Is your dream to work in Motorsport?🏎

In this interactive workshop, former team principal Rex Keen will show you the available career paths... and how to get started!🛠💡
(Organized by United Motorsport Academy)

You can sign up here👇

https://unitedmotorsportsacademy.graphy.com/courses/Motorsport-Engineering-Workshop-RexKeen-65b7266ee4b0e826f8b7f7e0?affCode=NBUQBO

Stable rules➡️Convergence in design💡

The new Aston Martin AMR24 and Ferrari SF24 look much more similar than in the previous years 🔍

As sub-optimal design choices are discarded, engineers are left with fewer options❌

Will we see a tighter field this year?🤔

The new RB20 has… NO SIDEPODS INLETS?!?😜

Definitely a trolling act by their graphic designers…

What are we going to call this? The ‘no-pods’?🤔👀

Weekly reminder that you can JOIN the CHAT channel to discuss my analyses OUTSIDE of the 'comments'!
👇Use this link👇
https://t.iss.one/FDataAnCHAT

SF24 vs RB20🔎

Notable differences👇
🟢Push vs Pull-Rod
Carbon fibre's tensile strength is higher: look at how thin RedBull's rod is!➡️Lower mass and airflow disruption
🟣Different wishbone inclination
⚪️Underbite vs Overbite
🟠Different upper-plane load distribution
Not to mention each team's signature difference: smaller triangular vs larger circular airscope

The 🟠 McLaren MCL38 and 🔵Red Bull Racing RB20 share several traits💡

✅Downwashing sidepods
✅Early, deep undercut
✅Overbite (shorter on the McL)
✅Cannon shoulders
✅Round, large airscope

Main differences:
❌Sidepods inlets
❌Rear wing design

Can you spot a few more?😏

FRONT SUSPENSIONS COMPARISON

PULL-ROD:
🟠McL
🔵RB

PUSH-ROD:
🟢Aston
⚫️Mercedes
🔴Ferrari

No team changed architecture vs last year: they either thought they made the right choice OR that the costs and learning curve associated with a change weren't worth it.

Time will tell!

FRONT WINGS

💡Mercedes might have found a loophole!

By not structurally attaching the uppermost element to the nose, they might recreate the infamous 'Y250' vortex, which improves underbody efficiency👌

I can definitely see the other teams to get noisy about this🤬

Today is my birthday! 🥳🎉

And #F1 is about to hit the track again!
🏎️📈🛠️

Weekly reminder that you can find ALL my socials and extra content through THIS link
👇
https://linktr.ee/fdataanalysis

F1 2024 SIDEPODS INLETS💡

Teams are still opting for widely different designs after 2 years with stable regulations!

Merc, Aston and McL have way different shapes despite sharing the engine➡️There's probably no 'optimal' design

Do you think that I got RB's inlets right?🤔

RedBull’s ‘Shark Mouth’ Sidepods inlets!🦈

The inlet area looks minimal from the front due to the overbite (the part of bodywork that goes over it, partly covering from the front).

Never seen before💡

Not even one day into testing, and we already have the first photo of a 2024 floor!💡

Different angles, but the rear diffuser ramp seems quite similar to last year

[📸: Motorsport Images]
Bottom photo by @jiglesiash11

MINISECTORS - DAY 1

🔵VER: quickest in over 3/4 of the lap➡️1.1s gap over NOR! No clear weaknesses so far

🟠NOR: quickest braking into T4

🔴SAI had the best top speed into T14 (+1km/h vs VER, +4km/h vs NOR)

PUs turned way off: just 315km/h top speed (vs 323km/h in quali)

TOP SPEEDS - DAY 1
(On each car's fastest lap)

Top speeds are very low compared to last quali➡️Teams way down on power

⚪️Haas' top speed dropped the most (-18km/h)
🔵VCARB's (lol) the least (-6km/h), but RedBull is close, too (-8)... higher PU mode than most or improved drag?🤔

3 teams have already gone quicker than in 2023 quali!💡

LAPTIME CHANGE (s)
McL -0.40✅
Ferrari -0.08✅
VCARB -0.04✅
Merc +0.73
Sauber +0.78
RedBull +0.97
Alpine +1.08
Williams +1.12
Aston +1.69
Haas +5.80 (Tyre testing)

SAI was quickest (C4 tyres, softer than quali's C3)

Consider that the early-2023 McLaren had terrible performance, which explains part of the improvement. Same for the AlphaTauri

Ferrari instead was already a competitive car (on a single lap)

Ferrari has cooked: in the race simulation, Sainz was 0.59s/lap quicker (on average) than Verstappen in last year's race!😳

RACE PACE
SF24: 96.87s
RB19: 97.46s (+0.59s)
SF23: 98.33s (+1.46s ‼️)

And his top speed was still 9km/h down vs last race➡️Turned-down PU🔥

The team seem to have solved their tyre wear issues, probably to a higher degree than we expected

In the last stint (on Hards) the laptimes improved throughout the stint: the tyre wear didn't even offset the decreasing fuel load!

So far, Ferrari IMHO looks clearly 2nd quickest

Weekly reminder that you can JOIN the CHAT channel to discuss my analyses OUTSIDE of the 'comments'!
👇Use this link👇
https://t.iss.one/FDataAnCHAT

TOP SPEEDS - DAY 2
(During the fastest laps)

Red Bull 320km/h (-3 vs quali)
Williams 317
Alpine 315
Ferrari 315 (-10 vs quali‼️)
Aston 315
Merc 314
VCARB 312
McL 311
Haas 302⬅️Working on tyre deg

💡Ferrari on a lower PU mode
🚀RB20 might have even less drag than the RB19!

📊SF24 vs RB20 (and comparison with 2023 quali)

RB20's top speed and cornering speeds were higher; yet, SF24 produced an overall quicker lap

The SF24 is still far from the SF23's top speed and high-speed cornering performance➡️Time to be gained there!🛠

I think we can draw two conclusions:

1) Ferrari was still way down on power, at least on the main straight (-10km/h vs last year is massive, and cannot be explained by a slightly more loaded wing alone).

2) RedBull probably has further reduced their drag (to just lose 3km/h to ‘full beans qualifying PU mode’).

I'm preparing an extensive long-run analysis right now!🤩

Meanwhile, here is my (very early, so don't count on it!) pecking order prediction:
🥇Red Bull
🥈Ferrari
🥉McLaren
4️⃣5️⃣Aston/Mercedes
6️⃣7️⃣VCARB/Alpine
8️⃣9️⃣🔟Sauber, Williams, Haas

What's yours? What surprised you?🤔