Have Formula 1 teams converged on a single design philosophy in the second year since the series’ shake-up of its technical regulations? Far from it.
Red Bull’s RB19 dominated last season, winning 17 of the 22 races. When testing began in Barcelona 12 months ago the team revealed a superbly detailed sidepod arrangement with a steep undercut, which proved to be a trend-setter.Aston Martin was the first team to produce a similar version, though it took until the end of the season for the team to begin getting the best out of it. Williams also moved in the same direction with its mid-season update at Silverstone.
McLaren’s latest car also moves it a step closer in philosophy to Red Bull’s, putting it in the same company as its fellow Mercedes engine customers.
Before the deposed world champions revealed the success to last year’s underperforming W13, there was much speculation over whether they would keep the radical ‘zero’ sidepod design. They have, and the team has already declared it has got on top of the porpoising problem which plagued it throughout much of last season.
Whether they can achieve consistent success with the concept, which yielded a single race win in Brazil last year, is another matter. So far no one else has duplicated their layout, and Mercedes have dropped hints of significant revisions to come earlier in the year.
The most popular alternative to Red Bull’s approach is Ferrari’s. Even at the halfway point last season, when teams were committing to their design directions for 2023, Ferrari’s strikingly different solution was still setting the pace, and they have persisted with it.
The team which scored the most pole positions of any team last year has continued with its broader sidepods, cut less deeply underneath, with a steep ramp on the inside. In their case, an additional slot on the inside, dubbed an ‘S-duct’, feeds it with further air.
Haas, which maintains a close technical relationship with its power unit supplier, has inevitably stayed close to that philosophy, those the VF-23 has some aerodynamic refinements which make it immediately distinguishable from the SF-23. Alfa Romeo, the other Ferrari customer, is another follower of the Red Bull school of thought.
Satisfyingly, in a year when the cars’ geometries were expected to converge under technical regulations which limited the freedom of the designers, there are many other conspicuous differences noticeable on the cars, such as the slim airbox of Ferrari and the upswept front wing of Alpine. Over the races to come we will keep a keen eye on whether more of these differences are ironed out in year two of the current rules set, or teams produce new solutions to the same challenges.
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Use the drop-down menus below to select which of the 2023 cars you want to compare and use the sliders to transition between the images. Note some images may have been altered for ease of comparison and should not be used as a reference for measurements.
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Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
25th February 2023, 8:34
Neat feature team :)
I’m going to have fun messing with this. Thanks ;)
HT Onk (@pweb87)
25th February 2023, 8:42
Awesome! Thank you for the effort you must have put into this
Imre (@f1mre)
25th February 2023, 9:52
That Mercedes rear wing is huge. Are they testing high downforce setups? They are going to be slow on the straights again.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
25th February 2023, 10:49
This is a fascinating feature. Well done! The most obvious differences seem to be when you compare the cars from the rear view. One can really see the difference in the side pods and rear end approaches.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
25th February 2023, 11:00
McLaren seem to be struggling a little compared to some teams and I note the rear of their car, sidepods and rear end does drop away more than most of the others. Or is it me? Quite an unusual flat shape.
Stewart
26th February 2023, 12:50
What a stunning feature, well done RF, that was brilliantly done and very very informative.
I agree Phil Norman, it isn’t just you, and it also holds true for the sidepod air entry feature, which is also much lower down and smaller than almost all of the others. In fact the whole sidepod is lower than the majority by quite a significant amount maybe 60mm. The other thing I noticed was the wheelbase, which seems to be different for quite a few cars when you overlay the dividing line over each successive wheel centre (although this could be caused by picture manipulation to get the effect RF were aiming for). I’m not a spec guru like some on RF, so I’m not sure if wheelbase is something the teams decide for themselves within a pair of limits (maybe someone can tell me ?).
I only caught the tail end of session 3 so I wasn’t a witness to whatever happened to Lando before about 14:30 pm. and sorry that there wasn’t any replay of the incident which seemed to incapacitate his car, I was flying blind and with virtually no Sky commentary saying what had happened through the rest of the coverage, except that they were patching his car up with bits and pieces laying around the garage (commonly known as spares and old toolboxes to most people – I can even remember doing that very thing in the early days of Rallycross, lol).
I do understand that nearly every team wants to keep the fuel load, aero setting and the intended data of the lap they are on, but even with mad Ted Kravitz in the pitlane, there was virtually no real info coming forth concerning the intent of whichever lap a car was currently running, which made the whole event a bit of a mystery.
I’m hoping that I get a bit more explained when McL send me their words of wisdom on the period.
N.B. my comments about the lack of info on SKY TV, in no way was intended as direct criticism on their performance, because they will have been intentionally told nothing themselves by the Teams.
Kaspars
25th February 2023, 11:20
Very nice comparison! Thanks!
PeterG
25th February 2023, 12:48
Cars are too similar now because of the overly restrictive nature of the regulations.
When you have side by side images or something like this where you can compare the details you can spot some differences, But when your watching the TV broadcast they all essentially look virtually identical now & that’s frustrating & disappointing but also entirely predictable as it’s what many were worried about when these GP1 regulations were announced & introduced.
I just really miss the days where we had a grid of cars that all looked different. For example while the 2014 noses were criticised for been ugly, They at least saw each team come up with a very different concept which gave the grid a more diverse look.
I just wish we could get back to a regulation set that allows for greater diversity in the look of the cars as a grid of different looking cars with different design concepts will always be far more interesting & exciting to watch than a grid of identical or very similar looking cars. There’s a reason why the spec categories don’t get the same level of attention that the non-spec & more open regulation categories do even if the racing in those spec categories is better. I mean when was Indycar’s peak of popularity? When it was a more open formula in the CART era when you had a grid of different looking cars, It’s just never garnered the same level of interest since it became another dull spec category with a grid of identical looking cars.
drmouse (@drmouse)
27th February 2023, 16:33
I can’t say I disagree. I’d love the regs to be more open, on all sorts of fronts.
Thing is, many of the more restrictive elements were brought in to save cost. For instance, there was some talk of just settings a few general parameters for the engine and then letting teams pick what they prefer, but the expense of each team having to try out multiple options to find the best was prohibitive for many.
However, we now have the cost cap. If that were to prove effective over the next couple of years, why not open things up a bit? For the engine, say (only because I have more knowledge), max power and energy input, the rest is up to you. Choose a small, high-revving turbo or a large, low revving nat asp. Choose 3 cylinders or 12. Choose which ever fuel you want. Choose KERS, batteries, motors, etc as you see fit. If you want to use a new engine for every session, fine, as long as it fits in budget.
Of course, the new aero rules were brought in for specific reasons which are nothing to do with cost. For me, I’d rather have more flexibility but with strict rules around the “quality” of the air behind the car, but that would be really difficult to regulate.
drmouse (@drmouse)
27th February 2023, 16:42
Note, with this: Would it be more effective (especially for a mid-to-low end team) to develop a powerful, efficient, bullet proof engine, or to just throw in an under-developed lump of iron every session which would destroy itself in a couple of hours? It would be really interesting to see. At the bottom, does the team with the high-tech, efficient, expensive engine as used by the top teams win, or does the team with the old American V8 iron lumps which are over-stressed, over-revved and won’t last more than a session?
stefano (@alfa145)
6th March 2023, 15:00
great feature! congratulations