2021 Alpine F1 Team

[diffuser]

A silent race for both Alpines but it was nice to gain some points over Alpha Tauri.

Yep, instead of them gaining on us, we increased the spread.

[peewon]

A silent race for both Alpines but it was nice to gain some points over Alpha Tauri.

Yep, instead of them gaining on us, we increased the spread.

Apart from a few million in prize money, wouldn't finishing higher lower your testing/wind tunnel time for next year?

[diffuser]

A silent race for both Alpines but it was nice to gain some points over Alpha Tauri.

Yep, instead of them gaining on us, we increased the spread.

Apart from a few million in prize money, wouldn't finishing higher lower your testing/wind tunnel time for next year?

I'm not sure if they adjust the amount of time twice a year. I know they do it in the middle of the year, they did it back in June or July(think it was after Silverstone). My Guess is they do it twice a year (January 1st/July 1st). The real pain starts next year.


.

New sliding scale on aerodynamic testing in F1

Teams' previous season's  % of aero testing  % of aero testing 
championship position     allowed for 2021   allowed for 2022-25
         1                    90%                  70%
         2                    92.5%                75%
         3                    95%                  80%
         4                    97.5%                85%
         5                    100%                 90%
         6                    102.5%               95%
         7                    105%                 100%
         8                    107.5%               105%
         9                    110%                 110%
  10+ or new team             112.5%               115%

[peewon]

Yep, instead of them gaining on us, we increased the spread.

Apart from a few million in prize money, wouldn't finishing higher lower your testing/wind tunnel time for next year?

I'm not sure if they adjust the amount of time twice a year. I know they do it in the middle of the year, they did it back in June or July(think it was after Silverstone). My Guess is they do it twice a year (January 1st/July 1st). The real pain starts next year.


.

New sliding scale on aerodynamic testing in F1

Teams' previous season's  % of aero testing  % of aero testing 
championship position     allowed for 2021   allowed for 2022-25
         1                    90%                  70%
         2                    92.5%                75%
         3                    95%                  80%
         4                    97.5%                85%
         5                    100%                 90%
         6                    102.5%               95%
         7                    105%                 100%
         8                    107.5%               105%
         9                    110%                 110%
  10+ or new team             112.5%               115%

That seems rather arbitrary and frankly,impossible to enforce effectively, which is my fear with the budget cap as well, considering Alpine doesnt have customer/junior teams to pool resources/testing from. You can bet that most of the research and designs Mercedes come up with up, will be shared with the likes of AM and Williams. They can even split areas of research amongst them and share that knowledge with each other, through parts purchase or shadowy parallel thinking claims as they did with the brake ducts. Same for Ferrari/Haas/AR and Red Bull/AT.

[diffuser]

Apart from a few million in prize money, wouldn't finishing higher lower your testing/wind tunnel time for next year?

I'm not sure if they adjust the amount of time twice a year. I know they do it in the middle of the year, they did it back in June or July(think it was after Silverstone). My Guess is they do it twice a year (January 1st/July 1st). The real pain starts next year.


.

New sliding scale on aerodynamic testing in F1

Teams' previous season's  % of aero testing  % of aero testing 
championship position     allowed for 2021   allowed for 2022-25
         1                    90%                  70%
         2                    92.5%                75%
         3                    95%                  80%
         4                    97.5%                85%
         5                    100%                 90%
         6                    102.5%               95%
         7                    105%                 100%
         8                    107.5%               105%
         9                    110%                 110%
  10+ or new team             112.5%               115%

That seems rather arbitrary and frankly,impossible to enforce effectively, which is my fear with the budget cap as well, considering Alpine doesn't have customer/junior teams to pool resources/testing from. You can bet that most of the research and designs Mercedes come up with up, will be shared with the likes of AM and Williams. They can even split areas of research amongst them and share that knowledge with each other, through parts purchase or shadowy parallel thinking claims as they did with the brake ducts. Same for Ferrari/Haas/AR and Red Bull/AT.

So the cars have to be significantly different right????

If the RBR and ATR cars are identical, some team like Alpine will says something(like 2020 RP...but now the rules are clearer on what the teams can or can't do with regards to copying). Then RBR/ATR will both have to prove that they each designed their own car and came up with the same design, while 8 other teams designed their own cars and came up with DIFFERENT designs. Once the cars have gone down different aero paths, they can't help each other. What helps one car's aero will not likely help the other. The only thing they have left is for ATR to do aero work for RBR. I have no idea how they're policing that or how they're restricting the amount of time a team can spend in the tunnel and on what they're working on.


For example before the 2021 season started, the rules pretty much said you could change only the front or the rear of the chassis structure (the rules were more complicated that that, I'm just simplifying it for speed). RBR completely reworked the rear of the car. while ATR choose to keep last year's rear end and work on the front.

[Gillian]

I'm not sure if they adjust the amount of time twice a year. I know they do it in the middle of the year, they did it back in June or July(think it was after Silverstone). My Guess is they do it twice a year (January 1st/July 1st). The real pain starts next year.


.

New sliding scale on aerodynamic testing in F1

Teams' previous season's  % of aero testing  % of aero testing 
championship position     allowed for 2021   allowed for 2022-25
         1                    90%                  70%
         2                    92.5%                75%
         3                    95%                  80%
         4                    97.5%                85%
         5                    100%                 90%
         6                    102.5%               95%
         7                    105%                 100%
         8                    107.5%               105%
         9                    110%                 110%
  10+ or new team             112.5%               115%

That seems rather arbitrary and frankly,impossible to enforce effectively, which is my fear with the budget cap as well, considering Alpine doesn't have customer/junior teams to pool resources/testing from. You can bet that most of the research and designs Mercedes come up with up, will be shared with the likes of AM and Williams. They can even split areas of research amongst them and share that knowledge with each other, through parts purchase or shadowy parallel thinking claims as they did with the brake ducts. Same for Ferrari/Haas/AR and Red Bull/AT.

So the cars have to be significantly different right????

If the RBR and ATR cars are identical, some team like Alpine will says something(like 2020 RP...but now the rules are clearer on what the teams can or can't do with regards to copying). Then RBR/ATR will both have to prove that they each designed their own car and came up with the same design, while 8 other teams designed their own cars and came up with DIFFERENT designs. Once the cars have gone down different aero paths, they can't help each other. What helps one car's aero will not likely help the other. The only thing they have left is for ATR to do aero work for RBR. I have no idea how they're policing that or how they're restricting the amount of time a team can spend in the tunnel and on what they're working on.


For example before the 2021 season started, the rules pretty much said you could change only the front or the rear of the chassis structure (the rules were more complicated that that, I'm just simplifying it for speed). RBR completely reworked the rear of the car. while ATR choose to keep last year's rear end and work on the front.

This is very interesting. Is there enough room in the new rules for such differences in philosophy/car design? I have a feeling it's impossible to have significantly different cars... Or am I being naive?

[diffuser]

So the cars have to be significantly different right????

If the RBR and ATR cars are identical, some team like Alpine will says something(like 2020 RP...but now the rules are clearer on what the teams can or can't do with regards to copying). Then RBR/ATR will both have to prove that they each designed their own car and came up with the same design, while 8 other teams designed their own cars and came up with DIFFERENT designs. Once the cars have gone down different aero paths, they can't help each other. What helps one car's aero will not likely help the other. The only thing they have left is for ATR to do aero work for RBR. I have no idea how they're policing that or how they're restricting the amount of time a team can spend in the tunnel and on what they're working on.


For example before the 2021 season started, the rules pretty much said you could change only the front or the rear of the chassis structure (the rules were more complicated that that, I'm just simplifying it for speed). RBR completely reworked the rear of the car. while ATR choose to keep last year's rear end and work on the front.

This is very interesting. Is there enough room in the new rules for such differences in philosophy/car design? I have a feeling it's impossible to have significantly different cars... Or am I being naive?

If you look at all the bargeboards that ATR and RBR teams came up with this year, they are all similar in idea but at the same time different in execution. Why ? cause the cars are significantly different. What works for 1 will not work on the other.


RBR


ATR

[Gillian]

Ah okay I get what you mean. I was thinking along the lines of low rake vs high rake, double diffuser, F-duct etc which I think will be difficult to do within the constraints of the new rules.

Really hope Alpine will be competitive next year so Alonso can get in the mix too.

[diffuser]

Ah okay I get what you mean. I was thinking along the lines of low rake vs high rake, double diffuser, F-duct etc which I think will be difficult to do within the constraints of the new rules.

Really hope Alpine will be competitive next year so Alonso can get in the mix too.

yep.

[Wouter]

[peewon]

So the cars have to be significantly different right????

If the RBR and ATR cars are identical, some team like Alpine will says something(like 2020 RP...but now the rules are clearer on what the teams can or can't do with regards to copying). Then RBR/ATR will both have to prove that they each designed their own car and came up with the same design, while 8 other teams designed their own cars and came up with DIFFERENT designs. Once the cars have gone down different aero paths, they can't help each other. What helps one car's aero will not likely help the other. The only thing they have left is for ATR to do aero work for RBR. I have no idea how they're policing that or how they're restricting the amount of time a team can spend in the tunnel and on what they're working on.


For example before the 2021 season started, the rules pretty much said you could change only the front or the rear of the chassis structure (the rules were more complicated that that, I'm just simplifying it for speed). RBR completely reworked the rear of the car. while ATR choose to keep last year's rear end and work on the front.

I mean the rules were there before also and it didnt stop RP and Merc. Protests were lodged but in the end, I feel Toto and Stroll have a lot of power with FIA and liberty. Leaving aside blatant violations like that, big teams could also assign the junior teams separate areas of research, so if they have 3-4 promising design options, They can split them up amongst the diff teams and provide feedback to each other on what works and doesnt. You cant regulate teams from landing on the optimal solutions and the design work is not hard to fake when you know where you want to end up.

[diffuser]

The rules weren't there in that nobody had though of and/or the ability wasn't there to designing a car based on photos of another.

They've improved the rules but they may not be perfect..they may need adjusting.

Several scenarios made the RP coping of the 2019 Merc even a consideration.

1 - the technology was there.
2- the 2019 Merc was 2 seconds or more faster than the 2019 RP.
3 - Merc already had found changes for 2020 Merc that they weren't threatened by RP using the 2019 Designs.

The reason the Mercs were so much faster was cause of running for several years with triple or may more or RP's budget.

The introduction of the CAP has eliminated points 2 and 3.

Hopefully the regs take care of the rest.

This still remains to be seen but in the future if any car is consistently 1 second a lap faster than the slowest car, people will start to question if they are cheating. The cut off might not be one second, it might be larger or smaller but something like that. The big 3 were only the big three cause they spent so much more money that everyone else.

[NL_Fer]

Apart from a few million in prize money, wouldn't finishing higher lower your testing/wind tunnel time for next year?

I'm not sure if they adjust the amount of time twice a year. I know they do it in the middle of the year, they did it back in June or July(think it was after Silverstone). My Guess is they do it twice a year (January 1st/July 1st). The real pain starts next year.


.

New sliding scale on aerodynamic testing in F1

Teams' previous season's  % of aero testing  % of aero testing 
championship position     allowed for 2021   allowed for 2022-25
         1                    90%                  70%
         2                    92.5%                75%
         3                    95%                  80%
         4                    97.5%                85%
         5                    100%                 90%
         6                    102.5%               95%
         7                    105%                 100%
         8                    107.5%               105%
         9                    110%                 110%
  10+ or new team             112.5%               115%

That seems rather arbitrary and frankly,impossible to enforce effectively, which is my fear with the budget cap as well, considering Alpine doesnt have customer/junior teams to pool resources/testing from. You can bet that most of the research and designs Mercedes come up with up, will be shared with the likes of AM and Williams. They can even split areas of research amongst them and share that knowledge with each other, through parts purchase or shadowy parallel thinking claims as they did with the brake ducts. Same for Ferrari/Haas/AR and Red Bull/AT.

Redbull can buy parts of Alpha Tauri, but officially the buyer cannot have any influence on the design proces.

[diffuser]

I'm not sure if they adjust the amount of time twice a year. I know they do it in the middle of the year, they did it back in June or July(think it was after Silverstone). My Guess is they do it twice a year (January 1st/July 1st). The real pain starts next year.


.

New sliding scale on aerodynamic testing in F1

Teams' previous season's  % of aero testing  % of aero testing 
championship position     allowed for 2021   allowed for 2022-25
         1                    90%                  70%
         2                    92.5%                75%
         3                    95%                  80%
         4                    97.5%                85%
         5                    100%                 90%
         6                    102.5%               95%
         7                    105%                 100%
         8                    107.5%               105%
         9                    110%                 110%
  10+ or new team             112.5%               115%

That seems rather arbitrary and frankly,impossible to enforce effectively, which is my fear with the budget cap as well, considering Alpine doesnt have customer/junior teams to pool resources/testing from. You can bet that most of the research and designs Mercedes come up with up, will be shared with the likes of AM and Williams. They can even split areas of research amongst them and share that knowledge with each other, through parts purchase or shadowy parallel thinking claims as they did with the brake ducts. Same for Ferrari/Haas/AR and Red Bull/AT.

Redbull can buy parts of Alpha Tauri, but officially the buyer cannot have any influence on the design proces.

Those would be called Transferable Components (TRC) in the regs
ARTICLE 17: COMPONENTS’ CLASSIFICATION 105
17.1 Definitions
17.2 General Principles
17.3 Listed Team Components (LTC)
17.4 Standard Supply Components (SSC)
17.5 Prescribed Design Components (PDC)
17.6 Transferable Components (TRC)
17.7 Open Source Components (OSC)
17.8 List of LTC, SSC, PDC, TRC and OSC


you can look at 17.8 yourself ...none of those are aero parts. They're all stuff like PU, gearbox and suspensions.

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... -10-31.pdf

[Wouter]

HUH ???