Testing tech analysis: Renault's suspension focus

Renault

It's fair to say that the Enstone-based team has struggled thus far in 2016, and the light is a long way down the tunnel, with much of its focus aimed at improving next season.

Renault picked up development of the RS16 very late into its life, meaning the car is a compromise initially designed to house the Mercedes power unit.

A lack of budget in the last few seasons has meant development, be it aerodynamic or mechanical, has been limited, leading to a culture that needed redress.

Personnel and infrastructure changes have already been made and improvements should follow but it will take time, something the French manufacturer will be keen to reduce.

Sergey Sirotkin, Renault Sport F1 Team RS16 Test Driver

Photo by: XPB Images

Lotus became known for its gentile tyre handling with Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean at the helm, but this too seems to have been lost in recent times, as it struggles to maximise the performance of its car. 

It's of no surprise then that at Silverstone we saw the team use an old friend, used to understand the kinematic differences between two suspension layouts and how the tyre performs.

The Kistler RoaDyn we can see fitted to the RS16's wheel has been used numerous times by the Enstone outfit to help them to improve chassis performance.

Last seen at a test in 2013 and used back in 2006, it measures wheel force, giving the engineers an insight into whether the forces on the car are representative of those seen on the rigs at the factory.

Toro Rosso

Sergio Sette Camara, Scuderia Toro Rosso STR11

Photo by: XPB Images

The performance of the Italian arm of the Red Bull F1 family is impressive this season, given both its limited budget and use of a 2015 Ferrari power unit, it was expected their season would fall away.

However, it is making use of its performance envelope and seems to have a good grasp of Pirelli's tyres.

At the post-race test the team installed a new engine cover, complete with inlet snorkels to feed either a new or relocated power unit cooler.

Lest we forget, Toro Rosso was all set to use the Renault power unit in 2016 but opted for the Ferrari unit when the relationship between Red Bull and Renault soured.

For much of the season it has been using an asymmetric cooling outlet at the rear of the car, most likely because the late change led to a sub-optimal internal layout.

It will therefore be interesting to see how the car's rear cooling is set up in the coming races if the new engine cover is retained.

Tyre development

Pascal Wehrlein, Mercedes AMG F1 W05 Hybrid Test Driver

Photo by: XPB Images

You might have noticed that Mercedes had two cars pounding the asphalt during testing, with the championship-winning W05 called out of retirement to test development tyres for next season.

The tyres in use were the current dimensions but with new compounds, as the tyre manufacturer looks to cover as many kilometres as it can to develop their new range for 2017.

Pirelli 2017 Tyre Testing Roadmap

Photo by: Pirelli

Development proper starts next month though with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull all modifying cars to suit the wider tyres that will be used next season.

The roadmap above shows the intensity of this development programme, with efforts focused not only on dry weather tyres but the wet weather range too.

In general

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF16-H Test Driver

Photo by: XPB Images

You'll undoubtedly look at the metal rigs mounted to the cars and think, what purpose can they possibly serve?

Firstly, they're known as kiel probe arrays, and measure pressure stagnation and are preferred over pitot tubes (another airflow-measuring device we see on the cars at every race), because they're less affected by yaw angle.

These arrays are used to understand the airflow map, collecting masses of data points at various speeds and angles that can be used to correlate data collected in CFD and the wind tunnel.

They are a good indicator of where on the car the team are either struggling or want to add performance, with the data collected giving the engineers invaluable real world data to work with.