While Mercedes was at the center of the impact on the low-rake cars, Aston Martin also appears to have taken a step backwards with its car from last year.
The team had a tough pre-season test that wasn’t aided by reliability issues and they have already made some interesting changes for the first F1 race weekend in Bahrain.
Aston Martin’s main focus is on the design of the AMR21 floor. Changes have been made to the middle and rear sections that he hopes will buy back some of the performance that has been lost with the introduction of the new rules.
Also read:
The changes are also quite extensive, increasing the front fin group from five to six elements, while a trio of additional fins, angled slightly differently, are placed directly behind it (red arrow).
The Z-shaped floor cutout found on a number of cars up and down the grid also appears to have been changed, enlarging the center notch and straightening the bottom edge until it meets the revised aerodynamic furniture that rises on top The grille is mounted on the ground in front of the rear tire (white line).
This new cluster (blue arrow) replaces the row of fins used during pre-season testing with two sections, a shorter flap followed by a larger flap divided by fins, similar to Mercedes’ (below ) solution used.
The changes will no doubt help unlock some of the power lost this year due to the changes in regulations. Perhaps, more importantly, this points to a trend where designers are not simply creating the floor from the one in the regulations, but instead creating a cutout.
Also read:
After all, regulations govern the maximum floor size and the teams themselves can opt for a different configuration if they feel they can make a profit with something smaller.
It’s also reminiscent of a very aggressive solution McLaren used in 2009 where there was a large cutout in the ground in front of the rear tire that seemed to affect the flow to the rear of the car, although it obviously gave up a significant amount of the ground on it.
