The close battles between Mercedes and Red Bull for the 2021 Formula 1 titles are making this season one of the most exciting of recent ones. In order to figish on top, the duel between these two teams is of course also focused on the technical front, with a battle that is played out on a knife-edge and on every detail, as explained by formu1a.uno:
After the technical issues concerning tyre pressures (following the Baku outbursts), flexible rear wings and an unsuccessful request from Red Bull for clarification on the Mercedes endothermic, the Anglo-Austrian team’s magnifying glass has shifted to the behaviour of the Mercedes W12 rear suspension on the straights.
After the Mercedes’ display of strength at Istanbul Park, Red Bull boss Christian Horner pinpointed how the rival car has once again become the undisputed queen when it comes to power on the straights, explaining this progress as a result of the movement of the rear suspension.
The Red Bull Racing team principal referred directly to the fact that Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas’ car uses a variable set-up on the straights, acting on the rear suspension. By squashing down significantly at high speeds, the W12 effectively cancels out the straight-line rake angle, stalling the diffuser to further reduce drag.
Dynamic straight-line set-up is in itself a familiar phenomenon in Formula 1: as speed increases, a car with downforce wings is pushed downwards more and more, undergoing a natural change in ground clearance.
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However, according to Red Bull, the W12 is able to exploit this ‘normal’ behaviour more aggressively than others. “What we saw in Turkey was an extreme version of what is normally done,” said the Red Bull boss.
In the Turkish Grand Prix, from the onboard shots of the rear wing, it was clear that the rear suspension was being compressed into the third element, lowering the whole body. In reality, it is obviously the rear end that is lowered towards the asphalt, but as the camera is fixed on the body of the car, the suspension arms appear to be moving upwards.
The W12, a single-seater designed to work with a lower rake than Red Bull’s, at least until Silverstone lacked much in the way of efficiency compared to the excellent W11; in order to perform better on the tyres, the engineers of the world champion team had to opt to use more load at the rear.
Having to use more wing, even with a slightly more powerful engine due to some reliability issues with the Honda unit up until the Baku GP (read more), did not guarantee better straight-line performance than the rival RB16B.
The speed gap during qualifying, the session least affected by possible wakes, in the first five GPs has in fact remained very small between the two cars; the Spanish GP is to be taken with a grain of salt as Red Bull had to fit a higher-load rear wing on Saturday to make up for the lack of load with a wing with less chord for the specific conditions of the Montmelo asphalt.
However, the RB16B stands out as a car that can generate a lot of downforce from high-efficiency components in many conditions, not least because of its aggressive rake set-up, such as the underbody and diffuser, and therefore has plenty of grip in corners without overloading the wings.
At Paul Ricard and in the two Austrian rounds, the speed gap tilted in Red Bull’s favour, due to the lower efficiency of the W12 and a major step forward by the Honda PU in France, which solved the reliability problems mentioned above, so much so that Lewis Hamilton asked his team for major updates.
The aerodynamic and engine updates arrived between Silverstone and Hungary, taking the W12 a very important step forward.
Not so much at Silverstone, where with just one hour of free practice, due to the new Sprint Race format, the engineers of the champion team were unable to optimise a package that was far too aerodynamically drained (hence the almost 7 km/h delta).
This was the case in the following rounds, with the exception of Holland where the W12 could not count on a full power unit due to problems with the lubrication system caused by the many elevated corners at Zandvoort.
Focusing again on the speed gaps, it can be seen that since Silverstone the gap has clearly shifted in favour of Mercedes, averaging 4km/h while in the first eight GPs of the season it was slightly in favour of Red Bull (0.3km/h).
It’s mainly a question of upgrading the engine part (more on that in a moment), now pushed to the max and even beyond, especially for the endothermic, which is causing some reliability problems in terms of mileage.
However, there is more. The updates brought to Silverstone have allowed the setup window to be widened, both aerodynamically and, above all, on the chassis, to make the tyres work better.
Now, on some tracks, they are allowing the use of a much “softer” rear setting than at the start of the year, which would favour the dynamic rake set-up and greater flattening of the W12 on the straights.
This would have the important benefit, highlighted by Horner at the start of the Austin weekend, of being able to use a more heavily loaded rear wing, while still managing to be (faster) on the straights.
However, this “trick” that the Brackley team has found to deal with Red Bull cannot be used so aggressively on all tracks.
In the American GP in Austin, this peculiarity of Hamilton and Bottas’ car was less evident because the set-ups certainly have to be stiffer to cope with the fast snake in the first sector.
However, the speed gap in Austin remained almost identical to what was seen in Holland, Turkey and only partially at Monza.
According to Red Bull, another circuit where Mercedes might be able to exploit the dynamic set-up well is Jeddah. “On some tracks it will have a greater impact than others,” said Horner. The new ‘city’ of Saudi Arabia, which will make its F1 debut on 5 December, is said to be extraordinarily fast. According to simulations, average speeds in excess of 250km/h are possible, which would put it at the top of the world’s fastest street circuits (in F1).
On a kinematic level, the Mercedes suspension works in such a way that the change in set-up is not uniform, but more sudden once a certain speed range has been passed. This would have advantages especially in mid-range corners, where it is important to maintain a certain steep angle to get more diffuser exit section.
This aspect has made the Red Bull men turn up their noses and make them suspicious, and they are trying to put pressure on the rival team, after Mercedes itself had raised the issue regarding tyre pressures and flexible wings.
At least in the media, since the team from Milton Keynes has already stated that it does not intend to lodge a protest on the matter because “We don’t think it’s an illegal practice”, admitted Horner himself.
Scuderia Ferrari are also in agreement, as the Maranello team is totally convinced that the rear suspension behaviour of the Mercedes W12 is the result of a mechanical feature, and therefore completely legal.
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