Monaco 2003

Getting in front in the first corner remains the perfect recepy for a Monaco victory, and Juan Montoya performed it as he should have. Williams got back on top during this weekend, but they were more or less helped by Ferrari, that lost the Grand Prix even a day before it started. A fifth and a seventh starting position were far from where they expected to be, which at the end allowed Kimi Raikkonen to widen the gap with Michael Schumacher in the championship.

One less fortunate driver is Jacques Villeneuve, who drove well until his engine broke in the 63rd lap. Jacques had been walking around in Monaco with his hair died white again, which kind of reminds me of the allmighty Jacques who took a pole on his first race, wanted to win every single race and believed in winning them! Now, the driver is hardly able to get his car to the finish 2 times out of 7 races. Was that the kind of progress Richards was talking about? Anyway, it's still a weird sight seeing a driver walk to the pits with a black carbon thing hanging under the helmet. Couldn't the hans device be incorporated in the helmet, so it would be less obvious?

Renault's aero-package

Renault was aiming high for this Grand Prix, but was unable to fulfill its expectations of a podium finish. They did however work very hard for it. More than any other team did they adjust the car's aerodynamics for this race.

The extra winglet in front of the rear wing is mostly used to stabilise airflow towards the rear wing, in order to make it more efficient since Monaco requires very high downforces, and sets almost no requirements about top speeds. This kind of extra flap just after the exhausts was also found with Toyota and Minardi. It was apparently not enough yet, since they sniffed in the trickbox and came up with the midwing again. A small wing located on top of the airbox should increase the overall downforce of the car, without hampering the airflow towards the rear wing.

Other changes, that have more chance to become more frequently used on the Renault are the layered bargeboard and some changes at the rear wing endplate. The bargeboards now look just like the ones on the F2003-GA. Despite these two layers, Ferrari and Renault are the only two topteams that still have these conventional bargeboards. McLaren has opted for a combination with turning vanes between the front wheels, and BAR, Jordan and Williams have even chosen not to use any bargeboards and completely rely on those turning vanes. It helps apparently, because McLaren's switch from the MP4/17 (which had large bargeboards) to the MP4/17D (equipped with smaller bargeboards but with turning vanes) has certainly helped increase the performance of their contender.

Renault has been the lead developer of rear wings this year, together with McLaren, and they have introduced a totally new end plate for the rear wing in Monaco. Some of the plate has been cut out, just under the second upper flap of the wing. It looks to me that if you would sit on the flap, it would break off (see image 3 hereafter, excuse me for the imagequality).

Williams revival

Whether it was a temporary revival is still a question, but it was one for sure. Not only Renault made changes to its car to cope with the high downforce demands. Williams didn't seem to need its wheelcovers anymore at Monaco, so they simply removed them from the car. Those covers that kept the rotating air around the wheel seperated from air going towards the rear wing, were still there on the Ferrari and the Renault.

As the picture on the right shows, the engine cover is assymatical around the exhausts. I thought I had seen this already at then Austrian GP, but I wasn't sure at that time. Now I have a picture that perfectly shows my point. Last year we could see Renault having an assymetric engine cover with different flip-ups at both sides of the car. It was for exactly the same reason as we see this at Williams. The left exhaust is covered by a much bigger protection than the right one. The cover allows hot air from the radiators to flow out around the exhausts, thereby pulling the exhaust gases out of the pipes. As a Formula One car needs to cool both water and oil, radiators are seperated in two seperate parts. Since the oil-cooling part is quite small, it is located at only one side of the car, which means more air is needed to cool it down, and more air needs to get away (or the same amount of air is used, but it simply gets hotter). The larger opening on the left thus allows the extra air to escape.

Shaping up the rear wing

As stated before, Renault and McLaren have been the leading edge developers of three dimensional wing elements during this year. Quickly, more teams followed the hype. On first hand you might think these wing elements are all bent somehow, but there are some particular differences to be noted.

One aspect of this dimensional shaping is without a doubt the direction of its bends. There are two main ways to go: the first concerns (as the three upper pictures show) a difference in depth or as you wish, a horizontal difference. It means that there is in fact no visible difference when you look from the front of the car (as you can see on the picture of the BAR). All elements seem to be straight, but they are not completely. BAR and Williams for instance have been following this road since the start of their developments. It is quite hard to explain, but the topview of the Williams rear wing shows it all perfectly. You can see no bends from the front of Montoya's car, but this topview clearly shows that the center of the 'latest' flap (in the direction of airflow) is further to the back then the outer edges.

Another concept has been the one of McLaren, as you can see on the image. McLaren likes to bend its flaps in height, which means no difference can be noted from above the rear wing. You will however see all the differences by looking at the front of the car. Note that this wing has only been used by McLaren in first qualifying, after which they switched to a rear wing with more conventional straight elements.

Considering these two ways of optimising the efficiency of the rear wing, Renault is the reigning king here. They have managed to combine the two ways, and have this way bent their flaps in all possible directions ;).

The main idea behind this is the difference of stability of airflow over the whole width of the rear wing. Air flowing towards the outer sides of the rear wing will be more clean (thus relatively straight and with a constant speed at a certain moment) than in the center, where air has passed the driver's helmet and the nose of the car. For vertical shaping, these wings elements tend to be higher from the ground in the center that on the edges on high-downforce tracks just the opposite on quick tracks.

Minor remarks

• Minardi has attacked the Monaco circuit with their good old front wing. The never version which was used in Austria had been criticised by Jos Verstappen who said it needed windtunnel testing before the car could benefit from it. Apparently now the old wing functions better at the moment, which caused the team to switch back.
• The wings of the Jordan EJ13 are something special as you can see in the second picture. I don't know how long the mirrors are covers like this. Personally I can only imagine it is to keep away the sun from reflecting in the driver's eyes (maybe also rainy conditions, as this would prevent the mirrors from becoming wet), and to allow a little more sponsor area. I cannot see any other reason this would be good for.
• Jaguar coloured its jaguar on the engine bonnet pink as a one time stunt. The eye of the animal looks like a diamond, which brings us to the reason for this specialty. During the Grand Prix, a very rare pink diamond was presented to the press.
• Toyota has been struggling with its downforce all the way through 2003, and doesn't seem to find a good solution for it. To increase the strength of the upper rear wing element, two stakes have been fitted on that rear wing element (hard to see, but indicated with the red circles).