The Car Updates Spotted In China | F1 TV Tech Talk

Hello and welcome to Tech Talk. It's the Chinese Grand Prix and things have got a little bit weird in a sort of Italian way, at least to start off with. There's all sorts of other stuff to talk about as well because the new regulations are producing, well, fair to say, quite a lot of new and unusual ideas and the first of those ideas, well, maybe you just saw it. Let's talk about Ferrari's rear wing. Now, we saw this wing in use in pre-season testing. Ferrari have got an interesting device on the rear wing that flips the entire wing upside down. Now, some people call it Macarena. That's a silly name. Some people call it a flip-flop. That's a silly name. Some people call it a rotisserie wing. That's also a silly name. It's an upside-downy wing, obviously, because it's a wing that goes upside down. Why else would you call it anything with that, even just upside-down wing? That would work. But what are Ferrari doing with this? Well, we've all seen it before. The wing runs upside down when the active aero is deployed and that generates a little bit of lift, actually, from the rear wing and massively reduces aerodynamic drag. We knew Ferrari had this in store and it was going to come later in the season, but the Italian team seems to have rushed it forwards for some reason and brought it to the Chinese Grand Prix, which nobody really expected. Before we have a closer look at the wing and its actuators in a bit more detail, I think it's worth taking a look at why Ferrari has done this. We take a look at the qualifying data. You can see it on your screen here from Melbourne. What I want to draw your attention to is the slow-speed corners. The whole track is split up here into slow, medium, high-speed corners and the straights as well. You can see Ferrari is actually the quickest team of all in the slow-speed corners below that very patronus-coloured Mercedes line, which is the fastest car overall around the lap. Where are Ferrari losing out? Well, not much in medium-speed corners, not much in high-speed corners. In other words, the Ferrari goes round the corners pretty well. We've also seen it can really accelerate fast due to that small turbo. It is losing a lot of time relative to Mercedes, relative to McLaren and Red Bull on the straights. That's where Ferrari need to generate a bit more performance. I think that's why Ferrari has accelerated the introduction of that new rear wing device. We'll have to wait and see if it really works. It has caused already a few little issues for the Ferrari drivers and the team as they get used to using it. One of the Ferrari drivers being caught out by trying to turn the car in or start braking before the wing was fully shut. The speed the wings open and close is defined in the regulations, yet the driver still didn't quite get his motions quite synced up with the motion of the rear wing. They ended up having an unexpected gyration into one of the corners in China. Only a bit of damage done to the tyres and the car carried on for the rest of the session. Still more to learn about that wing. When we take a look in a bit more detail at the wing itself, here it is on the screen here, you can actually start to see how it works a little bit. You can see these bulges on the wing end plates either side. Not quite so obvious on this side when you're looking on the outer edge, but you can see a little panel here that one of our producers, Kev, pointed out that I think the actuator is actually buried in the end plate underneath that and that's how the mechanics access it when the car is in the garage. These bulges on the rear wing end plates to house the actuators, I think is pretty interesting design because they're quite bold. They stick out quite a long way and there's quite a lot of scalloping under the leading edge of the actuator to the actual wing elements itself. I wonder, could Ferrari be using the shape of that bulge to try to get a bit of aerodynamic advantage over the surfaces of the rear wing at the same time as having an actual actuator? Then there's a question of how does it actually work? Inside those rear wing end plates, is there an electrical device, a hydraulic device? Well, Ferrari aren't saying quite yet. I suspect, but I'm not certain that it's an electrical device because if you think about the hydraulic routing all the way through the rear wing end plates, it's going to be quite a difficult device to see. It could come up through the wing support pillars and out that way, but then it could do that with a hydraulic actuator as well. It's going to be really interesting to see how Ferrari actually make this flippy over upside downy wing work. They've also got to learn how to make it work on track without the driver spinning. That is something they're still working on quite clearly. Another thing Ferrari has been working on is around the front of the cockpit. Have you noticed it? It's right here. I suspect the drivers will be noticing it. I'm not talking about the halo, of course. I'm talking about a device that Ferrari has introduced on the halo. You can see what looks like a bit of a rectangular panel right in the driver's line of sight. What is it? Well, we have to change our angle slightly to have a better look at it. As soon as you do that, you can see straight away that it's a wing. That is a wing section, a wing profile clearly designed to generate downforce, a bit of load on the centre line of the car. Of course, this is on the centre line of the halo. It's right in the driver's line of sight. How are they going to see through these additional wings that have been added to the halo device? In fact, I was quite surprised to see a development area there. It's an interesting area of the car to exploit because no other team has even looked in that part of the car in previous seasons. There's nothing really new about the halo even though the rest of the car is pretty much completely new. Ferrari is exploiting a new area of aerodynamic development. What Ferrari has done actually is manufacture these little winglets out of a translucent material. I suspect it's probably 3D printed. It doesn't look like moulding to me but that gives the driver some degree of vision through these winglets though once they've collected a bit of dirt and debris during the Grand Prix distance, I don't know how much they'll still be able to see through it. Nonetheless, Ferrari have exploited something completely new. That's not all they've been playing around with. At the Australian Grand Prix, actually I missed this out last week so I thought I'd just introduce it. They've modified the rear floor of the car. You can see the trailing edge of the floor here. This is just ahead of the rear wheel. A little bit of a flick up just there which is very subtle but very much there. Then this very large extra aerodynamic element ahead of the rear wheel of the car. You can see that's been fairly hastily, I won't say bodged on because that's not fair because it's very precision installed but not planned with this particular specification of floor. Ferrari clearly working that aerodynamic region ahead of the rear wheel like every other team in the field. It's really, really interesting. Here's another detail we saw on the Ferrari in pre-season testing but we've got some nicer shots of it here than the photos I took in the garage. It's these little elements along the inner face of the sticky uppy bit on the outer leading edge of the floor. Really quite an interesting design feature. Lots of lovely detailing in there but again it looks rather hastily or looks like a modification that's been made to an existing part rather than that's been designed in from scratch. Then the general shape of this element looks to be very much an outwashing part. You'll see some teams have got inwashing parts in this area so still a lot of design exploration in this area. One area that there has been a lot of design exploration in and a lot of people have been talking about and we talked about it last week is this, the winglet behind the exhaust exit on the Ferrari. This was something a lot of teams are not going to be able to copy in 2026 because the legality of it is linked to the positioning of the differential in the transmission casing. Lots of long-winded cab models to explain why. It's not that interesting quite frankly but it just is that the Ferrari gearbox has a differential placing that allows you to exploit this area. So you can only do something like this if you've got a Ferrari gearbox. A bit like Haas have done. In fact Haas of course with that transmission detailing from Ferrari they have the exact same opportunity and this is Haas' solution. Let's have a look here. So this is the rear end of the Haas and you can see Haas have also got their own interpretation of what Ferrari's done. Perhaps not quite so extreme and it's not a full plate on the back but they are exploiting that same area of aerodynamic freedom that the Ferrari team is as well. We've got some nicer shots of it here and you can see the aerodynamic element they've added in here. It's very much a smaller winglet style design but with an additional upper section behind it sitting on top of the rear impact structure just like Ferrari. You can see the exhaust tailpipe here coming in and how it's almost completely obstructed in that lower quadrant. So you've got to think the exhaust gas flow on the inside of that pipe has got to be quite interesting. Difficult to model but not if you're a Formula One team. And here you can see, this is again from that rear angle, that's the Haas solution. You can see that aerodynamic element at the base. You can see the upper element that's a little bit more dished than the Ferrari version. Obviously Ferrari, a more extreme interpretation of the same solution. So maybe Haas will go a bit more extreme or maybe their slightly different aerodynamic concept will suit their design a bit more than this Ferrari version. But going from Italy's most famous car manufacturer to arguably Britain's most famous car manufacturer, Aston Martin. Now it's fair to say the Honda powered Aston Martin hasn't had the best start to the season. We said that last week and it's not got much better coming into China but they didn't expect it to. Some fixes have apparently been made to the power unit but some technical development is still going on on the car. And this is a development they introduced in Australia but we didn't really get as good a look at it as I wanted to. Now this upper section of the forward section of the floor, some people calling them barge boards, they're not barge boards in the traditional sense but let's call them barge boards for now because that's the sort of same part of the car. Previously Aston Martin had a slotted section in this area but now they've gone for a much bigger solid section and from the side it looks much of a muchness. But you do have those very interesting little aerodynamic outwashing elements here on the leading edge of that floor on that scalloped section that is unique to Aston Martin, no other team's done that yet. Now I think some people will copy some of the elements that Aston Martin have experimented with but is Aston Martin itself taking some inspiration perhaps from another British team, Williams. Williams have that really distinctive vertical section on the inner edge of that section and now Aston Martin has split the leading edge of these aerodynamic elements and the leading edge section is now a very much of like a Williams style pillar but it overlaps with the trailing section as you can see here with a link section between them and you have this almost monolith on the inner edge. But also take a look at the bracing strut that goes back towards the chassis clearly with an aerodynamic element halfway along it. Another nice little detail generating a bit of downforce, hard to say, give me a wind tunnel I'll explain it a bit more to you once I've got their full CAD models which they're not going to give me or you or indeed anybody, it's a shame, I wish they did. But look how beautifully sculpted this part is, it's a really lovely detail and again showing how much Aston Martin is putting into the development of the AMR26. Adrian Newey and the team there with their new wind tunnel, new facility and new power unit are trying to get the most out of this car and I still think Aston Martin is going to come good this season and when I say come good I think they're going to come really good, this is going to be quite a competitive concept as the regulation set evolves. Now we need to move across the English channel to continental Europe to see what one of Germany's most established car manufacturers is doing, I am of course talking about Audi and it's the front wing end plates I want to draw your attention to. For starters, Audi has reshaped them quite dramatically since last week, they've changed the trailing edge quite a lot, in fact there's a nice little detail here which is easy to miss but you can see there's a little extra additional element just on the trailing edge of the main section of the end plate and then as we move through the rest of the end plate you can see this extra element which is very hard to get an image of because of where it's located on the car but this element is something new for this week, additionally you see the tyre sensor there and I believe they've reshaped this sticky Audi bit, front wing extension bit that doesn't have a proper name yet, that's interesting but we'll change the angle of what we're looking at slightly here to this shot because uniquely Audi has shortened its front wing end plate, the nose of the car has also been reshaped slightly but it's quite subtle, it's all to do with the overall shape on the beginning section, just working in concert with some other elements downstream of it, I'll try and get a better comparison maybe for the Japanese Grand Prix but uniquely Audi has got a recessed upper section of the front wing end plate or the vertical element at least, have a look here, there's the vertical element but have a look at where its leading edge is, where it picks up on the wing and then have a look at the leading edge of the front wing itself, there is a distinct gap right here between the leading edge of the end plate and or leading edge of the vertical section of the end plate and the leading edge of the front wing meaning the front wing is essentially extended onto the footplate almost giving Audi a slightly wider front wing, now no other team's gone down this route yet and it's going to be quite interesting to see if any other team pursues it but it's a very different approach than we've seen on any other car, here's the same thing from a slightly different angle and it's nice and clear here, you can see that gap between the front of the end plate which is beautifully sculpted isn't it and then also the leading edge of the front wing, quite a different solution and I just wonder if that's going to get the attention of some of the other teams up and down on the grid, you can also just about see that aerodynamic element on the upper section of the curved bit of the footplate, interesting how that's two different materials just there as well isn't it. So we've gone from Italy's most famous car manufacturer to arguably Britain's most famous car manufacturer as well and through one of Germany's most famous and biggest car manufacturers on top of that and now we're going to go to an energy drinks company from Austria and their Italian-based racing team. Yep I am of course talking about Racing Bulls, now Racing Bulls had a very interesting little bit of design on their bargeboard section, here you can see on the inner face of it and that's something we haven't seen a lot of teams really reach a consensus on, not just the shape of this bargeboard section but also they've added these little sticky innie bits I guess you have to call them on the middle section of that slotted or that slatted section on the side of the car, an area that no other team has exploited yet in this way but we have seen vertical elements used in this area from Williams and we have seen a few other teams play with some clever bits and bobs in there, well this is a new departure from Racing Bulls and I just wanted to show you that because I thought it was quite an interesting bit of design and Racing Bulls, well bigger brother or bigger sister or grown-up or more parent team if you want to call Red Bull that, well they've got this little extension on their diffuser, they had it in Melbourne, I just didn't show it to you then because I hadn't got a good enough shot of it, now we have and here it is and I just think it's a really interesting device dangling down from the back of the diffuser introduced for Melbourne, really nice piece of design, doesn't fit my narrative at all for this episode but I didn't want to not show it to you so that's kind of the way Tech Talks sometimes goes and I'll just show you bits of racing car that I think are quite interesting and we're just going to keep doing that all year long just showing you interesting bits of racing cars and there's quite a lot more to show you and we'll have to do that in Japan so join us there.