When asked why he had chosen McLaren – allegedly by the end of 2024 – by RaceFans during an interview in Monaco on Thursday, Lando Norris led the team’s plans to build a new wind tunnel as one of the “combinations of several things in the Past “to a few years that we have done, but also things that we will have in the future.
“I think having our own wind tunnel is one of the greatest things,” he continued, adding that it would be a lot easier for “the boys and girls who travel all the way to.” [Toyota’s facility in] Germany every time and go to the wind tunnel, spend three weeks there in isolation, come back and spend time in isolation again and so on. We lose a lot of time compared to other teams who make it much faster. “
Wind tunnels are extremely expensive parts of the kit that not only need to be installed, but also maintained and operated. A $ 60 million (£ 42.4 million) team is unlikely to get a lot of cash on a turnkey project, and even upgrading existing facilities at cutting edge costs, at least half of that. Added to this are the annual operating costs: Otmar Szafnauer from Aston Martin expects around 10 million US dollars to operate a tunnel and supply it with scale models.
Norris was excited about McLaren’s wind tunnel plans. He told RaceFans that a new tunnel is an integral part of his team’s plans for his new factory – currently in the advanced planning stages – so he knows exactly what he is talking about. A source on a competition team suggested that annual operating costs “could double depending on how much aerodynamic development a team does on what basis.”
But now comes the problem: It is planned to ban the use of wind tunnels in Formula 1 completely by 2030. Pat Symonds, F1’s chief technical officer, recently claimed eight of the ten teams are in favor of such a ban once computational fluid dynamics can produce accurate results. Symonds estimates that tunnels can take up to 3000 kW to propel the air at full speed, resulting in utility bills of over $ 1 million a year.
Indeed, the six team bosses who were more or less present during the FIA’s pre-race press conference have expressed their support for such a ban, although some have expressed reservations.
“Obviously, if it helps reduce costs, it’s a good move,” said Laurent Rossi, Alpine CEO, although he wondered, “What is the CFD to track reliability and I think we still are not so far that we can. ” Just let go of the wind tunnel completely. “Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff agreed.
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Ferrari’s Mattia Binotto said at the conference: “There is still a long time to go [2030]. I think all teams are open to the discussion and open to accepting it at some point because it’s still a long time to come. Are we ready today to ban the wind tunnel? Not at all.
Wind tunnels are not “environmentally friendly” – Horner “I think in general it was always about construction simulations and tests. Testing is still very important whatever it is: aerodynamics, engines, etc. I think it’s right to discuss this, but I think testing is part of our normal design process. For today it’s important to have the wind tunnel, and we’ll see how much simulation will evolve in the future. “
The most intriguing answer, however, was provided by Red Bull’s Christian Horner, who said he was “educated [the topic] a few months ago to have a longer term view because a wind tunnel is not very efficient, not very environmentally friendly and the world is evolving in simulations, the tools, the way CFD evolves so quickly. “
He believes that F1 “should have a 10 year view on this, so that it is far enough away that these effectively dinosaurs of high-power and high-power machines are a thing of the past and that Formula 1 is up to date the technology should be. ”
He cited the Aston Martin Valkyrie supercar (developed by Red Bull) as an example of what could be achieved without wind tunnels. “It never went into a wind tunnel during its entire development phase.” Given that the team’s technical lead, Adrian Newey, is F1’s preeminent aerodynamicist, Red Bull will have been extremely careful about the full implications of a total ban.
Significantly, Andreas Seidl from McLaren, who is about to build a new wind tunnel, “fully agrees with Christian”.
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He said McLaren supports the plan provided there is “a good medium to long-term plan with a glide path to get that plan in place. At the moment we are not discussing the introduction of a wind tunnel ban from 2030 at the earliest, which we also support. “
Virgin designed its Formula 1 car without a wind tunnel. In 2010, Manor Grand Prix Racing, later renamed Virgin Racing, unveiled its first car – the VR01 – whose aerodynamic surfaces were allegedly designed using CFD. While there were a multitude of factors, the design failed to score a single point in a total of 26 starts, getting the best result of 14.
Over 10 years later, two teams, Aston Martin and McLaren, have concrete plans to spend tens of millions in any currency on building wind tunnels in the short term, though the ban may be imposed in less than 10 years (conservative $ 150 million on construction) and operation of new plants. This suggests that they lack full confidence in CFD as a possible alternative.
As Binotto said, 2030 is a break, but eight years go by in F1 in a flash – as the introduction of the current hybrid engines proves: That was eight years ago, when Lewis Hamilton was once again a one-time champion. In practice, 2030 may be too early to fully migrate to CFD, but delays could lead teams to invest in costly upgrades to existing tunnels or build new ones – which in turn complicates a ban.
Thus, as always, F1 has no time to lose. Delays could cost tens of millions, which in turn would mock all cost-saving ideals.
F1 season 2021
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