Photo Credits: Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team
Red Bull Racing’s RB19 was a class above in 2023. One of its most impressive features was the way it reached more straightline speed than its rivals when it had open DRS. Aston Martin Formula 1 performance director Tom McCullough has spoken about how tough it is to match such performance levels.
Speaking at the Abu Dhabi GP, Aston Martin Formula 1 performance director Tom McCullough explained how his team is seeking to close the gap to Red Bull Racing with regard to DRS performance.
It is not only 2023 which saw the DRS strength of the Red Bull. Since the new regulations came into place last year, Red Bull Racing already had the jump on those around them on the grid. A fact which McCullough referred to in his recent remarks.
“We noticed Red Bull were very strong at that last year, so they sort of took the march on that,” stated McCullough. “I remember Jeddah last year was the first time everyone was going, ‘Wow, that’s quite a big DRS switch.’
“The interaction between the whole back of the car, and the loading on the diffuser, the beam wing, the rear wing, the main plane, the flap, the brake ducts, the interaction of all that’s obviously quite different to previous generation cars. And getting a stable aerodynamic platform that we don’t have porpoising and all those other things that we don’t want, getting lots of load, but getting it that when you open the DRS that you have as big as reach as possible is the aim,” explained McCullough.
Try as they might, Aston Martin could not match the rear wing performance of the RB19 and the latest version – as seen on the AMR23 at the Abu Dhabi GP last month – showed that optimising the DRS switch has been difficult due to the compromises involved in producing downforce and reducing drag.
“So all those elements of the back of the car are linked,” McCullough explained. “There’s only so much you can do within the regulations. You’re always trying to produce downforce and not have too much drag. But then on top of that, to get the DRS switch and get all those things working well, it is a challenge for the aerodynamic teams.”
Due to the gains which can be found in this area, Aston Martin is not the only team to direct resources to that end. Throughout the season we saw quite a lot of development in that area and this shall certainly continue.
Aston Martin’s latest wing on show in Abu Dhabi was a clear improvement on previous efforts which pleased McCullough. He admitted that it was important to just get it on the car so that they could “correlate the level of performance we see in the wind tunnel and CFD, and we did some cross-car, cross-session compares” and with all that completed “the wing is performing well.”
However, just how well Red Bull Racing’s 2024 challenger performs is of course yet to be seen. After all, having secured both championships early on, the Milton Keynes based team was well positioned to have one eye on next season far sooner than their rivals. So, who’s to say that they won’t extend the gap even further next year.
For their part, Aston Martin’s Team Principal, Mike Krack, recently announced: “We know what we want to do for 2024 and the direction we need to go in with next year’s car.” Time will tell as to what direction that ends up being but every neutral race fan must surely hope that it will see the team much closer to the front.
