How the low-rake F1 concept brought Aston Martin to a crossroads

Even the team can’t answer that question yet, although Mercedes is a little encouraging.

This should be the year the Silverstone team broke away from midfield thanks to additional funding and the arrival of Sebastian Vettel. Instead, the team found itself in the back of this group.

In Bahrain, Lance Stroll was just scratching in the third quarter, scooping a point in 10th place, while Vettel had a disastrous weekend that included two penalties and ended in a low 15th place.

Team boss Otmar Szafnauer has made no secret of the root cause of the problems – he is firmly convinced that the aero optimizations made by the FIA ​​to reduce downforce for 2021 have disadvantaged the two low-rake teams Aston and Mercedes more than any other . And making up for that loss will not be the work of the moment.

“After analyzing the data, the change in regulations hindered the low-rake cars much more so we expected a tough race,” he said in Bahrain.

Mercedes appears to have got its problems under control and went from a tough test in Bahrain to a race win at the same location in less than two weeks.

There was quite a bit of Lewis Hamilton magic in that performance, however, and it’s clear to everyone that the Red Bull is the faster car now.

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Aston has the potential to improve – but even if the budget cap has a greater impact on its larger competitors, the team has fewer resources than Mercedes.

And like all the other teams, it must also focus on the 2022 program. The last thing it took Technical Director Andrew Green and his men to redirect additional research and development efforts back to solving fundamental problems with the current car.

It is worth remembering how the team found itself in this situation. At the beginning of the 2020 season, the then Racing Point team decided to switch from high to low rake for various reasons.

First, and most obviously, low rake helped Mercedes have the fastest car.

Second, the Mercedes transmission and suspension points for the chassis were optimized for low incline, so it was logical for Racing Point to finally follow the route chosen by its supplier.

And third, a shortcut to 2020 performance should free up R&D resources for the new rules by borrowing a proven philosophy – which should then be rolled out in 2021.

If it hadn’t worked, only the 2020 season would have been wasted and the team would have a flying start to the new regs.

“The inspiration comes from the fastest car last year,” Green told Motorsport.com during the first test of the RP20, which revealed the similarity to last year’s Mercedes W10.

“That’s where our inspiration came from. It’s – why shouldn’t we? We had a car that ran for seventh place in the championship. And we have another year of those regulations and the development that we saw with the high.” Rake Auto for me just wouldn’t deliver, and it was worth taking a chance.

“And it’s a big risk. We tore up what we did before, fresh piece of paper, where do we start? Well, you’re not going to start looking at the slowest car on the grid, are you? They ‘we’re going to each other look at the fastest car, and that’s where we started.

“If it works, it works. If it doesn’t work, we’ve lost a year, but I don’t think we would have lost anything if we hadn’t. The downside of not doing it was much greater.”

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal and CEO, Aston Martin F1

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

It worked, as evidenced by the fact that the team won a race and took a pole. The final championship position of fourth place was affected by too many failures and the penalty for copying brake ducts and was not fully representative.

The new rules were postponed to 2022, so the low-rake concept had to deal with the renamed Aston team for another year. That would have worked fine if the aero rules hadn’t been changed in two steps.

It’s interesting to remember that after the first one, confirmed by the FIA ​​in June, Green already realized that it was a big change.

Due to the shutdown, F1 teams were unable to run their own simulations during the discussions.

“If we [the FIA technical working group] We decided to change that we weren’t allowed to run simulations on a current car. The simulations came from the F1 with their modeling, “said Green in June.

“It wasn’t until we got back from break and looked at it that we realized how big the change was.”

A few weeks later, the FIA ​​added three more aero changes to create a package that supposedly resulted in a 10% reduction in downforce. Even later, Pirelli created a new design for 2021 with wider fronts that had an aero influence.

By then it had become clear at Racing Point that low-rake cars would actually be more successful than high-rake competitors.

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” said Szafnauer after the race in Bahrain. “But last year it was warned by the low-rake runners that this would have a bigger impact than the high-rake runners. And we were right. It was pointed out at the time the regulations were enacted. “

He also stressed that these rule changes would not be unanimously supported.

Aston Martin AMR21 floor

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

“No. Number one, there was never a vote. Number two, there was an indicative vote.

“So that was just in the technical subcommittee [working group]that all technical directors had to have an indicative vote and three teams voted against.

“You have to remember that only two teams have a low-rake concept. So even one of the high-rake teams voted against it. So far from unanimously. And it wouldn’t even have the eight-out-of-ten. Rule passed. ” Because three voted against. “

What the team can’t do is switch their basic philosophy back to high-rake, even if they could make such a commitment to bring new pieces through the system.

“Worse still, for the first time in my 24 years of sport I can remember that we had to homologate the chassis,” said Szafnauer.

“You could only change it if you had actually used your tokens for the suspension. Even if we wanted to drive a ride height of 150 mm at the rear, we can’t.”

As mentioned earlier, the profits Mercedes has made since the Bahrain test have been encouraging – a low-rake car can be improved.

The problem is that Aston Martin is now looking to the year 2022 and does not want to spend scarce resources on fire fighting problems with the current car.

After finishing fourth under the new aero test rules in last year’s championship, the team has at least more wind tunnel hours and CFD usage than the teams that finished before it, but that’s not very convenient.

What should have been an advantage for the preparations for 2022 could now be easily swallowed.

It’s an unfortunate situation as a driving force behind the original low-rake move was to free up resources for the new regulations.

Szafnauer says Aston doesn’t yet know when to make a full focus shift in 2022 as it can’t afford to be left behind.

“Well, that’s a really good question,” he said. “If I knew I would tell you, but unfortunately I don’t know.

“So the compromise has to be how much more we can gain this year and at what cost for next year? That is really very, very difficult to predict. And so we will continue in parallel at this point.”