaren. Here we see the three air intakes above the head of the driver. The central, triangular shaped airbox inlet feeds the engine with oxygen. Traditionally, this is the only inlet in that spot. Behind the airbox, we see a circular inlet which cools the gearbox. The rectangular inlet below cools the KERS.
Usually, all the cooling is done via the sidepods, but because of the limitations I discussed above regarding the McLaren sidepod design, their engineers came up with a smart solution in order to reduce the size of their sidepods by moving parts of it on top of the car:




Next, we have a nice perspective on Toro Rossos undercut sidepods:

 

Here we have the original Ferrari exhaust design:



Compared to the copy of the Red Bull design they're now using:

 

And here are two more images of Williams' extremely low back end:





Another very important feature is the front wing. The front wing not only has to create down-force, but it also has to steer the air away front the front tyres which disturb the airflow. Here Mercedes has a quite unique approach. Most (every?) other teams use a three segment wing while Mercedes uses a two segment wing and apparently they're really happy with it:

 

I think Massa really lost his edge after his major injury in 2009. I can't blame him, it was really terrible after all, but he just hasn't got back to his old self since. It's a shame really.

As for McLaren, I did give them the benefit of the doubt in my ranking, but the more I read and think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that this will be a terrible year for McLaren unless they have some major ace up their sleeve.

Even if we take the most optimistic statements by Hamilton who said that the McLaren could do a low 1:22 time in Barcelona if everything is sorted out, then that's still a full second slower than what Schumacher showed in his Mercedes and probably 1.5 seconds slower than Red Bull can be...this would be massive.

The dark horse this year has to be Lotus Renault though. Their forward exhaust really could make a big difference. Also, I think that in Nick Heidfeld they found the perfect replacement for Kubica. I think he really is one of the most underrated drivers on the grid. What kinda bugged me out was when I read the season preview by Planet-F1 where the author lamented that Kubica was out and that this would be a fatal blow to any hope Lotus Renault might have had for this season.
Now as terrible as this accident was on a personal level, I really don't think that the team will suffer very much. In fact, it might even profit from it. I see Heidfeld on par with Kubica speed wise, but with his vastly superior experience, he might be a lot more valuable when it comes to developing the car.
I have to admit that I also gave Heidfeld some sh*t over the years. But looking back, that was really unfair and was probably heavily influenced by his rather bad 2008 season. But other than that, he has a tremendous record with some of the best team mates any driver in this field ever had. So here's a quick look back at Heidfelds F1 career:

2000
In his rookie year, Heidfeld raced for Prost Peugeot together with veteran Jean Alesi. It was a terrible car really and neither driver got any points, but Heidfeld did have the better results compared to Alesi.

2001
Heidfeld switched to Sauber where he teamed up with Kimi Räikkönen. Heidfeld consistently outperformed Räikkönen who we all know is considered to be one of the best drivers of his time, winning the championship once and coming close several times.

2002
After Räikkönen replaced his countryman Häkkinen at McLaren, Heidfeld's Sauber team got a new team mate for him: Felipe Massa. Once again Heidfeld consistently outperformed Massa.

2003
Next came a bad year for Heidfeld. He was teamed up with Heinz-Harald Frentzen, by that point a very experienced driver (who has beaten Schumacher when they were driving prototypes for Mercedes, before both entering F1). In the end, Frentzen had the better of Heidfeld, but it wasn't as if Nick got destroyed, they were pretty much on par with Heidfeld suffering more car failures.

2004
Heidfeld then moved on to Jordan where he sat in a terrible car alongside Giorgio Pantano and later Timo Glock. Heidfeld thoroughly dominated Pantano, but Glock proved to be a worthy team mate. They both finished together three times, Nico peating Timo twice.

2005
Heidfeld got a seat with Williams where he was teamed up with Mark Webber until a severe injury made it impossible for him to compete in the last 5 races. During the first 14 races though, he once again consistently beat his team mate.

2006
Next is was back to Sauber for Heidfeld which by that time had been taken over by BMW. He was teamed up with Jacques Villeneuve for the first 12 races whom he once again dominated. Then came in Robert Kubica for the last 6 races who did a great job finishing 3rd in Italy that year, but who otherwise also got beaten consistently.

2007
Next came Heidfeld's best year. He did pretty well all year, thoroughly dominating Robert Kubica throughout.
Plus, he also had one race alongside a certain Sebastian Vettel who gave his F1 debut with BMW Sauber that year when he jumped in for Kubica at the US Grand Prix. Heidfeld again did better, but he was unlucky and had to retire with a technical failure.

2008
As I said above, this was a bad year for Heidfeld. Not because he scored so few points (in fact he made second place in 4 races that season), but because he didn't deliver his full potential. This season, Kubica dominated Heidfeld in the first half of the season. Heidfeld evened it out towards the end of the season, but by that time the BMW Sauber lost in terms of competitiveness and so the perception still wasn't in favor of Heidfeld. What also didn't help Heidfeld's perception was that even though he wasn't that bad, it was Kubica who was in the title race till very late in the season.
All in all it was the biggest spanking he got during his career and that even though he really didn't do that bad.

2009
This season, BMW Sauber didn't have a very competitive car and both Heidfeld and Kubica couldn't repeat their successes of previous years. But in terms of internal competition, the battle between Heidfeld and Kubica was pretty even with Heidfeld beating out Kubica in the end.

2010
This was a very unfortunate year for Heidfeld as he couldn't secure a seat. He appeared to be set for McLaren, rejecting offers from teams lower down the ladder, but when Schumacher returned and took Button's place at Mercedes, then Button went on to McLaren, taking the seat Heidfeld was hoping for.
It did however still help him experience wise. Joining Mercedes as test driver, he was very involved in developing the car and being teamed up with Schumacher is probably always good experience wise, as he's probably the driver out there who best understands how to develop a car.
But all was not lost and Heidfeld first went on to test the Pirelli tyres and then replaced Pedro de la Rosa at Sauber for the last couple of races. Given that he didn't have any experience with the Sauber and that he couldn't test either, he did a pretty good job there. He made as much points in 5 races as de la Rosa managed to score in 14. Kobayashi still did slightly better than Nick, but the more experience Heidfeld got the better he became, beating out Kobayashi by the end.



So looking back at all this, I think it's really no understatement to call Heidfeld the most underrated driver today. With his experience and his record, he surely is an asset to any team there is. He might not be a spectacular driver, but he is quick non the less. So given the tragic story of Kubica, Heidfeld is the perfect replacement.
I mean the list of teammates he beat is really impressive: Alesi, Räikkönen, Massa, Webber, Villeneuve, Kubica. There aren't many drivers on the grid with that kind of record.
And with Lotus Renault being the dark horse this season, maybe a bet on Heidfeld winning the opening race would not be such a bad idea after all...

 

I've recently listened to the podcast about the 2011 F1 season by Radio Le Mans and there was an interesting bit on McLaren. One of the people on their panel had some inside information and he said that their main problem is their exhaust. Apparently they simply can't make it robust enough. With all the heat and vibrations, it just doesn't hold up.

Also, when you read the rumors on the web, then McLaren apparently have come up with some very ingenious design regarding their exhausts which is essential for the car to work and make full use of its potential. The car has been designed with the exhaust in mind after all.

Together with these rumors, questions regarding the legality of their design also appeared, but assuming that they're legal (one would think that McLaren would get the approval before committing to their concept like they did last year with the F-Duct) then the exhaust really could be their silver bullet, making the car competitive. Unfortunately, they apparently have no clue how to approach that problem. There is some heat resistant fiber they'd like to use, but the FIA recently clarified that this material may not be used for the exhaust. So if they can't get this heating problem sorted, McLaren could end up with a major ace up their sleeve that they'll never be able to actually play.

The two of them certainly made a great team for BMW Sauber. But then, the Petrov dollars were more convincing.

If Massa has another year like last year, he probably won't drive for Ferrari again.
I agree that Sutil would probably make for a good replacement. He has never driven a competitive car, but one way of judging the talent of a driver is looking at his performance in the wet and Sutil has always been excellent there.

 

As I said, I've never been a big fan of Heidfeld myself, but I still respect him as a very good driver. He doesn't have the flair of some big names, but he always delivers. So if his car is good enough to win with, I have all the confidence in Heidfeld to actually do just that.

I'd certainly be delighted
I really do like him, he's a nice guy, he's funny and he's really talented. Again, he's not the most spectacular driver, but like Heidfeld, he does deliver.

 

Regarding the McLaren situation:

http://en.espnf1.com/mclaren/motorsport/story/43683.html

Translation:
We've come up with a really cool exhaust design that could have propelled us to the front, but unfortunately we couldn't (and won't be able to) make it durable.
So we've come up with another, more traditional solution, which unfortunately is nowhere near the original design performance wise.

 

Here's another post Barcelona update Mercedes pic:



What's striking is the brown discoloration on the back of the sidepods. This of course stems from extreme heat and goes to show how marginal the thermal management on the Mercedes is.

Mercedes did already have thermal problems at the very first tests, which is why they had to cut open the sidepods:


They claim to have it under control now and Mercedes also has the most test kilometers after Ferrari, so that should be a positive sign. However, we have not seen a full race simulation with the updated car.

Anyway, it is argued that the reason for the thermal problems on the Mercedes is, at least partially, due to its short design, leaving less room for cooling. The Mercedes is the shortest car in the field. It's impossible to get any real numbers, but one figure that gets quoted in the press time and again is that the Mercedes' wheelbase is a full 27cm shorter than that of the McLaren which is the longest car in the field.
That's a big discrepancy.

Over the last couple of years, we have seen a trend towards longer wheelbases, partially due to the end of refueling of course, but also because the teams believed it to be beneficial in terms of overall speed.
Ross Brawn however said that their simulations showed that the diffuser works best with a car that's as short as possible. It's certainly an interesting development and worth keeping an eye onto. Maybe this is the start of a new trend, going back to shorter F1 cars, but only the next couple of years will tell us that.

 

Also sometimes useful is to know some helmet designs. Unfortunately, the designs have become more and more convoluted over the years, so that it's not as easy anymore to make out the different drivers. Also, with drivers changing their helmet design much more frequently than they used to, you have to keep up to date. But it's still manageable.

So let's begin:

Marussia Virgin Racing
Timo Glock:

Glock has a German flag incorporated.

Jérôme D’Ambrosio:

A similar set of colors, but here we have the Belgian colors, not the German ones