Translation:
Rival teams have begun trying to develop their single-seaters in the direction taken by Red Bull, but they accept that reducing beam wings is complicated because of the amount of downforce they provide to help stabilize the rear end.
Red Bull’s technical director, Pierre Wache, says there is no deep secret in what his team has done, and that it is surprising that rivals have taken so long to figure out something that, instead, his team has been doing since the start of the current ground-effect era.
“The crazy thing is that people are talking about it two years after we introduced it,” Wache told Motorsport.com. “We had hundreds of tests by the FIA to see if we had used a trick or whatever, and people [even recently] don’t understand why on high downforce tracks the advantage disappears. Okay, that means they haven’t been able to figure it out yet. And that surprises us a lot.”
Speaking about this advantage realized and maintained by Red Bull was, in an accomplished manner, Andrea Stella. The McLaren team principal pointed out that, in high probability, this advantage of the Milton Keynes team will remain for some time to come.
“They seem to have been pursuing their concept for quite some time. I think they are taking advantage of the experience they have gained in developing this configuration, and I think that has become evident as time has gone on.”
“I think all the teams are now trying to understand what can be exploited by developing the same style, the same kind of direction introduced [by Red Bull].”
So what is Red Bull doing exactly that makes them so much faster than the rest?
Magic.
But jokes aside we probably won’t find out until we have this eras “4 pedals” moment
Okay, I didn’t know about this “4 pedals” thing so I looked it up and it’s a really interesting story. Link here for anyone like me who didn’t know:
https://www.mclaren.com/racing/latest-news/mclarenracing/article/mclaren-extra-pedal-3153421/
Great read. Thanks for sharing!!
If we knew that, we’d be paid a shit ton of money
I think they generate a lot of downforce with the floor of the car / ground effects, allowing them to run less rear wing which increases their top speed
They say the advantage disappears on high downforce tracks. That seems to contradict this line of thought.
If you run with less rear wing the drs effect should be smaller, not larger. They are doing something different.
I think it’s because on high downforce tracks everybody has the same effect as them
Hmm yeah true, I guess no one else really knows exactly how they are doing it. Maybe Mclaren knows since they increased their performance
There’s more to it than that, because that effect would apply all the time, not just with DRS open. They’re doing something specific with DRS.
DRS doesn’t even need to be used. Checo had the same advantage without DRS when overtaking Leclerc at Spa. Sailed by as if he had DRS anyway.
But the advantage goes away on low-speed tracks, and there’s a pattern of Max seemingly winding something up to pull out a fast lap so that they can still get pole. He will always have green or yellow first or second sectors, and then an absurdly fast final sector netting overall half a second or more over the rest of the field.
yes, they have an overall low-drag package. super duper DRS is the icing on the cake.
Red Bull won’t say, at least not until it’s completely irrelevant to the sport. Why explain it and let the other teams copy it
Adrian Newey, RBR F1 car designer is the best F1 car designer in the field, He already won multiple F1 WCC titles with different F1 cars. His PhD covered groundeffect cars, current F1 cars use groundeffect as aerodynamic “tool” .
That doesn’t really answer the question though
I am a Qualified Automotive engineer, following F1 since 1986. Got a friend that is race steward in F1, and a former colleague showed up as “control engineer” in Alonso’s F1 team (Alonso WDC). I visited 3 F1 circuits. I know more about F1 then any highschool American.
Also, read this.
https://athletistic.com/formula-1/128017.html
And read this:
https://www.gpfans.com/en/f1-news/109229/adrian-newey-red-bull-f1-ground-effect-project/
I know I’m taking this out of context, but it just sounds smug. “Wow guys, really? This is sooo simple!”
I’d say if no other team has worked it out, it is a secret unless they tell everyone what they did.
Maybe this is the rumored aero stall when drs is on? It seems like there’s still some massive aero efficiency differences when the flap opens.
