Aero properties of each car based on data from the 2023 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix:
This analysis was made by the F1DataAnalysis Twitter account:
The horizontal axis tells you how quick a car is, and the vertical axis why it is quick (or slow!). By combining the two things to get four different corners:
Top Right corner: quick car with high top speed, so a vehicle that achieves good performance thanks to high aerodynamic efficiency
Bottom Right corner: quick car with low top speed, so a vehicle that achieves good performance despite having a lot of drag; such a car must have very high downforce to be able to perform so well despite the top speed deficit!
Top Left corner: a slow car, despite its high top speed. This car will produce very low downforce, to be slow DESPITE having an excellent top speed.
Bottom Left corner: a slow car with a bad top speed. Such a car will be slow primarily due to high drag without much downforce in return (low aerodynamic efficiency)
So, based on this data, let’s take a look at how did cars performed at the Bahrain International Circuit:
Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull are both very efficient cars. The SF-23 car has even lower drag, but it was slower despite that -> Lower downforce.
Aston and Mercedes were practically identical! (the two points are one over the other). The two cars perform similarly and for the exact same causes!
Williams is a low-drag car with very low downforce as well.
The AlphaTauri was about as slow, but for the opposite reason (very high drag and low efficiency)
McLaren and Alfa were relatively slow in qualifying, with balanced properties.
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