With the double scored between Imola and Miami, the reigning world champions have reduced the gap in the standings from the Scuderia di Maranello. Even more than in terms of scores, the relevance of the last two trips to Santerno and to Florida has highlighted a newfound superiority in performance, albeit marginal, of Red Bull on Ferrari, in contrast to what was seen in Bahrain, Melbourne and even in the victorious race in Jeddah. The turnaround is the result of development work, which allowed Milton Keynes’s team to catch up on the Cavallino team.
However, it is advisable to do one distinction between development and updates, as the growth of the RB18 is not solely attributable to the aerodynamic changes, but also to other aspects of the car package. Regarding the components introduced so far by the Anglo-Austrian team, it immediately catches the eye how much the aerodynamic updates are not able to justify the recent progression of Red Bull on their own. The evolution of the RB18 began on the last day of the second pre-season test session, when the car was equipped with new sidepods to fairing the more sculpted sides, a new rear wing and some refinements to the front one. A significant evolutionary package, but even so at the first race in Bahrain the car turned out to be slightly slower than the F1-75 in both the single lap and the long distance. In Jeddah, Ferrari confirmed its better shape, especially in the first stint with a full tank of fuel, while in Melbourne the superiority of the Scuderia di Maranello appeared even more clear.
The package of updates preceding the start of the championship has therefore undoubtedly allowed a leap forward in Red Bull’s performance, but never enough on its own to subvert the balance of power as instead occurred in the last two Grands Prix, although the gaps have rarely ever exceeded two tenths per lap. The evolution of the RB18 to the current championship in terms of aerodynamic components was not as dramatic: the new flaps of the front wing endplates arrived in Melbourne are only followed by the vortex generator placed at the entrance to the flat bottom, which made its debut in the Imola race. The aerodynamic gains can certainly never be judged by the size and appearance of the modifications, as these often induce alterations in the flow whose effects are amplified moving away from the source. However, the progression of Milton Keynes’ car is not due solely to what has been seen.
The performance growth is, as always, the result of the contribution of marginal earnings extracted from each single area of performance. Between these, particular attention was paid to tire management. In the first two races of the season, both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were heard several times opening up via radio and complaining in qualifying about not being able to send the tires in the optimal temperature window, especially at the start of the lap. However, similar communications gradually disappeared, so much so that in Imola, in conditions of cold mixed with rain, Red Bull did not suffer from the same problems that Ferrari suffered from temperature-setting of the tires. In addition, both in the Italian Sprint Race and in the Miami race, the RB18 was superior to the F1-75 in the management of graining with the softer compounds, a situation diametrically opposite to what was seen in Saudi Arabia.
This gives a concrete example of what it means to improve one’s understanding of the car and the definition of set-ups aimed at extracting its maximum potential. The hundreds of parameters involved in this operation include tire inflation pressures, intended both as starting values and as management of their growth with the car in motion. The pressure control determines the stiffness of the tire body, influencing the attenuation of the oscillations of the contact with the ground, the generation of internal heat and therefore the temperatures, as well as the stabilization of the aerodynamic platform for the generation of load, aspects all three impacting on the available grip. Emblematic in this regard were the words of Verstappen after qualifying in Jeddah: “I think I have a good pace garto and then on Sunday we are able to stabilize the pressure better and make the tires work better. It’s all different than in qualifying, where you really have to get the tire preparation right and today it didn’t go well from that point of view ”.
Tire management is an extremely complicated job, with the understanding of the teams slowed down by the novelties of the new Pirelli 2022, by the simplified suspension in the internal components with the new regulations and by the different aerodynamic behavior. In fact, current cars generate more load at high speeds than the previous generation, but less at low mileage. The news thus outlined a picture in which the teams were constantly learning, as also explained by Mario Isola: “The ability to handle stabilized pressure in gear translates into performance. All the teams put a lot of effort into trying to understand how to manage temperatures and pressures. There are those who do it better and those who do worse. What happens today is that we are still in a phase of learning both the car package and the tire. The teams are working on it and there are those who, having got there before others, are enjoying a performance advantage. We are waiting for this learning to come to an end “.
It is difficult to establish whether Red Bull has worked better than Ferrari on this front, but it cannot be ruled out that the early season RB18 had more unexpressed potential than the F1-75. However, Red Bull also contributed to the growth in tire management at home the first weight reduction operation with lightened mechanical components introduced in Imola. Among these, the new brake calipers stand out, developed as for all teams in collaboration with Brembo to find a better compromise between weight and stiffness. Their lightening is doubly important as it is part of the unsprung masses, i.e. located downstream of the suspensions directly on the wheel unit. In addition to the reduction in absolute weight, it is likely that with the lightened components the team also benefited from a correction of the mass distribution and mechanical balance.
The competitiveness of Red Bull is therefore not only the result of the speed on the forehand, which in any case is confirmed to be an important weapon in the attack and defense phases in close duels. About, Mattia Binotto recognized an influence of the wing configurations in the speed gap between the two cars: “If I look at Jeddah, certainly the Red Bulls were much faster, but then in Australia they increased downforce and the speed was similar between the two cars. […] I think when we use similar wings we are quite close in terms of speed, so I don’t think there is a big difference in this “. Reversing the point of view, the RB18’s supremacy on the straight is partly a consequence of the improved tire management, which allows the adoption of more discharged setups without compromising the pace excessively. “It’s just a question of compromise between what you think is best not only in terms of single lap time, but also in terms of race pace and tire degradation.“Binotto added. “There have been some races where I thought our choice was the right one, while perhaps in Jeddah for a few laps the Red Bull choice turned out to be better. But I think it’s nice that we can have different solutions and setups “.
In addition to the purely performance development of the car, there are interventions aimed at improving it reliability. In the inaugural race in Bahrain, Verstappen suffered from overheating of the front brakes, requiring careful management of the race pace, but larger air intakes have already arrived in Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, a more delicate speech on the power unit front, with the Honda-derived engine that highlighted problems under the management and preparation of the newly created Red Bull Powertrain. However, while the Milton Keynes team collected three championship retirements between the two drivers, the substitutions at Red Bull were limited to just one MGU-H and a turbocharger on Perez’s car. Definitely more worrying is the picture at AlphaTauri, where both Gasly and Tsunoda have already reached the top of the three seasonal power units. The greatest concern for Red Bull is therefore that what is happening at the Faenza team does not happen again at home.
With the aerodynamic updates, but even more so thanks to the lightening of the mechanics and the improved understanding of the package, Red Bull is back ahead of Ferrari in the hierarchies on the track. However, the current balance of power is somewhat precarious, as the Scuderia di Maranello should introduce its first evolutionary package in Barcelona, which Mattia Binotto hopes will bring the F1-75 back ahead of the RB18. At Montmelò thearduous sentence.
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