Formula1’sglass ceilingisa uniquely modern
problem. That the three big teams have the largest
budget, the fastest cars and a monopoly on success
is well-known, and grand prix racing has always
been about the few haves grinding the many
have-nots into oblivion. But in the past few years
the impregnabilityof the big three has been
shored up by a force field surrounding them. This
protective barrier militates against what might be
called ‘social mobility’ in F1.
In recent years, Racing Point and Renault have
hit the glass ceiling and bounced off it – albeit
for different reasons. McLaren is the latest to
claw its wayto the head of the midfield pack and,
like Renault at the end of 2018, has set its sights
on striking out into the wilderness in 2020 and
inching closer to the bigthree. It’s an ambitious
and perilous quest, one that has proved fruitless
so far for Renault.
In times of rules stability, it’s true things close
up. The mid-pack has edged closer to thepace
since the latest high-downforce regulations were
misguidedly imposed in 2017. That season, the
best midfield team was almost 2.2% down, which
dropped to just under 2.0% in 2018 then 1.6% this
year. But the gap betweenthe back of thetop three
and the midfield has closed only from 1.2% to just
under 1%. That amountsto nine-tenths around a
90-second lap. That’s what has madethe midfield- or ‘Class B’ – battle a discrete entity. And even if
another few tenths of apercent are shaved off next
year, the 2021 rule changes willlikely spread the
field once more.
The reasons for this clearly defined split are
multi-fold, but for a 21st centuryF1 car the first
place you must look is aerodynamics. This is the
most potent differentiator of car pace, and it’s
not a one-dimensional question of overall load.
The best teams are those able to manipulate and
INSIDER
NO EA SY WAY
TO BREAK F1’S
GLASS CEILING
control the airflow across a wide range of conditions. That’s why F1’s
latest pretender, McLaren, is investing heavily in a new in-house
windtunnel as part of its bid to return to the big time, even though it
won’t be online until 2021 at the earliest – by which time itsuse will
be further restricted.
Grand prixcars are the su m of theunderlying science, but it’s not
simply acase of applyingthe laws of physicsin a steady state because
that would be too easy. Inthe real world, cars are permanently
shifting inyaw, pitch and rideheight. The tyre s flex as they clatter
over the kerbs, as do the aero components. Track and ambient
temperatures change. Turbulencefrom other carscan, in some cases,
be detected in a min or way more than 10 seconds after another
car has passedby. That’s just afew of themultitude of interacting
factors that change how a car movingthroughthe air behaves. CFD,
windtunnel, dynamic rigs and driver-in-loop tec hnologies arenothing
more thansimulators of realitywith all the limitations that entails,
and understanding how to mitigate and work
within the limitations of them is critical. One
example is the windtunnel tyres, imperfect
60% replicas oftheir real-world cousinsthat
don’t deflect and respond to the airflow in the
same way. This is something severalsmall
teams point to as an area where the giants are
simply better equipped to compensate.
Even Formula 1’s behemoths cannot
make physics bend to their will, but their
understanding of how to hold these complex
cars in the tight operatingwin dow – and
the factorsthat can knock it out of that – is
greater than the rest. If you know more
about, say, the impact of steering angle and
car attitude on the aero map, and can control
the centre ofpressure to give optimum
balance characteristics across a range of
transient states, you can make huge gains.
The simplicity of that sentence sells short the
tremendous complexity of the challenge.
It’s obvious the top three teams have the
biggest budgets andthe best facilities. But
they also benefit from compound gains. No
grand prix car is created from a truly clean
sheet of paper; they are underpinned by
years of investment, experiments, tests and
experience that meanseach design stands on
the shoulders of its predecessors. Something
you learnedthrough a costly research
programme five years ago and is agiven
for a big team might lie in the part of the
developmental map that’s still labelled ‘here
be dragons’ for others. It’s an iterative process
and there’s no way to shortcut that. The days
when youcould make a giantleap with some
clever innovation are long gone. PICTURES:STEVENTEE;MIARKSUTTONILLUSTRATION:BENJAMINWACHENJE.Mercedes,RedBullandFerrari
havecreatedaglassceiling
thattheresthavebeenunable
tobreakthroughEDDSTRAW
THE F1
ANALYST
@eddstrawF1
facebook.com/f1racingmagPICTURES22 F1 RACING JANUARY 2020