Power Unit Updates, Haas' Front Wing & Alpine’s Floor Upgrades | F1 TV Tech Talk | Crypto.com

Shanghai and the first venue for a Sprint in the 2024 Formula 1 season China is a country that the series has not visited since 2019 and in the meantime we have a completely new generation of cars and that means that the circuit is something Basically, it is completely new for each team and it's also new for a quarter of the grid in terms of drivers so there's a lot to learn so it's not a normal place to bring

updates

considering it's on the other side of the world, in the team's European bases. Additionally, however, there are some

upgrades

on display in the pit lane, but before we get into that, I thought it's worth noting that Garra and Tina Gade chatted about how the teams have prepared heading into this very unpredictable and different race. . circuit this year, it's worth checking out on F1 TV, but in the meantime I thought I'd take a look at some of the

updates

as I mentioned, but the first updates I want to see are perhaps some of the most secretive.

In Formula 1, however, it is the

power

unit

, this is a 2021 Honda ra 621h

power

unit

that powered the Red Bull team throughout the 2021 season. Now power unit development and

upgrades

are officially banned in Formula 1, but that's not the full story before we get there. Thinking about that I thought it might be worth taking a look at the overall design of the power unit because we don't normally get such good photographs here taken beautifully at the Japanese Grand Prix by one of our camera operators and I think it's worth taking a look. A deeper look at the car's design, the most obvious thing that catches your eye, of course, is a V6 engine.

You can see the top of the injectors. There are three on each side. It is a V6 engine. 90° V angle. and in the middle of that V is something that you can't really see and we'll get to that in a moment, but because it's a V6 engine, you have a bank of exhausts on each side, you can see them in their thermal direction. The insulation covers a tube for each cylinder, they fuse together and then go to the turbocharger turbine and you can see the turbine located at the back of the engine block. Here now, this is a pretty interesting design.

This is a design that was introduced by Mercedes. It is sometimes known as the Pegasus design after the Rolls-Royce jet engine, but it is actually something that Mercedes introduced in the 2014 season and now all the other teams have evolved, with the exception, I think, of Ferrari, where you have the split turbocharger, so you have the turbine at the back of the block where all the hot stuff is and the compressor is located at the

front

of the engine block where everything is a little bit cooler and you can bring in colder air to where you want it to be and that gives you a little bit of an increase in performance, but what's missing, well, you have the heat from the engine generator that is located between the two halves of the turbocharger in that V of the block in the V of 90°, everything is on a common axis because the regulations force it to be that way and it's a really smart package for a big old electric motor.

Keeping the temperatures and vibrations of that engine in the right area is a really tricky thing to do, but all the rigs seem to be doing pretty well. Getting the hang of that now, the other thing I want to draw your attention to is the other electric motor that you see on all the Formula 1 cars and that's located right down here, it's the mguk, just below the left exhaust bank, which It is a fairly common location throughout the power. units now and it's a pretty heavy big old electric motor, but it will make some serious horsepower in 2026, that unit will get much bigger and much more powerful and it will be interesting to see how teams decide to package what we have.

I haven't seen any of those new generation power units where fossil fuels have also been banned. It will be really exciting to see how the teams handle that, but mgus who sit in the middle are all banned. The split turbo design is seen here on the Honda power unit, so that's something interesting too, but if you look further ahead you can see the battery pack. This is something we don't normally see because it's usually found deep inside. the rear of the monoco deep into the rear of the car chassis underneath the fuel cell which is on top now this is split in two essentially you see this section on the top which is bolted together quite clearly this section here is not just a cover for the battery cells, the control electronics, so it's one of those limited components that you hear us describe quite often that is located on the top of the battery pack.

Here there are mostly some other parts that can also be located around different parts of the car. but that's where most teams place their control. Electronics, then underneath is the power store, one of those other limited components and it's all the battery cells that are in here and this is an area where a lot of teams have struggled with reliability. Two energy tanks were allowed for the season and two sets of electronic controls and some drivers have already used up their entire allotment for the season and we're only in the fifth race of the season, so they could be penalized for that now, if you want to understand that. . a little bit more about what goes on inside these battery packs, these energy stores, well scarra, I know I'll be looking at it in great detail in a future run, it's really fascinating content.

I've seen some of that already, I guarantee it's worth it. Looking and then just looking a little better around the back of the power unit, here you can see very clearly the turbine in that hot part, you can see where the exhaust comes in here and you can see how Honda is handling that part. of the car pretty consistent design overall when you look at it, the real devil in these power units, although in this generation the power unit is in the details and the details on them are just beautiful. I thought I'd show you this photo because I like it.

It's a similar situation here, a nice view of the compressor and a nice view of the turbine in the back, so those are the upgrades that you can't really see, but when I say upgrades, this is a 2021 power unit, well, I have taken a deep look. in some documentation that shows me how Hond has developed its power unit since 2014 and the changes are absolute and fundamental to the design of this power unit. I mean, yes, it's still a 90° V6, but almost everything else has changed, even the crankshaft. The height has been altered yet it is quite tight on these power units and it has also been changed quite fundamentally, but the regulations say that at this time you cannot develop your power unit.

The new generation of engines and power units will arrive in 2026, but there is a small loophole, teams are allowed to change their power unit for reasons of reliability, safety or cost, and reliability is the most important because it is expected for the power unit to last a little longer than ever before this season with 24 races and With the same number of power units assigned per driver, it is a little difficult for teams to reach the end of the season without having to go a little further on each unit without incurring a penalty, so teams could change virtually every component of the power unit without incurring a penalty or circumvent that regulation that says you can't develop the power unit unless it is reliable, well it has to go further so you can change everything for reliability reasons and if it brings you better performance, ah so how good up and down the pit lane, the four power unit manufacturers have been incredibly reluctant to detail exactly what they have changed in the power unit and everyone has said yes we can change reliability things but it is definitely just reliability, you can't get performance out of this and to give you an example of that reluctance to chat About that, Jock Clear spoke briefly to us in the pit lane just a couple of races ago.

The power unit is much more fixed in terms. of what you're capable of doing, reliability is always important and we saw this race last year where we came here with an engine penalty right away, so you see the impact of not being on top of reliability, on something which we worked on obviously clearly over the last year and that is paying off, we have not had any problems with the power unit gearbox, it is working well and all of these things are again incremental changes, the regulations do not have changed so we're just looking for The fine details and as I say at this level the fine details matter of course it's all about the updates that you can't see.

There are still many improvements that you can see on display in the pit lane in Shanghai that everyone is

talk

ing about. is of course the upgrade to the H. Now I thought I'd start by

talk

ing about the H, about the H, without looking at one of the upgrades, just looking at a really interesting detail of its

front

wing

, this has been on the car since the beginning of the year . season, we just don't talk about it enough, but take a look here at these elements and how they are collected on the front

wing

end plate and these link sections here, this is a trend started by Mercedes where you have this type of section open at the rear and spoiler.

The elements that by regulation have to meet the end plate are actually not elements at all on the linkage, it's a little tenuous as the team is trying to generate a bit of leverage and usually me. I don't like to say what aero parts do without having looked at the AA data or seen the wind tunnel because you're essentially making it up if you don't know, but look at the shape of these parts here, it's pretty. clear what your team is trying to get the airflow to do and as this clip goes on you can really get a good look at how those link sections between the front wi mplay and the front wing work, just look here, look, can I really see that way how they are trying to channel air around the front wheel, which is a worn end faceplate, something that the current regulations were trying to get away from teams as teams found a little way to surround it, so the teams The teams are also bringing big upgrade packs and this is something that has fundamentally changed for the 2024 season, rather than just bringing a big pack during the year and saying that the upgrades are overrated, the Grand Prix Seas from China has brought its first major package to the car and To explain why H has changed its strategy, well, let's go back to pit lane a little earlier in the season.

We will try to bring the update as soon as possible if you have a large package and have to wait a long time. time, so in the end, if you bring things early, you add value to it because you can use it for more races, so we defined it as a minimum goal that we accept and when we reach this goal, we try to bring the update to the track. That's a pretty fundamental change in direction for a team at that time and in the way they developed the car and to take a look at some of the specific new parts purchased in Shanghai, Alex Brundle is back in the pit lane, for which is an important set of improvements for the vf24.

And I'm here with J Janette, Aero performance engineer, here at H uh, to talk about what is a relatively large package that you brought to Shanghai, so let's go from the front to the rear of the car in terms. of the changes you have made and what you intend to achieve with those changes, yes obviously we have the biggest part of our update is our

floor

, the front of the

floor

is a little bit revised, we also have a new reflect just a little more footprint small and then at the rear we have a different bodywork or basically it's about fine-tuning the details of the big change in philosophy that was made last year, now it's more about finding the performance and the details and in terms of the floor edge, presumably the goal is to try to get a better seal on the side of the risk chy to then seal the floor better and get better extraction, yes, and clean up the leaks. that's also a little bit um in terms of the mirror a little bit smaller obviously regulated in terms of its size but you're maximizing that now it's a big gain um in terms of maximizing the performance of the rear wing on the back of the car every little bit helps I want I mean, it will reduce the losses going to the rear of the car, nothing groundbreaking, just trying to clean things up a bit and the final part of the rear bodywork works inside the rear. wheel um a little bit of a goal to try to increase local downforce production for me through local downforce production rather than general downforce production yeah in general speaking with the downforce that you do in the cornerrear, sometimes there's a little bit of a trade-off between the local load that you do on the wheel and then the effect that it has on the ground, so it's about playing with that balance, and the balance changes as what you do. beams in the front of the car change what happens in the rear also taking a closer look at some of those parts we just heard about look I want to take a look at the right this is the previous spec rear view mirror on the H H only introduced the upgrade package on one of their cars, the other car they either had the old package for comparison or they just didn't have enough parts built in time, there's probably a bit of both happening now, look at the shape and the mirror housing design here, this is the part the team is talking about.

They have reduced the width or reduced the size slightly. Now the regulations limit what you can do in terms of the size of the mirror glass, but in the casing around it there is a bit of aerodynamic play to do there, so this is the old specification and here is the new specification. I mean, it's a very difficult Find the Difference game, the teams say it's been remodeled slightly. I have to say I can't really tell the difference in that, so maybe it'll be one for everyone at home to watch and #f1 live will tell us what I've missed, but maybe it'll be a little shorter from here to here.

I'm not sure, I'm not sure, it's a pretty subtle change, but sometimes those subtle changes make a difference and talking about those subtle changes they make. All the difference, the Alpine team have bought a change that is visually quite subtle but in terms of performance it is quite fundamental and having a really fascinating detailed chat about it, Alex Brundle is back in the pit lane with the team, a significant improvement from floor brought just to the car of these Aon uh for the a524 uh I'm joined by performance

tech

nical director Kiren pilbeam uh to explain the stages of the changes uh through the floor uh here at Alpine so if you're happy to start the front for us Ken and uh and tell us what happened to the floor fences towards the front of the car, yeah, so these, the main change is towards the innermost part, one of the fences, so it comes further in and is attached to the chassis . in a different position than where it was before, so it comes with some required modifications to the chassis as well as the new floor, so what is the point of the modification?

Is it just a purely efficient change of force or are you moving? Downforce balance is mainly just an increase in downforce, yes, so it affects the flow at the beginning of the floor, but also throughout the rest of the floor, but it's not a significant balance change, it's just more Arrow performance. the flow down the edge of the floor is a shift towards the edge of the floor as well, what is the point of that simply better roof along the edge of the floor? A different concept. It's not really a different concept, but it is different. detail and this is a quite sensitive area for aerodynamic performance, which is why you can see so much detail here and on the floor edges of other cars and this affects the flow again, particularly in the area around the rear tire which is very sensitive to control. what happens in the fuser further down the car there is also a change in that area on the inside of the rear tire just explain, if you can, what you have changed there, yes, it is a small detail that we call It's the mailbox, it's in a kind beginning of the side wall of the diffuser.

I guess you'd call him again. This area is very sensitive to the flow coming out of the bottom of the tire when it rotates and affects what happens. in the diffuser, that's the main reason for this change, fascinating stuff from Alex in the pit lane and this I just want to take a closer look at the parts that you were talking about. This is the new floor that Kyen Piling was indicating. You can see the new cutout right at the rear with this metal insert along it, but there's also a revised section along the edge of the floor here that's pretty substantial and you can see what the team is trying to do and when. you compare it.

For the old car with specific specifications, the change of details is quite obvious. Look here, it has a completely flat, completely flat rear edge. Here's the mailbox section they were talking about. You can also see that everything is pretty seamless compared to the old one. version and you can see those shape changes very clearly, yes the rear section has changed slightly but this part is completely different and completely new and that is something that the team hopes to get a little more performance if you go a little further into the It's interesting to hear them say that it requires modifications to the chassis to fit that floor.

I don't really understand why that is and the team hasn't been detailed enough about it, but they're not going to show us all the details. from your floor because that is the most holy place and the secret of secrets; However, something that is not the secret of secrets is the revised front wing that the team presented a few races ago and you can see it here and which we have already talked about. the H front wing, we will talk again about the trends that are forming in Formula 1. These remote elements are not as advanced as the H front wing here on the Alpine, but they clearly pursue the same direction and when you compare it with the front wing H of previous specification, that's essentially traditional, going back to the 2022 generation of cars, you can see those elements very clearly joining the main front plate with the end plate and that's what everyone expected, but then you go and see that new version and you can see the direction of travel. the trend, the engineering trend in Formula 1 and the adherence to the front wings.

I wanted to take a look at Williams. Well, they changed their front wing to Suzuka and the Williams team had a really interesting front dive plane design with faceplate and you can see this panel. Over here the team has inserted in the end plate and now they have gone for a fairly conventional dive plane, this type of S-shaped section in the end plate of the front wing, but previously they had a large wedge shape in block, which is something quite different. Everything we've seen in F1 they used in the first races and moved away from it with their new front wing, but in that trend of the inboard section and the front wing element joining well to the end plate, Williams again, are another team that is I opted for a fairly advanced solution.

You can see it here. They have a little wing that sticks out a little bit if you want from the front wing end plate and you can see those two rear elements forming the same shape that we saw. on the H and we saw it on the Alpine, but they are only doing it with the two rear elements and not the two front ones, so that is a little different to other teams and you can compare it to their previous design, which again is very simple . All those big elements join the M front plate as you'd expect, but to detail some of those more substantial changes to the Williams, Alex Brundle was with the team's Dave Robson to discuss some of those detailed changes they made in Shanghai.

We made some icebergs. This, um, is a couple of races ago, actually, which you can probably see if you look back at P1. I think it's probably Melbourne and it wasn't. The flow structures weren't exactly what we expected, so we've just been. able to clean that and yes as you say we should see that reflected in how the rear of the car works, this part of the fairing is updated on Alex's car and it's really just about controlling the flow that goes around the cabin cleaning it and making sure it then goes down to the area in the back of the car where it causes the least amount of damage so that everything works as intended.

Alex's car should see a small increase in aerodynamic efficiency. On the weekend, the kind of depth and angle of attack of this part of the front of the Halo deck is quite different, the rest is the same, it's just this area here, but it should be quite powerful. In terms of clearing that flow, rear drops and the rear aerodynamic elements are really the critical part of maximizing this set of regulations, it seems like yes, absolutely, so the main thing that the Halo will do is impact the rear wing, but of course . the rear spoiler through the beam spoiler and the rear suspension interact with the diffuser to make it all work as a system so yeah everything up here is about controlling that flow and conditioning it to make sure it works properly in the While Williams has made some changes around the Halo of Alex Albon's car, Logan Sergeant's car highlights a small element that I thought was quite interesting to see because there is another one of these F1 trends that is evolving, take a look at this one triangular section. on the back of the Halo Mount, where the driver's name is located, that's something quite a few teams have been experimenting with and Williams is one of them.

It may come as a surprise to everyone that it is also a direction that the Mercedes team has. they just got on board and here you can see that they have introduced these rather hastily made fins that they have placed in the same part of the rear Halo a little bit further forward on the Mercedes and a little bit higher up, but there is actually an area of ​​Technical Freedom around the Halo and that's why some teams have these items on top of the Halo as long as you're within a certain almost like a tube around the outside of the Halo as long as you're within a set of dimensions you can make quite a few items aerodynamics around the edge of that and that's what Mercedes is exploiting with this new long sticky adhesive part, if you will, on the top of the Halo you can see that it was manufactured quite quickly because it's just a piece of carbon fiber that has been trimmed to shape in a single layer and hasn't even been painted, it's not about weight, I think it's time to put it in there, stick it to the car and hope that it improves performance slightly, I mean.

It's not going to make a huge difference, but all these little improvements add up and all those little improvements that you see in Formula 1 cars throughout the season not only improve the lap performance of the car throughout the year and make it they do a little more. competitive, all those learnings, all those

tech

nical lessons, whether they work or not, they have a broader impact around the world and to discuss exactly that impact that Formula 1 is having, we prepared a little video, take a look at these Kids are really excited, we were excited, it's an incredible sport with incredible people, it's another example of the ingenuity of F1 that will change the world by using HBO fuels in our truck.

F has resulted in an 83% reduction of our carbon emissions in Austria. We launched a sustainable energy pilot that allowed us to reduce the carbon footprint by approximately 90% last season all F2 and F3 cars used 55% advanced sustainable fuels in partnership with aramco Formula 1 is this industry that is most moving forward and you are actually having an impact. There is a real will within this padic to drive an impact machine. We are truly reaching out to the Next Generation by raising awareness and bringing more talent into the sport. I think it's wonderful that we have this opportunity. I want to become an engineer now, obviously these are next. generation of fans, next generation of engineers, if we can inspire them at a young age, yeah it's brilliant, it's just been a fantastic opportunity to open their eyes and see what's possible.

I now realize that Formula 1 is more than just actual driving, it has definitely inspired me a lot. There are many moments where I think: "Wow, I have grown so much that it will be very valuable for my future. It is such a great opportunity and I am very grateful that we involved all the teams. We involved the FIA. This is it." The common good is good for the sport and it is good for the industry. This is an F1 initiative that allows those who might not normally have the opportunity to meet the drivers and experience the Padic V here.

Wow, impressive, thanks Charlie, thanks for the support we provide. the track will be net0 2030 after making great progress and there is much more to come at full speed, well if you want to take a look at the full report it is available now on the Formula 1 website. I highly recommend that everyone read well and watching the videos linked to it, it's absolutely fascinating, it shows a really positive direction of travel for a sport that is currently changing the world. Will these updates change the World Championship? Well, we have to wait and see as the season progresses.