A case in point was found in Miami last weekend as the two mercedes benz and williams Install different configurations on their cars for free practice.
Mercedes W14 Comparison – Miami
Photography: unconfirmed
For Mercedes this results in lewis hamilton The upper part of the empennage end plate is run with a filler plate. at the same time, george russell A more traditional cut was used.
This design difference has a significant impact on the behavior of the wing exterior, with drag and downforce levels traded off against each other.
Such experiments were facilitated by Mercedes’ decision to produce a rear wing with interchangeable parts, which not only saved money in terms of manufacturing, but also allowed quick changes to aerodynamic settings (red arrow).
Meanwhile, at the front of the car, Mercedes has trimmed the inside rear edge of the top clamshell into a crescent shape to help reduce downforce and balance the car with options for the rear of the car (blue arrow).
Here’s the solution we’re seeing for the first time high mountain In Azerbaijan because it also wants to find the right balance of front and back.
In qualifying and the race, Hamilton continued with the above layout, while Russell switched to a notched front wing but kept the rear wingtip notch.
more or less?
Williams FW45 Rear Wing and Spar Wing Comparison – Miami
Photography: unconfirmed
Williams also experimented with its aerodynamic setup during free practice as it worked out the performance trade-offs between the upper rear wing element and the spar wing.
alex albon The task was to test a higher downforce empennage arrangement with a lower spar wing element, while Logan Sargent The lower-downforce rear wing combined with the twin-spar wing setup did some laps.
Ultimately, Sargeant switched to the same arrangement as Albon, as the team relied on more performance from the empennage while increasing straight-line speed through the single-spar wing elements.
cooling off period…
Aston Martin AMR23 Cooling Panel Options
Photography: unconfirmed
Aston Martin has added another cooling option in the engine cover to help cope with the demands of the Miami street circuit.
The team had a number of options, including body panels with louvers angled to be more open and closed, as well as longer and shorter blanking panels to help exchange cooling/heat removal for aerodynamic efficiency and vice versa Of course.
Red Bull RB19 asymmetric hood cooling
Photography: unconfirmed
Meanwhile, Red Bull has used an asymmetrical cooling configuration on the RB19 this season and the team has again opted to use a louvered cooling panel (red arrow) on the right side of the car in Miami.
It also experimented with several more or less cooling options (lower, larger inset) during free practice before opting for wider options for races and qualifying.
Ferrari SF-23 Exterior Floor and Fence Comparison (Highlighted)
Photography: unconfirmed
ferrari A host of new parts will be introduced for the SF-23 in the upcoming race as it looks to close the gap on leading Red Bull.
It kicked off in Miami as the arrival of the new floors saw multiple changes to components to deliver performance gains across the range rather than just a single focus.
The shape of the front outer part of the floor and the perimeter fence has been revised, with a more pronounced bulge at the front of the down-ramp section of the floor (see yellow highlight), while the shape and height of the tail at the edge of the floor fence in front of it has also been changed. Therefore was changed.
The change in curvature will have an effect on the airflow behavior on the top surface, but perhaps more critically, it will change the space available on the floor below, and the shape of the floor rails may also be optimized to further enhance the effect.
There also seem to be some subtle changes to the various surface profiles used at the edge of the floor, with the rolling sections that roll up and the tires tapering towards the rear both subtly different in Miami.
The diffuser has also changed, as the team revised the shape of the central aft section to take advantage of the advances made earlier.
Nyck de Vries has performed much better in Monaco than at previous Grands Prix this season. The Dutch seem to have brought this form to the Spanish country. Around Barcelona, the AlphaTauri drivers had a great time. He started the race in 14th place. In a press conference with GPblog and others, De Vries looked to the future.
The Spaniard managed to make the most of improvements to the SF-23 in Barcelona as he became Max Verstappen’s closest challenger to pole.
But while performances at such a circuit where the air is so crucial bodes well for the progress Ferrari has made, Sainz believes the nature of the Barcelona circuit is not actually performing to its best potential.
He believes the high-speed nature of the venue is not particularly suitable for Ferrari, so future venues will have clearer evidence of progress.
“The new kit is mainly about improving low-to-mid speed, and in that area we really feel like a step in the right direction,” he said.
“As I said before the weekend, it’s a step in a different direction. It’s not so much a big upgrade or a big change in our performance as it opens up a different operating range window for the car.
“That’s the main goal of this upgrade, not suddenly half a second faster. I think it’s doing the job, and it’s working well.
“We also want to make the car more predictable, easier to drive, and easier to do laps. Hopefully it will go in that direction, but unfortunately we’ve gone down a route that doesn’t work for us.
“We’ve been really bad at high speed since the start of the season. Since Australia we’ve been struggling with balance and bounce and a lot of things that happen to us at high speed.
“So, we’re just going to focus on that now and see if we can improve it because, as you can see, the low speeds aren’t actually bad at all for us.”
Top three in qualifying Lando Norris, McLaren, pole position Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari
Sainz believes the fact that he put Ferrari on the front row, while team-mate Charles Leclerc ended up being eliminated in Q1, is further indication of one of his team’s biggest weaknesses – its very narrow operating window, which is It’s all too easy to suddenly lose competitiveness.
“I don’t know exactly what happened to Charles, but it’s been the same story all year,” he said.
“It felt like it was a very narrow window for us; a very narrow car window; and a very tricky car.
“Once the situation gets tricky, it goes in one direction or the other and you’re fighting with a very different balance. It was a good line for me today.
“It turned out not bad, but it was tough because now it looks like the midfield is really starting to get close to us. You have guys like Alpine and even Haas, Lando (Norris) and McLaren showing up. Yes, they join us in the race for second or third place.
“Obviously Red Bull are in a league of their own, but everyone else, it looks really, really nervous.”
Russell also had bounce problems in the high-speed corners of Barcelona, which made it harder to drive his Mercedes W14 to the limit, with the Briton reporting he believed he had problems with his tires early in the first quarter.
“The car didn’t feel good every lap of the race,” Russell said when asked by Autosport about the car’s behavior.
“We made some small changes from FP3 to quali, and the car bounced a lot in high-speed corners.
“In the corners that were easy to get flat in practice, I couldn’t get it flat. I couldn’t get the tires to work, everything went wrong. From the first lap in Q1, I knew we weren’t going to have a good day. It was weird .
“We should take advantage of conditions like that, which we usually do. As a team we usually do well when it’s challenging, but today, especially with me, it was different.”
Russell was knocked out in the second period after contact with team-mate Lewis Hamilton and was six-tenths off Max Verstappen’s benchmark time for the stage.
Russell mentioned that Q1 leader Nico Hulkenberg was 1.5 seconds behind to underscore his struggles, adding: “I’ve tried all kinds of outer circles, all kinds of pressure. Probably just getting ourselves a little bit lost and confused.
“For those cold, wet, oily conditions, the set-up changes we made in qualifying were definitely going in the wrong direction, which is a shame, especially because I think we have a very fast car. I think in FP2 In , we probably have the second fastest car after the Max, ahead of the Ferraris.
“So not all is lost. Tomorrow we just have to be patient and try to bounce back.”
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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff backed Russell’s downbeat assessment of his weekend, admitting the team had gone the wrong way with his car.
“It was clear from the start that the set direction we were going with George made the car worse,” he said. “I think from the very beginning he was complaining that he didn’t have any grip, he had bounce and the car was understeering before it was oversteering.
“That’s something we need to unwind now to see exactly what we could have done differently.”