Interlagos Brazilian GP 2003

This winter seems to be having a serious impact on Formula One, maybe even more than most teambosses ever wanted. The new qualifying format is still up for surprises, which can be considered a good thing, but meanwhile others, with Bernie in front think the new format is not exciting enough, and want it back the old fashioned way. Only time will tell, so will it tell us what to do with that new tyre regulation that disallows tyre manufacturers to bring more than one rain-tyre specification for the race. Some people think it is way too dangerous to let drivers race for a position like they had to do in Brazil, where both Michelin and Bridgestone arrived with intermediates in the dripping rain.

We had the chance to see the most talented and daring drivers in front, while others chose do go carefully and get the points from others that did not make it to the finish. The result of the rain and intermediates got us the following pics:

Ferrari awaits the F2003-GA

Luckily, between the crashing vehicles, there were some novelties and reintroductions to be seen on the cars, more specifically on the rear and front wings. Both Ferrari and McLaren are sort of preparing the introduction of their new contenders, so not much news was to get there, although some minor things:

Ferrari came back with cutouts on the top of the rear wing, most likely to enable the upper blade to bend a little in the center, which would reduce air resistance and increase the top speed at straights. It should be noted though that Michael made no use of a rear wing with cutouts, and Rubens only used them before the race. The air holes seen in Malaysia right before the rear wheels had disappeared during most of the weekend because there was no more need for extra cooling, as air temperatures were more than 15°C lower than in Asia. More on the rear wing, the end of the lower aerofoil were bent a little bit up which could induce a pressure drop behind the lip, and thereby suck more air down to be pushed up again by the larger elements that show 'Marlboro'.

The FW25's children illness

During winter testing, it soon became obvious that the FW25 would have to undergo some serious changes during development to make it a decent contender in the championship. Williams is also very aware of their problems, and has therefore foreseen the FW25 with a totally new front wing and a more advanced midwing (the latter being also present at the Malaysian Grand Prix). The midwing has become a 'wing', instead of a little flap, and Williams have not been standing aside in this evolution. They are even taking part in the development of it, while most other teams copy it after some GP's. Now that midwing has two elements in an effort to create an as high as possible downforce with the lowest possible drag. Having such a small opening between the two flaps can greatly improve that downforce to drag coëfficient.

The front wing on the other hand is more or less a traditional change for most teams when they are in trouble with their aerodynamics, and thereby a logical episode in the evolution of the FW25. The upper image shows a front wing how it looked at the presentation, and the lower image displays the newly introduced wing at the Brazilian Grand Prix. That new wing somehow resembles a front wing that has been tested by McLaren during this winter's testing sessions. McLaren chose to not use it in race conditions (maybe they will on the MP4/18, but that is of course just a wild guess), and Williams have put their hopes on it, because apparently they expect a lot from the new changes.

Small notices

Juan Pablo Montoya followed his tradition of last year, and created a contest where people could design his helmet he would wear during the Brazilian event. This item was created by a 17yr old girl, who was his VIP guest during the whole weekend. The helmet will as last year be sold for a good cause. Monty will be wearing his usual helmet design again from Imola on.

The people at Toyota are not to be considered innovators in aerodynamics, as they are still looking to stabilise their team and find the way to the top. The car is a solid evolution of last year's TF102 with no special details at all. The TF103 is more like a mixture of the good things of last year's F1 cars, and so is the 'new' rear wing end plate, which has a part cut away right before the last aerofoil of the rear wing. BAR came up with this last year, whereafter some teams copied the idea. The main idea behind this is to make use of the lower pressure existing behind the upper plate of the rear wing, which causes some air to be pulled towards the center of the car, thereby increasing the efficiency of the rear wing, more specifically the last plate of that wing.

Tyres

The tyre regulations came already to discussion here, but what we did not know until now is who exactly produced the best intermediate tyre. In fact a guess would give us a 50% chance of being right, but in reality, there is no such thing as 'the best intermediate'. The image on the left shows a profile of the Bridgestone intermediate. The Japanese firm has chosen for more grip and less grooves than Michelin, from which the results became clear in the Brazilian Grand Prix. In the beginning of the race, when the track was still soaking wet, it soon became obvious that all Michelin drivers had a serious advantage compared to the Bridgestone drivers. Nontheless, when positions got totally shaked up and the track was drying up, the Bridgestone potenza tyres became much more useful because of less grooves in the tyre surface, which proved to be a serious advantage against Michelins. This means Michelin may decide to take intermediates to a non consistent weather area, while Bridgestone must be thinking about rain tyres, because their intermediates are just way too slippy when the rain falls out of the sky.