REPORT MONACO gp - Mundo Motorizado

Midfield teams join
F1 development war
increased chances to fight for top results mean smaller squads are
tipped to join big guns in fine-tuning their cars through the season
Ferrari technical chief Pat
Fry expects the Formula 1
development war to be more
intense than ever this year, because
the ‘midfield’ teams are upgrading
their cars deeper into the season.
Fry suspects that Williams,
Sauber and Force India will delay
switching their attention to
next year’s cars because they
have a chance of fighting for
big results this season. Usually,
only the larger teams continue
to upgrade their cars in the
final races of the campaign.
This year more teams are
capable of fighting at the front,
and Fry suspects that they will
introduce upgrades that are more
frequent and smaller than in
seasons when there is a morepredictable
competitive order.
“Historically, there are three
or four teams that carry on
developing all the way through the
year,” said Fry. “But we haven’t had
a season as close as this before.
“Some people only update their
cars in regular four-race periods
and others, like McLaren, Red Bull
and us, make things as soon as
we find something. I’m sure most
teams will now be adopting that
strategy because it’s so close.”
Although Red Bull, Mercedes,
Ferrari and McLaren dominated
last weekend’s Monaco Grand
Prix, both Sauber and Williams
also showed flashes of potential
top-six pace, one race after Pastor
Maldonado’s shock Spanish Grand
Prix win for Williams.
Force India has made a slower
start to the season, but has been
a consistent points scorer.
14 autosport.com May 31 2012
So far, those three teams have
scored 113 points between them
compared to just 30 after the
same number of races in 2011.
Sauber chief designer Matt
Morris admitted that this could
change his team’s approach.
“It’s probably true,” Morris
told AUTOSPORT. “Now is the
time when we start looking at
next year’s car and deciding how
much resource we put onto it
compared to development this
year. It [developing deeper into
the year] is something that we
are considering because it’s so
tight. If you look at the potential
[financial] gains you get between
finishing seventh and fifth in the
championship, maybe it warrants
spending more of your time and
money on improvements.
“But we have got finite
resources. The problem with
developing this year’s car is that,
if we are not careful, it will hurt
us next year. You often see the big
teams that push to the end of the
year struggling at the start of the
next. That’s what concerns us.
“After the summer break
[in August], there are a lot
of races and therefore a lot of
opportunities for others to bring
upgrades. We will bring at least
one more package and maybe
another one. A lot will depend
on the next four races and where
we stand before the break.”
Typically, teams aim to
have finished design work
on the following year’s car by
September. Aerodynamic work
can continue simultaneously on
the current and future cars while
this happens. With the rules
likely to be stable in 2013, much
of that effort will be transferable.
This means that continuing to
develop a 2012 car in parallel
with a new one will be less of a
compromise on the new car than
in years of bigger changes.
Williams chief operations
engineer Mark Gillan accepts that
there is some room to reallocate
resources within a small window,
but says there will be no wholesale
redeployment of resources.
“If you look at the
rewards between seventh
and fifth, maybe it
warrants developments”
Sauber designer Matt Morris
“It makes no difference at all,”
said Gillan. “Our strategy stays
the same and it wouldn’t matter
where we are in terms of
performance. There is a time
when you switch over to next
year’s car and you could
potentially slightly alter that,
but it would have an impact
on the subsequent season.”
Force India has vowed to keep
pushing throughout the year, just
as it did in 2011 – but this
strategy has played a part in its
slow start to the ’12 season.
Deputy team principal Bob
Fernley said: “We have got to push
on. Williams have had a great
result, Sauber have had a great
result and we’ve not quite locked
onto one yet. We have to keep
pushing to the end.”
Williams shocked the
top teams in Spain