In 2021, the Formula 1 Constructors World Championship was once again won by Mercedes, who proved more consistency in its fight against Red Bull, despite the fact that Lewis Hamilton eventually lost the Drivers’ title to Max Verstappen. However, with just five weeks until the first pre-season testing session at Circuit de Catalunya, it is a good moment to look at a major aspect of the 2022 championship:
The new generation of cars are definitely in the final stages of production, while development – which has been going on for a year – will continue to be very important even after the teams will present the cars and take to the track for the testing sessions. The research and development process never stops in Formula 1, but from the 2022 Formula 1 season, teams will be even more restricted due to the changes regarding the Technical and Sporting Regulations: the number of hours allowed in the RCFD simulations and then in the wind tunnel is decided based on the overall results of last year.
How the Balance of Performance will impact on the development of teams
Taking into consideration the fact that Mercedes won the Constructors World Championship in the previous season, from January 1st of this year the Brackley team has to limit its work only to 280 hours available in the wind tunnel “during the aerodynamic test period” as compared to the 460 hours granted to Haas, which ended the 2021 season in last place, without scoring any points. This means that Haas will be able to work on simulation verification or aerodynamic testing for more than 7 hours each day, while Mercedes will have only 4.5 hours to perform the same tasks.
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Last year, as a result of the poor placing in the 2020 Constructors’ standings, Scuderia Ferrari was allowed 102.5% of wind tunnel/RCFD time (against the 90% allowed to the first team in the standings) – which was the equivalent of one more “session” (a weekly cycle of 50 hours) of development, that according to the engineers is worth 0.1 seconds per lap in terms of race pace improvement.
Based on the updated Sporting Regulations for this championshio, the Italian side will have 10% more RCFD/wind tunnel time against rivals Mercedes and 5% more as compared to Red Bull – but at the same time 5% less than McLaren, with the Maranello team finishing ahead of its direct rival in the 2021 |Formula One season. Then all the other teams based on their position in the 2021 Constructors’ Standings – at least until June 30 of this year, when the new standings will reshuffle the values for the second half of the season. Maranello has updated the correlation in the wind tunnel, increased the data simulation staff and acquired engineers from Red Bull and Mercedes.
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