Aston Martin is eager to turn the page with the advent of the new regulations after a 2021 closed at the bottom of the center-group ahead of only Williams, Alfa Romeo and Haas. The last season represented a real turnaround compared to 2020 which had seen the team take its first success under the Racing Point banner, touching the missed world podium at the final race in Abu Dhabi. The subdued performance of 2021 was affected by the aerodynamic restrictions of the updated regulations that had the greatest impact on cars with a low rake angle, placing Aston Martin in a difficult position from which it was not encouraged to get out, thanks to the lack of substantive objectives that pushed to turn attention to 2022.
Due to the technical freeze imposed by the Federation, like the competition, the AMR21 derives directly from the 2020 single-seater, the Racing Point RP20, in turn created following the Mercedes W10 of 2019. During the winter the team invests the two tokens granted for development to intervene on the safety cell, so as to lower the upper lateral anti-intrusion cones located on the sides of the passenger compartment (A). Aston Martin therefore replicates the solution proposed by Ferrari at the dawn of the last technical cycle in 2017, with the air intakes of the side radiators pressed upwards above the anti-intrusion accounts, with the intention of flaring the bellies. in the lower part to free up a wider passage section for the flows directed to the rear axle and to grant greater freedom to the aerodynamic department. The resizing of the radiator outlets forces the addition of an additional opening under the main one (B), previously absent on the RP20 but necessary to ensure a sufficient supply of air to the cooling system.
The British team then invests its tokens in an area already subject to major changes in the second half of 2020, where the team acted to correct the sorting of flows between radiators, bottom and top through a new design of the side air intakes and re-profiling the outer casing of the upper anti-intrusion cones, at the time placed above the cooling vents. Also in 2020, Racing Point also redesigned the bonnet, adopting a spec with a more squared outline and with an accentuated slide on the sidepods with a fairing of the bellies to divert the flows adhering to the surfaces downwards, exploiting the Coanda effect. The Aston Martin 2021 instead returns to a more rounded bonnet (C) and similar to the initial version of the RP20, reducing the inclination of the slide of the sidepods.
Despite the development freeze, the center-car is not the only area of the AMR21 to present new features. At the rear, the gearbox and rear suspension of the 2020 Mercedes W11 are installed, classified by the technical regulations as components that can be transferred from one team to another. Furthermore, having already been previously homologated by Mercedes itself, their use, even on a different single-seater, does not result in an intervention such as to require the investment of tokens, which can thus be spent in the center of the car. This is the same practice also implemented by AlphaTauri, which intervenes on the front impact structure to streamline the nose, at the same time adopting a new steering box derived from Red Bull 2020. In the case of Aston Martin, with the adoption of the rear axle Mercedes the rear arm of the lower suspension triangle is retracted until it anchors to the impact structure behind the gearbox. This solution increases the air intake in the environment behind the car, which encourages the extraction of flows from the diffuser, affecting a greater generation of aerodynamic load from the bottom. In the early days, however, the new Mercedes gearbox shows some reliability problems, which reduce the time available during the three days of testing, which are essential for the team.
The impact of the new regulations
After a 2020 as a protagonist in the center of the group, the car manifests an evident slump in performance in 2021. According to Otmar Szafnauer, the reasons are to be found in the deep aerodynamic and diffuser restrictions imposed by the new regulations, which have a greater impact on single-seaters with a reduced forward inclination of the car body. “At the end of last year we were very competitive, we even won a race from the last position”, tells a FormulaPassion the Aston Martin Team Principal. “For this season we expected to be on the same trajectory as we couldn’t change the cars too much due to the token development system. Unfortunately, the FIA made some unilateral safety changes and this changed the aerodynamics. Having a low-rake angle car, this compromised our competitiveness more than the high-rake single-seaters.“. The nature of the phenomenon is not understood exactly, but it is hypothesized that the disadvantage derives from the lower generation of load from the front wing and from the bottom in the center of the car compared to single-seaters with a high rake angle, an aspect that complicates the search for mechanical balance. – aerodynamic, having also to stabilize the rear as a result of the aerodynamic restrictions at the bottom and diffuser. However, it should not be overlooked that with the 2021 regulations the blowing in the bottom is also eliminated, the disappearance of which impacts on the effectiveness of the pneumatic mini-skirt, the vortex structure used to isolate the underbody area from the external environment, whose low pressure is the source of downforce. It is not unrealistic to argue that this change can have a different impact depending on the inclination of the car body.
.
The English team therefore invests a lot of resources in an attempt to regain competitiveness, giving life to one of the most intense aerodynamic development programs seen in 2021. Since the first race in Bahrain, the bottom is updated with respect to the already elaborate specification used in the tests, which is distinguished by the wavy edge in the front, proposed only by Aston Martin and Mercedes to induce the generation of new vortices to recreate the pneumatic miniskirt at the sides of the bottom. The novelties in Bahrain consist in the addition of an additional wave in the bottom, in the increase of the vortex generators and the appendages placed in front of the rear wheels to reduce the harmful influence of the turbulence generated by the rolling and deformation of the tires.
During the season, updates often arrive at different times on the two cars, immediately equipping Stroll’s car with the latest developments, subsequently introduced on Vettel’s car as soon as they are available. Between the races of Imola, Portimao and Barcelona, a revised engine hood makes its debut in the bellies, which have a lower inclination of the upper chute, reducing the risk of detachment of the flows from the surfaces in their descent towards the rear and at the same time guaranteeing a better circulation of internal air through the power unit and the cooling system.
At the same time, the AMR21 is equipped with gods new supports for the more squared-off rear-view mirrors, on the wave of the dominant solution in the grid, and a new profile placed on the outside of the side air intake of the radiators. Both changes are aimed at accentuating the downwash effect, therefore the deviation of the flows downwards towards the bottom, testifying to the great attention paid by the team to the center-car after the interventions in 2020 and the structural changes in winter. By the Barcelona stage both cars are also equipped with a new diffuser and a further iteration of the bottom, the number of undulations of which continues to increase.
Straddling the events in succession at the Red Bull Ring of the Grand Prix of Styria and the Grand Prix of Austria the fund is being further revised, also in this case both in the forward section and in the area in front of the rear wheels. Work also continues at the center of the car, where the flow deviators placed above the boomerangs and the airfoils above the radiator outlets increase. Finally, it should be noted that in Belgium a new front wing is tested in view of the high-speed tracks, whose performance is however below forecasts and which is therefore discarded.
The abundance of updates testifies to the team’s awareness of the direction in which to direct development, as well as mastery of the design tools, since without correlation between the data of the runway, the wind tunnel and the virtual simulations, the creation of new components would proceed slowly. At the same time, however, the work is not enough to bring the AMR21 back into the performance hierarchies in front of its direct rivals Alpine and AlphaTauri. Although aware of the better effectiveness of a high rake angle with the new regulations, Aston Martin technicians are in fact limited in increasing the forward inclination of the car body, an operation that would require a specially designed rear suspension and able to stabilize the height variations of the rear axle in the best possible way. However, the British single-seater is fitted with the suspension group of the 2020 Mercedes, a car also born with a low rake angle, and the technical freezing in force prevents its modification: “We were not able to solve these problems, probably due to the freezing of the rear suspension “, Otmar Szafnauer explains. “We will never have the chance to do it then, but we are working hard to regain part of our competitiveness”.
In 2021 Aston Martin and Mercedes have the same rear end, since the reigning world champions choose not to invest the tokens available for development, reusing the chassis and mechanics of the 2020 car. Despite a decidedly leaner aerodynamic update program than Aston Martin, Mercedes manages to express superior growth during the season, managing to close the gap with Red Bull in the end of the season.. The progression is the result of careful data analysis, understanding the car and defining progressively more effective set-ups with 2021 aerodynamics, also increasing the rake angle as far as possible. The different pace of growth highlights the differences still present between Aston Martin and a team that is a point of reference on the grid, such as the former Racing Point aspires to become. In the final balance, undoubtedly the possibility of conquering the drivers ‘and constructors’ titles has provided more incentives for Mercedes to invest resources in the 2021 project, while Aston Martin has paid more attention to the 2022 regulations. The impression, however, is that the British team is not yet equipped to immediately aspire to fight for the title in the new technical cycle, but the structural interventions, such as the hiring of leading technicians and the construction of the new factory including a wind tunnel, suggest that the team is building something important in the long run. Meanwhile, Aston Martin still has the tools to create a competitive car, capable of continuing to play a leading role in the center-pack of 2022.
#Aston #Martin #binding #regulation #FormulaPassionit