F1 | Racing Bulls: How it spotted the problems with Barcelona’s upgrades

Racing Bulls have backtracked on the Barcelona floor after identifying it as the main cause of their upgrades for the Spanish Grand Prix failing to deliver the results they had hoped for, according to technical director Jody Egginton.

A series of developments aimed at improving the VCARB 01 in order to consolidate sixth place in the constructors’ championship ended up damaging the balance of the car, leading to a weekend in Barcelona that can only be described as frustrating.

Egginton detailed the process the team went through to determine the main factors that reduced the upgrade’s potential. Initially, it was thought that an unstable rear wing was the cause, as RB noted a loss of floor performance in the mid-corner.

The former Force India and Lotus engineer said that while it was difficult to evaluate the package during the European triple header – particularly with the Sprint Race in Austria – he was pleased with the results the team had produced.

“We’ve had a targeted upgrade for certain benefits. We’re still trying to get all the main downforce improvements, but we’ve focused a little bit more on getting a little bit more stability under braking, a little bit more rotation in the car, all the normal things,” Egginton told Motorsport.com in an exclusive interview.

“As a package, it was clear that we hadn’t been able to extract everything that there was to extract and, even though the expected load was actually there, we had decoupled the car in the cornering balance and speeds more than we wanted.”

“There was no doubt that the load was in the bundle, but by favoring load balancing, we were not able to get that performance.

So we decided to go back with one of the two cars in Austria: it was a two-stage experiment, because the parc fermé window in the Sprint races opens twice this year. We did two runs and took stock. Then for Silverstone we had a base aero setup and essentially went back with the floor upgrades.”

Speaking about the subfloor, Egginton said there were still areas the team was keen to explore further, even if early developments didn’t pan out. While the team was disappointed by the lack of success, he added that reverting to older specs is a natural part of the upgrade process for any F1 team.

“The fund is a single piece with parts that we like and parts that we don’t. You can’t choose to divide it,” he said.
“You bring the update to the first event, there are things you want to learn, but we immediately dug into it, found the answer and moved on. So I’m pretty happy with the process.”

Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Team VCARB 01

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“We’re obviously not happy that we can’t use all the performance we have, but that’s much better than not having any at all. But yeah, we’ve got a configuration now. We’ve learned a lot from the bottom that we’re not using anymore, things that we’ll apply to the next configuration because we like some of the things.

“Most teams have backed out at some point. It’s naive to think you can get everything; if you’re trying to develop this game aggressively, that’s it. I’d be worried if every single part was kept! I’d ask myself, ‘Are we sure? Do we want to revisit this?’ Because experimentally the likelihood of that happening is low.”