Monza Low Downforce Setup

There is no circuit in F1 that looks simpler than Monza, a typical circuit dominated by long straights. In response to this, downforce is not that favourable here, on the contrary, low downforce setup aiming to reduce drag is the key to win the race.

Front Wing

Front wing is not often changed significantly from race to race as it is the part that determines downstream flow, therefore affecting the design of all following parts. However, for Monza, most teams have adjust their front wing by removing cascades, lower down AoA or reducing chord length.

McLaren has removed all the outer cascades and replaced their 2-section upper flap with one single upper flap.

Source: Formula1.com

McLaren Front Wing Change from Spa to Monza

Source: Sutton Image

McLaren Front Wing in Monza

Another noticeable change on front wing is from Ferrari, who has removed all the small upper cascades and made several changes to the flaps and endplates profile.

Source: Formula1.com

Ferrari Front Wing Comparison from Spa to Monza

Rear Wing

The rear wing design is closely related to exhaust/cooling, sidepod and rear diffuser. Teams have different adjustments based on their cars. Major methods to reduce downforce/drag in Monza includes slimming rear wings, introducing V-shape profile and use gurney flap on diffusers.

With Massa hitting 3rd in qualifying and Alonso finishing on podium from 10th start, Ferrari proved their speed in Monza. They modified the beam wing with a V-cut profile and slimmed outer span, fit gurneys along the trailing edge of the diffuser, and quite uniquely, added flaps above and below the diffuser. The V-cut supplies the car with enough downforce at corners with low downforce setup for straights. Use of gurneys and additional flaps help regulating the flow, correspondingly reducing drag.

Source: ScarbsF1

Ferrari Rear Design for Monza

Similar to Ferrari, Red Bull also used a V-shaped beam wing, in combination with a rear wing of very small AoA. They’re among the teams that suffer the most from the ban of exhaust blown diffuser this year and quite obviously still haven’t found a ideal design for their underbody rear part. In Monza, they’ve also added an additional tier to the diffuser gurneys, though that didn’t seem to give them clear benefit.

Red Bull V-shaped Beam Wing

Source: Sutton Image

Additional Tier on RB8 Diffuser Gurney

As the low downforce rear wing has clearly given Button huge advantage in Spa, McLaren is quite happy using this setup for both cars in Monza with a few modifications to further reduce drag. Instead of slimming the wing as other teams, McLaren cleverly introduced a curved profile at the tip of their beam wing to smooth air flow.

Source: ScarbsF1

McLaren Rear Design for Monza – Note Curved Tips on Beam Wing

Lotus has drawn wide attention because of their so-called DDRS system – It’s still quite confusing how people call this device though. Anyway we’re not seeing it until Singapore since Monza is not a preferable circuit for this system. In Monza, Lotus runs on the shortest chord rear wing, which makes it look quite tiny from behind.

Source: F1 Technical

Lotus Rear Design for Monza

Check this post from ScrabsF1 for more detailed analysis of rear end design based on each car relating exhaust/cooling/sidepod to rear wing assembly.

McLaren Spa Updates

With a dominant win from Jenson Button in Spa, McLaren has demonstrated their aerodynamic excellence after two successional win. It’s shame that Lewis was crashed out at the beginning of race, leaving us curious about how those two differently set-up cars would actually do in the race. Instead of seeing huge impact from DDRS, what drew attention is actually McLaren’s rear wing adjustment and sidepod airflow conditioner, while their DDRS remains a mystery.

High Downforce vs Low Downforce – Hamilton’s Deleted Tweets

The hottest topic outside the track is definitely Hamilton’s tweets during the weekend. Three of them get delated in two days, among those ghost tweets, the most famous one is the telemetry chart of the two McLaren cars.

Source: F1Technical

McLaren Overlaid Telemetry Chart

It looks a bit completed as there are lots of information merged into one single chart. However, telemetry chart is simple to read when you know which property each line represents. As a common approach of F1 data collection and analysis, a telemetry chart in fact can’t leak out too much serious information. Here is an example of a telemetry chart from 2010, which as an coincidence, is from Lewis Hamilton again. From the top to the bottom, properties plotted on the y-axis are speed, engine revolutions/gear, throttle/brake usage, lateral/longitudinal G force.

Telemetry chart in Bahrain 2010

As we can guess in Lewis’ leaking out chart, the most fluctuated lines represent his speed and Jenson’s. It’s obvious that on straights, Lewis’ car accelerates slower and has lower top speed compared to Jenson’s. Basically Jenson’s car has a low downforce configuration while Lewis get a high downforce one. The picture below combines Lewis’ and Jenson’s car during qualifying – with lower angle of attack, Jenson’s car has reduced downforce and drag, which gives him huge advantage on straights.

Source: Sutton Image

Comparison between Jenson’s and Lewis’ Car During Qualifying

However, this doesn’t mean lower downforce is always better on high speed circuits like Spa – downforce at severe corners should always be considered; weather condition has vast impact as well. Nevertheless, McLaren has clearly found the best compromise this weekend for Jenson.

McLaren New Sidepod Airflow Conditioner

The most evident change on MP4-27 in Spa is these airflow conditioners added on top of the sidepods.

McLaren Sidepod Airflow Conditioner

Now the airflow conditioner is connected to the cockpit and runs all the way over the sidepod. It’s expected to further regulating flow around the sidepod and towards the exhaust channel. In Hungry before the summer break, McLaren was using 3 fins on top of the sidepod as vortex generator to improve airflow.

McLaren Sidepod in Hungry

These fins would help smoothing the air by generating controlled vortex flow:

Effect of Vortex Generator

Although vortex generator is a good idea, McLaren seems to find those L-shaped covers over the sidepod working better in controlling the air.

Curiosities – Flexible Front Wing? DDRS?

An interesting picture of McLaren front wing in Spa indicates that it’s flattened during the race:

McLaren Flattened Front Wing

There was suspicion from ScarbsF1 that McLaren use flexible front wing to achieve better aero balance last year in Valencia – McLaren European GP Wing Movement. However although the suspicion was broadly argued, this picture still arise doubts on McLaren tricking on their front wing. Theoretically flexible front wing uses a joint rather than a rigid structure that allows the wing to tilt slightly backwards at high speed. The reduction of angle of attack would reduce front downforce/drag so that it corresponds to the reduction of rear downforce when DRS is activated. Because of the increasing limitation on rear part design, McLaren has actually focused a lot on the front part this season, as reflected in their lifted nosecone earlier this season.

Source: F1Technical

McLaren Nosecone Update

Although the so-called McLaren DDRS was buzzing before the race, there was no clear technical sources leaking out regarding this part. Some says there’re strange bumps on the rear endplates, which could mount in tubes like the Mercedes DDRS. However we still need to wait for more information to make judgement.

Bumps in McLaren Endplate

Besides McLaren, most teams have noticeable updates in Spa. There were more information of Lotus DDRS leaking out though it was not used in this race and is expected to be used in Japan Grand Prix. Also closed cockpit looks favourable in the future considering the huge crash in this race. These topics are hopefully covered in my future posts.