Harlow: Get it right and you’ll go well

All F1 teams have to make special preparations for Monza to deal with the high-speed nature of the Italian track, and that means preparing a bespoke low downforce aero package. Circuit engineering director, Dominic Harlow, explains how Force India prepares for the fastest race of the season.

Dominic, how different is the aerodynamic package for Monza?

Monza always requires a new rear wing. You run about 80 - 85% of your maximum downforce and there’s a similar reduction of drag to about 75% of our total. The efficiency of the car goes up a little bit at those levels. Coupled with that, this is the first time that we’ve gone there with DRS.

When did you do the wind tunnel work for Monza, given the summer shutdown must have affected your schedules?

It was at the end of June and beginning of July that we started to look at it. We test mostly at the higher downforce levels and probably spent a week or so just on Monza. The parts would have been released about eight weeks ago. Had we not had the shutdown, we would have turned that around a bit faster.

There are two independent DRS zones for the race – the start/finish straight and between the second Lesmo and Ascari. Did you expect that?

It’s interesting that the FIA hasn’t set it before and after the Parabolica, on the basis that you might catch someone, maintain a minimum gap in the Parabolica, and then be able to make a pass on the pit straight. I guess they reasoned that was possible already and overtaking into Parabolica would be very difficult, so they’ve tried it in the other area for perhaps a larger laptime advantage for the trailing car. They are very rigorous in the method they apply to determine the zone and it seems to be working well.

With the Monza wing the DRS gain is less, but any extra speed must be useful?

Yes, the effect will be quite a bit smaller, because the amount of downforce the wing is generating is less. You’ve got 80% of the maximum downforce on the car, but the reduction comes nearly all from the wings. Given that the wings are roughly 30% each of the overall load, with the rest coming from the floor, it cuts quite a lot of their authority.

We always look at rear wings at Monza, but how much does the front change?

You’ve got to balance the downforce, so we reduce the capability of the front wing accordingly. Also, Monza is not a track that demands a forward aero balance because you want a reasonable amount of braking stability and entry stability, so we tend to run a little bit more rearwards and therefore less front wing. It’s fairly easy to achieve that with a flap change.

We’ve seen recently that the car has been competitive on all kinds of tracks. Do you think you will still have an edge at Monza over the teams you are usually fighting against?

I would hope that we’ve still got the upper hand. I think we’ve got nothing to fear, but equally there’s no reason to be more bullish than anywhere else. Get it right and you’ll go well, get it wrong and it’s easy to mess up.

Source: f1pulse.com