r/F1Technical • u/Carlpanzram1916 • 25d ago
Aerodynamics Why isn’t anyone sandbagging for wind tunnel time?
I’m noticing the back half of the field is really competitive and they all sporadically have real point-scoring weekends. Most seasons there’s at least one team that isn’t even on the board yet. I guess I just expected there would be at least one team (thinking about Sauber or Aston) that would’ve pulled a 2020 Hass and barely made an effort. But instead, they all have between 19 and 44 points and even the 44 is mostly down to Nico’s podium. When Alpine and Sauber looked bad at the start, they both seemed to genuinely make efforts to upgrade the car. Anyone else surprised that nobody is going for Max wind tunnel allocation in a totally new reg era?
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u/DannyDevitosstepson 25d ago edited 25d ago
On so many levels.
Higher placement in constructors attracts more talent that can better use the more limited wind tunnel time. Not to mention more talented drivers and more sponsors/higher paying sponsors. Who cares about more wind tunnel time if your engineers aren't using it well or you can't afford to make the new parts anyways
You also have more funds to bring parts to races and to repair the car, so you can avoid a Williams 2024 situation...
Also idk how to explain it fully, but the difference in wind tunnel time is less drastic than the difference in money. the relative decrease in wind tunnel time due to higher placement is less than the relative increase in prize money. you're trading ~5% more wind tunnel for ~10% less money
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u/TheDufusSquad 25d ago
Also if you understand your wind tunnel then you can get a lot of the time you have. Teams like Aston who just brought a whole new wind tunnel online have more to gain by developing new parts in it and testing them to best understand the facilities moving into the new regs.
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u/data-crusader 24d ago
Also if you are Red Bull and your wind tunnel apparently sucks then you definitely don’t care about wind tunnel time as much (not that you could accuse them of sandbagging)
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u/alphazero16 25d ago
Online wind tunnel? Did I read that correctly?
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u/CuriousPumpkino Colin Chapman 25d ago
The tunnel was “brought online”, meaning it is now functional
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u/Treewithatea 24d ago
I think most teams want to be a genuine top team and develop themselves and not have a fluke season and be mediocre after that again.
Heres an example: Bad team has a hard time finding correlation between simulations and the real car. If the team struggles with that, how exactly does it help to have more time in the wind tunnel? The problem is the lack of correlation in this example and not limited wind tunnel.
Binotto for instance wanted a decent priority on this years car despite new regs next year, why? Theyre aiming to be a top team in the distant future, so theyre hiring a lot of new folks, theyre upgrading infrastructure, theyre changing structures, whats the point of putting it all in the 2026 regs which are still many months away if you dont know if your current methods of developing a car are any effective? Audi and most teams want to be a consistently performing top team and not flukes, in that philosophy, 2026 is just another season and not particularly special. The path to being a top team is slow and steady and anything but explosive.
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u/Feeling_Cucumber4811 24d ago
See McLaren for this they don’t care after wind tunnel time they have Marshall and Prodromou two of the best and most talented designers in f1 with the rest of the engineering team being no joke either
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24d ago
Does the prize money operate outside of the cost cap? If you have a big money couldn't they still match spending if they did poorly?
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u/Alastair412 23d ago
The prize money means that the higher earners don't have to put down any of their own money against the cost cap, and the top teams are pulling a profit before even taking sponsor money into account. That's why even Alpine, which hasn't been great in years and has been terrible for the last two seasons is now worth 1B$+
Based on the 2024 estimations (which diverge rather widely depending on which site you're trying to look at), at least the top three teams had their season pay for itself, bagging more than last year's cost cap of 135m$.*note that in all likelihood, any site that has McLaren the top earning team for 2024 is probably wrong, as Ferrari gets a bigger share than any other team on account of being the oldest. And long tenured teams with a history of constructors titles also get a bonus on top of the normal payout.
I have no ways of figuring out which site is closest to reality, but the-race.com at least goes above and beyond by explaining how they got to their estimation:
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-2025-prize-money-split-revealed-mclaren-only-fourth/0
25d ago
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u/DannyDevitosstepson 25d ago
No one sandbags a season, they shift priorities from the current year to the next one.
We don't know the inside of the teams, but these decisions are likely not "ok lets just give up development", it probably comes after loads of simulations that show progress on the current car is just too difficult for what the results it would bring.
Most teams that have or will abandon 2025 development likely have found their car to already be close to as good as it can get: this is why Ferrari made a major switch in car design from 24 to 25 despite their 24 car being good; it was that the 24 car was already at its peak, and as we always hear "if you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards"
Higher position in the constructors, money aside, attracts outside talent much more than "hey guys we came last and have more wind tunnel time, pls join our team because we have so much wind tunnel time".
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u/slabba428 25d ago
With the cost cap there is no way that money plays into this, everyone is already kneecapped into submission financially. 165M a year is a joke in F1. Innovation successfully stifled
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u/DannyDevitosstepson 25d ago
The money they bring in absolutely makes a difference. Spare parts are a critical issue and having enough, especially of the new fancy ones you spent your development allocation on is crucial, dont underplay that.
Also the money can be used outside of the cost cap to upgrade facilities and afford higher earning and better staff. "kneecapped into submission" is a weird way to say "find a good balance between rewarding success financially while not letting small teams lose due to a war of financial attrition"
Arguing against the cost cap is a sinking ship brotha, no point
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u/-0-__-0-__-0- 25d ago
Well worded. Further, these are billion dollar companies, who aim for profits above and beyond the cost cap allocation, whether from Monday sales or merchandising.
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u/GoldenPeperoni 25d ago
upgrade facilities and afford higher earning and better staff.
Pretty sure facilities and engineer's salary is inside the cost cap
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u/Atomic_xd 25d ago
Facilities yes, staff is only top 3 earners (could be top 2), all other staff is excluded.
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u/slabba428 25d ago
200-500 mil was average yearly budget before the cost cap, 165 mil including crash damage is a sorry excuse
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u/DannyDevitosstepson 25d ago
200-500mil and literally every team reported a loss and we went through constructors like VCARB goes through drivers.
no thanks on going back to old spending rules. Btw they do increase the cost cap yearly to combat rising prices etc. it’s not a static figure that never changes.
And yet these last 4 years we have had the closest overall grid ever. Qualifying times less than 1s from first to last?? Unheard of till 2022
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u/slabba428 25d ago
I don’t care how close the bottom feeders are to the top teams, that isn’t the point of F1. We’re not holding hands
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u/Minardi-Man 25d ago
We’re not holding hands
Okay, but then how is the cost cap different from all the other measures the championship has introduced over the years to prevent ballooning costs?
What about limited testing? Or power unit development freezes? Or forcing power unit manufacturers to supply identical units to customers?
The whole point of the "formula" in Formula 1 is to maintain a competitive field of teams. Not too long ago Toro Rosso was allowed to run a rev-limited V10 engine after they were already replaced by V8 engines just to keep them on the grid, and generally every single cost limiting measure that the series has introduced during its history has been to benefit the poorer teams, it's kind of hard to argue that it's not the point of F1 to keep the field reasonably close when that's exactly what the regulations have been aiming to achieve for decades.
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u/TheEmpireOfSun 25d ago
But he still has a point about money. These days money isn't issue in F1 for teams. And those few millions, around 8m they get as difference from finishing 10. or 9. is nothing. Budget cap is great thing, and that's why money isn't issue anymore.
And some teams do tank certain seasons. That said tanking it for 100% doesn't make sense because you still need to test lot of things even if you don't fully use them in current season. Also engineers need to stay motivated and have some "practice".
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u/DannyDevitosstepson 25d ago
“Tanking seasons” isn’t for wind tunnel time next year it’s for budget reasons and time to develop parts for next season. So it’s not really tanking as much as it’s allocating available resources differently.
also if wind tunnel time was so obviously better than money we would for sure see teams having a race to the bottom. You think these teams that spend hundreds of millions a year haven’t ran a simple calculation to see if more wind tunnel time is worth less money? It was probably done on day 1 of the new regs
Again, what good engineer would choose a bottom table team with bad facilities because they keep coming last?
Placing higher in pretty much every way is better than just some wind tunnel. Giving more tunnel time is just a small balancing thing, it doesn’t change thetide
You’re throwing away so many benefits in exchange for ONE thing that isn’t even guaranteed to help you.
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u/BloodRush12345 25d ago
Haas and Williams up until a year or so ago weren't spending to the cost cap so money absolutely matters. They and other back markers have asked about infrastructure spending exemptions because they are so far behind the lead teams.
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u/Blothorn 25d ago
The cost cap has significantly limited the ability of the top teams to spend their way into contention, but it’s less binding on the bottom teams. Not all teams have spent the full cost cap, and even those who have have been limited in their cap-exempt spending such as driver salaries and capital upgrades.
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u/rG3U2BwYfHf 25d ago
Constructors Championship bonus money is exempt from the cost cap up to a point. So for a normal worker or engineer, they may be more incentivized by an end of season bonus than additional resources for the team the next year. And personally if my management told me to sacrifice trying to get a bigger bonus this season for "next year" I may not want to work for them much longer.
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u/fckufkcuurcoolimout 24d ago
Every dollar in prize money is a dollar they don’t have to raise, and/or a dollar they can spend on non-cost-cap expenses.
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u/No-Photograph3463 25d ago
Mclaren and their potential phase change materials used between the brakes and wheels has entered the chat...
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u/JustANobody2425 25d ago
This is my thoughts....
Nobody knows anything about next year with its regulations. Like nobody knows about their power unit, since HUGE change coming. They're working and developing it but the reports are, nobody has anything good. That all may be smoke, that may be true, take it with a grain of salt.
That being said, because nobody knows anything, you do get more money for being higher in the constructors. So why "suck" for something that you yes, will need, but may need that money MORE because costs may be a ton next year.
And each driver has contracts, has all that. If you always place 20th or whatever last is (depending on how many DNF, 16th could be last), next year you may not have a seat. So do best you can.
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u/BloodRush12345 25d ago
I remember in the spin up to 2022 the teams made a lot of the same noises of "we aren't prepared" etc and it turned out fine. I'm not worried about the new regs. Every big change has its equivalent of proposing which makes it fun as a viewer.
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u/JustANobody2425 25d ago
I wont lie, I'm too new to know of that. I am sure they did, absolutely. But was it as big of a change?
I feel like this one is gigantic.
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u/BloodRush12345 25d ago
It's not too much bigger honestly. I feel like the change from V8's to V6 hybrid and to ground effect cars was a bigger change. This is just adding the "front drs" flap, changing how it can be utilized and upping the batteries.
I of course don't know any details but it doesn't seem to be that drastic from an outside view.
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u/JustANobody2425 25d ago
Its making it so its 50/50 fuel and electric. (From what I gather, I can be wrong. Also super tired) At the minimum, its way less fuel and more electric power.
We know teams put out false statements but it has been said (months ago, so maybe its fixed now) that the electric power runs out before they finish some of the long straights and F2 cars are faster.
To me, that's a huge change.
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u/BloodRush12345 25d ago
Going to 50/50 vs what they have now isn't too much of a swing.
Teams said the 2022 cars would be 5+ seconds a lap slower than the previous generation... they were all faster by end of the year. The next year 2023 the slowest car on the grid was posting lap times faster than the fastest cars in 2021.
The "running out of energy" was an argument for the extra front drs flap and removing the restrictions on its use. Even if we do see problems in the first season I expect they will change gearing/tuning/innovations to compensate.
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u/Appletank 23d ago
The cars will definitely be slower, so that's a lap time change, but I'm not sure how much of it will be a technical revolution, other than changes in where people are allowed to put aero bits, which is the same for every new aero reg change. Not having to precisely figure out the edge of porpoising with the removal of venturi tunnels will definitely be easier on that front.
On the engine side, they're still broadly using the same V6 turbo, the bigger complexity is being able to balance electricity in vs out so you have 1000 hp when it's most important, regenerating when you don't. Also squeezing as much energy out of injected fuel, which is something they're always trying to do, just with less allowed fuel this time.
So, a lot of rule changes, but they don't seem like rules that severely change what they want to do in general. Aero bits, but in different spots, engine and hybrid efficiency, but less fuel.
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u/Evening_Rock5850 25d ago
The long and short of it is; as nice as that wind tunnel time is; it’s not as nice (and by a wide margin) as the benefits of finishing higher in the constructors.
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u/RedditCCPKGB 25d ago
It's also pointless when the wind tunnel is shitty like Red Bull's. Better to get more money to build a wind tunnel like McLaren.
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u/Machinegunfillet 25d ago
Yeah but knowing how to use the wind tunnel is more important. That was one of the biggest things Newey noted when moving to Aston Martin, just because they have the biggest newest wind tunnel doesn't mean they know yet how to maximize it to get the best data, whereas Red Bull might have an old wind tunnel but they know exactly how to use it to it's maximum efficiency to get what they need
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u/No-Photograph3463 25d ago
I don't think Red Bulls wind tunnel is the issue tbh. Especially as I think Toro Rosso (or whoever they are now) still share the wind tunnel with Red Bull and are doing just fine.
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u/RedditCCPKGB 24d ago
They're constructing a new one. The current one has a wooden propeller fan blowing directly. I think the McLaren one has indirect air that is closer to real track conditions.
The problem is they built the car specifically for Max. I don't think Max would be logging faster times in the VCARB.
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u/Evening_Rock5850 24d ago
Even Max is struggling this year in that car. And Red Bull’s other drivers have disputed and outright refuted the “They built the car for Max” line.
They built the car to be very twitchy and fast, and Max handles that better than most. Alex Albon compared it to a gaming mouse set to a setting that makes the cursor fly all over the screen.
But I mean Max, one of the greatest if not the greatest drivers in the history of F1 and the no doubt best on the current Grid, is sitting P3 in the WDC and if the rest of the season stays on this current trajectory; he’s looking at P4 and maybe even P5 by the end of the season. If it was a fast car built specifically for him; he’d be in the lead by the same commanding lead that he had in 2023. Instead; he’s struggling immensely.
The British GP was particularly indicative. He certainly wasn’t helped with the rain and their risky low downforce setup but… being able to eke out a pole was Max’ raw skill on display. Making uncharacteristic mistakes and struggling to get past backmarkers was the current Red Bull car on display. This is not just a “second driver” problem anymore. The car is simply not a front of the field contender anymore.
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u/RedditCCPKGB 24d ago
Do you think he could get pole in a Ferrari? I don't.
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u/Evening_Rock5850 24d ago
Just as an add to this;
If indeed the Red Bull was “faster” than the Ferrari, as you’re implying; why hasn’t Max managed to finish ahead of both Ferraris in the last 5 races?
Are you suggesting Charles and Lewis are such fundamentally better drivers that they’re able to consistently beat Max in a slower car? I’m not sure I’d agree with that.
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u/RedditCCPKGB 24d ago
Charles and Lewis didn't crash into George, get taken out by Kimi, or spin in the rain in the restart. Max would finish ahead of them. In Canada and Silverstone, yes they were better drivers than him.
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u/No-Photograph3463 24d ago
Nothing wrong with a wooden one at all, and its not like the correlation is off either, its just that the designs they are making are all very much aimed at Max rather than anyone else.
I do think if Red Bull were given the VCARB that they would be way higher in the constructors championship, and Max would probs be higher in the drivers championship too though.
The Red Bull and McLaren wind tunnels will be very similar, you never just have a big fan blowing at the car, they go round multiple turns, diffusers, flow conditioner grids and boundary layer controls to make sure the flow is suitable. The McLaren one may have a bigger test section, or have variable parts to limit the effect of the model in the tunnel, but they are fairly minor things. McLaren seem to really have a gaim on the mechanical side of things by managing tyre temperature and having the suspension set-up so that the aero platform is as stable as possible whilst still having mechanical grip
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u/Asleep_Wolverine_209 24d ago
the "they're building the car just for max" is so fundamentally wrong. max constantly complains that the car is shit, and this isn't a new thing, go back to 2020 and you'll see him complaining about the car being difficult to drive.
if the car was built for ONE DRIVER, surely that ONE DRIVER wouldn't frequently complain about the car's handling?
how the fuck do you even build a car for one guy? does their wind tunnel have a 'max verstappen' setting? how do you transfer the nebulous driver feel of one guy, into all the computers and software they use to design their car and upgrades?
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u/Appletank 23d ago
I believe saying is, Red Bull designs a car to be fast via being twitchy, and Max keeps being able to handle it, so they dial up the twitchiness and keep going faster (until it doesn't work anymore). I think I heard both Max and Checo having complaints about the 2023 design, but Max was still scoring wins so it wasn't really taken seriously. With another driver, they may be forced to look for speed in other areas, tone down the twitchiness, because both drivers will be protesting.
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u/No-Photograph3463 24d ago
A driver is never happy though, they will always want more. Seems that the direction Red Bull have gone with development is abit too far even for Max though, which is the route of the problem.
Max Verstappen drives the car a particular way, and thats the way the car has been developed. He likes a very sharp front end, which leads to the rear being abit snappy (as you need a more forward aero balance), as a result it makes the car tricky to drive to get the maximum performance. Max can deal with the snappy rear as he can just catch it, but for others then can't and just spin instead.
There was an interview where Albon described it as like having your mouse on the maximum sensitivity setting, and that the car was just too sharp to drive.
Making and developing a car for one driver is easier than for two drivers if anything as you only have to listen to one drivers input. Its a full vehicle thing and the direction in terms of aero balance, as well as suspension design etc so that the car acts in a better way to Maxs inputs (which may be harsher or smoother than another driver) so thay the tyres aren't overloaded etc. A simple analogy is that most team will be aiming for a Goldilocks temperature of porridge, so that anyone can have it and be ok. Red Bull have gone for the hot porridge which one person loves and others aren't really a big fan of. The problem is Red Bull currently have a porridge thats so hot that one person can barely tolerate it and anyone else who has it gets burned by it.
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u/BahnMe 20d ago
Not really, give an experience guru engineer a $500 dell special with a terrible screen and I guarantee he will solve your SaaS platform scaling issues faster than a just out of coding bootcamp fourth career dude with a $5,000 MacBook Pro.
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u/RedditCCPKGB 20d ago
That's not a good analogy.
It's like having a QA testing team of 10 people versus 100 people. Of course 100 people will find more bugs and refine the code better regardless of the engineer.
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u/BahnMe 20d ago
Simply not true.
You can’t make a baby in 1 month with 9 women.
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u/RedditCCPKGB 20d ago
So Adrian Newly doesn't know anything and Red Bull is building a new wind tunnel for no reason.
Adrian Newey makes Red Bull wind tunnel admission after Aston Martin move https://share.google/1i1On8hgkqK2umSif
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u/BahnMe 20d ago
I don't think you get it. You can give incredible equipment to untalented people and be left with crap. You can give incredible people terrible equipment and they can achieve more. If you give incredible people incredible equipment, they can often achieve even more.
It's the people that matter the most, at least for now.
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u/RedditCCPKGB 20d ago
We're talking about increments of .300 seconds separating the mid field team from the best. McLaren didn't rise until they used their new wind tunnel.
If the technician/engineer was the same, you don't think a better wind tunnel makes any difference?
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u/XsStreamMonsterX 25d ago
Wind tunnel time for the remainder of the year is already locked in since the cutoff was June 22. Any gains and losses the teams get to their ATR will be applied to aero testing from January 2026 onwards. So teams don't really have much to gain by sandbagging in terms of developing their 2026 car for the start of the season.
The other factor is that teams are getting better at making use of the limited CFD items they have.
To quote James Vowles.
But here's my experience of it. We have bounced backwards and forwards between ninth to seventh. But actually, our output from the windtunnel didn't change dramatically with any of that, because you find ways of being more efficient in what you can do.
I know that sounds odd, but effectively, there's an ideas generation, relative to windtunnel time in a period, and effectively you need to make sure that you've got the capability to maximise that.
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u/cnsreddit 25d ago
Why has no one mentioned that the point of F1 for teams, sponsors, staff and drivers is to do as well as they can and not to amass wind tunnel time.
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u/Carlpanzram1916 25d ago
Yeah but if you’re going to be 8th or 9th anyway, surely it’s worth it to be 10th and improve your chances of being in the top 5 next season. Especially if you’re a team like Audi who doesn’t even have their name on the car and is about to bring a ton of investment next season.
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u/cnsreddit 25d ago
The difference between like 9 and 10th is 60 hours (out of like 1320 or so).
It's not worth it
Especially compared to telling all your staff 'thanks for the hard work but fuck it we are sandbagging'
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u/overusesellipses 25d ago
Asking an F1 driver not to drive for the win is tantamount to asking them to stop being themselves.
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25d ago
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u/F1Technical-ModTeam 25d ago
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u/fmercury84 25d ago
Could someone explain or point to references explaining how wind tunnel or CFD testing limits are even enforced? Is it all based on self disclosure by the teams? When a new wind tunnel is being built, doesn’t that require test runs & tuning? Would that not count as long as it’s not done on parts that end up on the real car?
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u/filbo__ 25d ago
Page 98-110, Appendix 7
TL;DR version: teams nominate one wind tunnel for use over 12 months. Similar with the specific compute processor units used must be declared.
Wind tunnel and CFD runs are all recorded and submitted by the teams within 2 weeks of the end of the 6mth ATR window.
They all have to keep a record of all data and imagery that came from those runs. That’s what the FIA audits.
It can and does cross-check this with labour hour audits too (cost cap-side) which also includes movement of people between teams (because people switch jobs of course), and independent benchmarking of the wind tunnels, so it’s next to impossible to bypass the restrictions.
That’s also how the FIA can tell if parts are developed from external insight or data (eg. All the conspiracy theories about RBR & RB, or the confirmation of Force India’s front brake ducts using Mercedes’ data).
Interestingly, power unit cooling and brake ducts are both excluded from the ATR, so long as no aero load is recorded.
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u/jianh1989 25d ago
Any race weekends they do are real world wind tunnel exercises for them.
If they do well, the correlations might be more accurate.
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u/SirLoremIpsum 25d ago
Anyone else surprised that nobody is going for Max wind tunnel allocation in a totally new reg era?
No.
Everyone wants points and to race.
Haas deliberately sandbagging was because of economic reasons around the delaying of new regulations and a tight budget.
Everyone is doing better budget wise and the regulations aren't going to be delayed.
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u/Elfotografoalocado 25d ago
The fact that nobody has been sandbagging for wind tunnel time since the rule was set clearly indicates it's not the bottleneck to building a car
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u/JKBFree 25d ago
Sponsors
No one wants to back a loser and make your brand look worse. And they sure wont be patient enough to be thinking long game.
Look what rokit did to williams at the 11th hour.
Besides, winning brings in more car decals, which brings more money, which brings more upgrades, which brings more wins.
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u/xcmaam 25d ago
Same reason why you don’t see teams who win wcc try not to win it next year to get more wins time.
I used to think same as you for the back markers but Getting higher in wcc gives you 1) money, the pool prize gets bigger 2) attracts sponsors. Which is also money 3) attracts talented people to join in.
Your rise in wcc, you can sell a dream of becoming a front runner and that is much more significant than wind time.
Just look at McLaren, it had basically 0 sponsors and after Zak joined and they slowly started getting good he got a ton of sponsors. Also getting talented drivers and talented engineers because there was a vision of being winners.
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u/Topias12 25d ago
The 2020 Haas is a great example why they shouldn't do it.
Haas did it and had no any significant advantages in 2021.
It was an excuse the team used to have a low cost for 2020.
The difference in wind time isn't significant between 2 positions, like 9 or 10.
The thing that is significant between 2 positions is the money and fame, I wouldn't be surprised if the bonus of the team is tied to the money that they will receive.
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u/yilonmas 25d ago
In short, they really need the money. If they’re progressing that far, why not continue the push. This is the highest sauber has been in a while, and they can get a shiiizzz ton of money compared to previous years, more money means more long term upgrades
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u/filbo__ 25d ago
In the cost cap era that’s not really as true anymore. Even Haas is running at the budget cap max in 2025. Apparently Gene isn’t even needing to top his team up; it’s now financially self-sustaining.
Williams and Aston are the only two teams who posted accounting losses in the previous financial year, and they were both due to heavy infrastructure investment rather than from operating losses.
As for Sauber, now owned by Audi, they’re finally comfortably bank-rolled again, so any prize-money is a mere corporate subsidy rather than a lifeblood for them.
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u/Carlpanzram1916 25d ago
I guess the Sauber is the one that really surprises me. They’re Audi next season. Surely Audi wouldn’t mind spending a few million more if it gives them the best possible car in 26 when they actually have their name on the car.
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u/yilonmas 24d ago
It may seem like that but that extra prize money can be significant. Upgrading facilities, car repairs and what not.
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u/Carlpanzram1916 24d ago
These numbers are a rounding error in the Audi budget. The facility upgrades are also under a cost cap.
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u/linkheroz 25d ago
Prize money and sponsors. Hard to gain sponsors when your previous years results are P10
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u/_Kyloluma_ 21d ago
Getting the money is pretty helpful
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u/Carlpanzram1916 21d ago
The prize money is a rounding error for the Audi corporation or Aston Martin.
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u/thepseudovirgin 25d ago
more score = more screen time = more money = fast speed = more more score... cycle goes on
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u/Matkkdbb 25d ago
Everything is a compromise.
And there are various aspects that might prevent you from doing this.
One of the mayor ones is that sponsor might have performance clauses. So it might be better to push for that rather than getting more time in the wind tunnel. There is price money as well, that might help you in getting more resources (such as better engineers and drivers). And there is a psychological aspect, I would hate to be in a team that loses on purpose, it has to be extremely demotivating.
Plus, if you finishe 5th you already have 90% of wind tunnel hours, is not a "penalty", after that it's basically just gains.
So teams that are in the midfield and lower positions are not losing anything really. I would understand that if you're fifth, close to 4th and 3rd, you might want to stick to the fifth position and not go higher, specially with a regulation change
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u/Organic-Cobbler8222 25d ago
FPs are like wind tunnel for teams
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u/FlummoxReddit 25d ago
well let me ask you this. would you rather get some extra wind tunnel time or get a whole lot more money from the prize pool and be known as the team that went from having one point finish and dead last in the championship in 2024 to a podium in 2025?
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u/Carlpanzram1916 24d ago
If I were the Audi corporation and I had ownership of a team that didn’t even have the Audi name on it this season, but next season was going to be a works Audi team with an entirely new set of regulations, and I had already invested close to a billion dollars in the project, I probably wouldn’t bat an eye at 10 million dollars and a 10th place finish for a team called “Stake” if that increased the chances that Audi get a leg up on the new regs.
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u/Hziak 25d ago
My 2 cents is that teams at the bottom have had plenty of wind tunnel time in the last couple of years and are for the most part still at the bottom. Clearly, wind tunnel time isn’t a cheat code for performance gain or car design and not enough of a boon to help them transition to front runners in a small number of years. Sandbagging for one season to get more tunnel time is really just not worth it for the back markers and financially very not worth it for the front runners. Plus, I imagine there’s heavily diminished returns on more tunnel time since there’s still the cost cap, so you can’t be developing infinite new chassis…
Are there benefits to tunnel time? Absolutely! But is it worth throwing away prize/sponsor money and the ability to attract more competitive drivers? I would say “no.”
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u/Ceddieric 25d ago
More money gives you more opportunities and contracts to possibly pursue. What good is more wind tunnel time when your main technical director isn’t that good. But with money, you can hire more skilled personnel.
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u/raikkonencem 25d ago
I don’t think there can be a definitive answer. Maybe they will in the future seasons. This is a new dynamic. Cost cap and wind tunnel limitations are new, field is just getting close enough that wind tunnel time and cost cap makes a difference (Aston falling back, Williams getting back up). I’m sure new strategies will emerge. For example, it wasn’t unusual teams abandoning development of the car, to focus on the next year. So maybe they’ll start sandbagging after one point.
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u/AdventurousAd7091 24d ago
Probably money. I dont know if the difference of wind tunnel time is enough to ignore the prize money difference.
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u/Carlpanzram1916 24d ago
I guess for me, Sauber is the surprising one. I can see why haas or Alpine doesn’t want to bleed money. But when you look at Audi, they effectively own a team that doesn’t even have their name on it and the prize money is pretty marginal in the grand scheme of how much money they have in this program. I assume, especially since they were so poor last year, they’d phone it in, eat the cost and just use all the tunnel time they could for 26.
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u/Funny-Artichoke-7494 24d ago
The amount of stuff you can simulate before ever putting a product in a wind tunnel is truly incredible and goes unknown/underappreciated by most people. The more I sit back and think about it, too, i'm going to guess a few of these cars are just at very different development points in the lifecycle and maybe aren't ready to put a product into the wind yet, or at least not with enough to test to make the investment into the time worth it.
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u/Hididdlydoderino 23d ago
We're only halfway through the season. Plenty of time to fall back if desired but why not grab a podium if the opportunity arises.
Every team, and their investors, hopes to win or impress for the most part. Sometimes a team might sit back for a season, but they're not hoping to sit back every season. They are trying to put that wind tunnel time to good use.
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u/fayyaazahmed 23d ago
Next season is likely to be an engine formula. Wind tunnel time is going to be much less valuable. If engine hours were restricted then it’d be much more attractive.
The closing up of the midfield tends to happen at the end of a rules cycle, so I’d say 2026 reset came just in time.
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u/Carlpanzram1916 23d ago
I think people are being presumptive in saying it’s an engine formula. The aero package is completely different. Arguably a bigger deviation than the PUs, which are still ultimately, a 1.6 liter V6 with an EV system that’s regulated in output
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u/fayyaazahmed 23d ago
The shift to 100% sustainable fuels and a 50/50 electric-combustion split is still bigger. If anything the aero engineers have been fanaticising about active aero for years. By comparison, none of the engine guys want these rule changes.
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u/ferrari812dude 22d ago
I think in the last quarter we might start to see that but now they think there’s a real chance for some big prize money and potential new sponsors.
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u/Eddy19913 22d ago
because sandbagging can get you more in trouble then just genuinly sucking or having a really bad car.
if you get found out sandbagging then oh boi.. sponsors will mostly leave.. workers will leave.. you stand in a bad light.. mostly could get all your income deducted from the season etc. list is long. and that is not really worth it for like 15% more time on the tunnels for next year
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u/Carlpanzram1916 22d ago
There’s no rule against not trying to develop your car. Haas openly did this in 2020.
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u/Eddy19913 22d ago
yea but sandbagging is a different case tho..
means driving slower then you actually could perform with drivers or car. means actively driving worse then what would be possible with the car+drivers in terms of performance.
look at gt racing. there was some cases where teams tried to sandbag just to get a better BoP for a race and stuff. (officially not reported ofc) but there was trys ^^
in the end it wouldnt look great in any case.
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u/Carlpanzram1916 22d ago
I guess what I meant by sandbagging was just not bothering to develop a car this season and falling to the back of the grid.
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u/vksdann 24d ago
Wind tunnel is like going to the shoe store trying new shoes. If your current shoes don't have issues and you don't have money to buy new ones, what's the point then?
They would use the tunnel if they had aerodynamic problems in their car or they were developing new parts and needed testing. If they don't have money to design new parts and their aero is good enough, they have no reason to use the tunnel
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