#F1 #SaudiArabianGP 2025

🟧/🟦 - The Controversial Moment

So we've had the 1st one of those this year and we can do a deep dive on the incident from multiple angles

First, let's examine the ruling. The Stewards observe Piastri as the attacker and rule he was significantly alongside so he had the right to be given room. Ok, he had the room - he was on the inside...

Second part is especially important - Verstappen left the track on his own in Stewards view. This is not true and it was clear as day - he was pushed off and it's easy to be proven.

The problem with this ruling is that it completely contravenes the ruling in Mexico 2024 regarding Verstappen pushing Norris off - which was a fair penalty. There we have two points:

- Norris was ruled to be ahead at entry, apex and exit and thus was to be given enough room on the outside and this is correct
- it is noted he is pushed off (true) and gives back position to Sainz as he cuts the 2nd corner significantly

Being ahead at the apex and being pushed off - we remember this for later, even though stewards ignored these points 1. T1 Apex in Jeddah

Via Google Maps we can observe the corner 100% accurately and we can establish the kerbs are symmetrical around the apex axis. So the 3rd white block marks the apex of the corner - we remember this for later too

#F1 #ChineseGP 2025

🟥 Another Ferrari blunder - what happened? 🧵

A double-DSQ happened to Ferrari before, in 1999 Malaysian GP. It was the first race for Schumacher after his injury and Ferrari managed to secure 1-2 finish after Coulthard retired. After the race, their bargeboards were deemed illegal, protruding 10 mm above the nominal limit on both cars

However, Ferrari overturned this ruling with an appeal, citing improper measurement by FIA (it was 4.5 mm with proper measuring) and manufacturing tolerances (5 mm) not taken into account. It was clever engineering, pushing the manufacturing boundaries as Rory Byrne established this as one of many practices as Chief Engineer, while also exposing FIA's amateurish measurement technique - not taking into account their own floor reference plane when measuring cars

This time - it won't happen. Both cars were disqualified on slam-dunk grounds and Ferrari made indefensible operational errors with their two cars. Period.

Taking a look at both cases below ⬇️ Hamilton's car had an excess plank wear of 0.5mm. Doesn't sound like much, but it's 5% of 10 mm nominal thickness and means it was 15% worn out in total

The car was simply put too low, too soft in the rear or (the most likely scenario) a combination of both. It was a wrong setup as he cleared right after the race:

"Basically, I had a good car in the Sprint, and we made some changes to try to improve, but we got worse in qualifying, and it was even worse in the race."

“Who said we changed the ride height? We made other changes. Of course, we adjusted that too, but it wasn’t a huge factor. However, putting everything together, the situation got significantly worse. Charles had tested some things in Bahrain that I hadn’t tried, but we both followed that path, and it wasn’t the right one, so we must not repeat it"

The factor of worn-tread tyres on his car wasn't present as he had to make the 2nd pit stop. He was vocal about leading the setup direction this weekend and he did a good job for the Sprint and made a big mistake for the Race along with his engineers - without even taking worn plank into account

#F1 Season 2022-2024 Car Development Recap

🟥 Sidepod Development - Ferrari 🟥

Why Ferrari changed so much to change so little? 🤔

Photo credit - none of the photos are my own, only some illustrations and wording. Large majority comes from @AlbertFabrega @RosarioGiuliana @Auto_Racer_it @xavigazquez @Motorsport @Giorgio_Piola

At the start of 2022, Ferrari ran conventional-but-odd looking sidepods on F1-75. They were carved on the top side into a tub-shaped "bowls" and left many puzzled, but together with jjn9128 and Vyssion on @f1technical forum I made some rudimentary CFD simulations to find out.
Simulations showed a decent amount of pressure recovery on rear-facing surfaces, which means there was some drag-reduction at hand. Some of those surfaces were also top-facing, which means downforce generation. There was a bad separation on the side that I couldn't resolve (not enough curvature on the bottom corner most likely) which did influence final results, but not enough to skew the overall conclusion

F1-75 sidepods generated a lot of outwash with blunt frontal sidepod surface, while also reducing drag and adding some downforce with tapering rear end combined with tub-shaped top surface

So what's going on with #Ferrari 's experimental floor? 🤔

Is it really still experimental if they used it in #F1 Qatar race? Will they use it in Abu Dhabi again?

Those are not the question's I will try to answer in this thread. Rather, I will focus on aerodynamic consequences and why Ferrari said it doesn't add downforce, but it does expand the working window and stability

Apparently, @dr_obbs @brakeboosted @organicmeasure @f1net and other's think I should decode Ferrari's top secrets 😂

So, let's get into it! 👇

PS Do bear with me, I've prepared a lot of illustrations 😅 One of the best and most useful CFD results I've seen, regarding 2022 F1 floors and entire underside, was performed single-handedly by Latios and he shared it also on @f1technical forum:

f1technical.net/forum/viewtopi…

Worth noting, as of May 2023, Latios is an aerodynamics engineer in @WilliamsRacing F1 Team! 🤯 I think that's quite a big credibility bonus to results he published!

Rear floor corner is a very important area for aerodynamic development for a long time. Especially since 2022, it is very closely related to diffuser flow stability while cornering, in yaw, going over corners. In short - in all the "troubled" situations a car finds itself many times in a single lap!

Latios shared several results, one of which was a study between semi-accurate RB18 and F1-75 geometries. The biggest thing we see here is how different geometries have a big influence on local flow and interaction with diffuser vortex generation, vorticity and overall resulting diffuser downforce generation