Analysis of the F1 winter test: New Red Bull suspension and corrugated Mercedes

Due to the coronavirus crisis, the major rule changes were postponed to 2022 last year and the cars would remain unchanged for 2022. Nice plan, until the FIA decided to throw in a few new guidelines after all. Mainly because of the changes to the floor this resulted in, there was a lot of news to discover about the cars during the test

During the car presentations a couple of weeks ago it was already clear that almost all teams were very secretive about their floor and wanted to show as little of it as possible. Many teams left the diffuser completely out of sight and the floor in front of the rear wheel was often so dark that no details could be seen.

The corrugated floor of Mercedes and Aston Martin

We now know why, as they went to Bahrain with some pretty interesting designs. Just like last year, when they went out with an adjustable steering wheel, Mercedes again immediately made their presence felt. We already discussed it on Friday, because people were impressed by the corrugated part that the world champions have mounted under their car.

For 2021, the teams were obliged to cut away a piece of the floor. The FIA wanted to reduce the amount of downforce by ten percent. The curve in the floor is meant to increase the surface area. In this way, Mercedes hopes to regain the downforce lost due to the new regulations.

The only other team to have such pronounced waves on the floor plate is Aston Martin. Considering the accusation from 2020 of copycat behaviour between the two teams, this is somewhat striking, but you can clearly see that Aston Martin have come up with their own design for this.

McLaren on the move

Another team that seems to be on the right track for 2021 is McLaren. During the last test day, they found time to test a new rear wing (see above) and despite their switch to Mercedes engines they also found a unique solution for the diffuser. Here too the pruning shears of the FIA have done their job. This year the diffuser 'guides' are not allowed to protrude so far down the car and all diffusers have to be of the same length.

McLaren has managed to circumvent these guidelines a little bit by attaching two 'fins' to the middle part of the bottom plate. In a way that it is exactly within the regulations. McLaren is the only team to have this. F1 expert Craig Scarborough thinks other teams would have thought of this as well because it is a logical solution according to him. So it remains to be seen how much it will actually save.

When you compare McLaren's diffuser with Red Bull Racing 's 'normal' diffuser, as shown below, it is easy to see why McLaren thinks it helps. With those two extra fins, the working part of the diffuser is increased by 25 percent.

A stable Red Bull

Taking a closer look at the rear of the RB16B reveals another point of contention from last weekend. Red Bull's new rear suspension that wasn't on it during the presentation. It extends further back this season, as it did with Mercedes. The point of attachment is at the far end of the gearbox. In theory, this makes the car more stable and from the comments of Max Verstappen we have to conclude that it works.

Red Bull Racing wasn't the only team that showed up in Bahrain with completely different parts than they had presented before. The biggest 'culprit' for this is without a doubt AlphaTauri. But fair's fair, it is a successful nose-job.

And while we are on the subject of plastic surgery, we can't ignore the bulging rear ends of F1 cars. With Mercedes and Aston Martin, this manifests itself in bumps on the bonnet, with Alpine almost the entire section behind the driver's head is blown up.

It is part of an overall trend where part of the cooling is moved from the side pods to the airbox in the middle. Behind the cockpit, the car may be a bit wider, but the smaller sidepods provide enough aerodynamic gain to do so. Alpine/Renault has been working on this concept for some time, but this year it really starts to look a bit like the famous 'teapot' of Ligier.

All in all we did see some nice things during the test. The new guidelines seem to bring about so much change that Mercedes might even have a bit of a hard time this year. Two more weeks and we will know for sure.

This article was written and originally published by Pelle on the Dutch edition of GPblog.com.