Activity bustled around him but he wandered the paddock quietly, his eyes lost and his hands in his pockets. As a good Nordic Valtteri Bottas did not say a single word when walking between the trailers without much to do; his car was not working.
For the trained eye it is unnecessary to observe the activity on the track to know what is happening. In the Montmeló test-no-test there was no need to look at the time tables to the far right, where it puts the number of laps. The sensors that those who attend the teams have installed in their heads appreciate unwritten or quantifiable signals, but when they see an idle driver with no other task than attending to social networks on his iPhone, it is not a good sign.
Not even the most twisted and bitter member of the paddock celebrates the drama; tomorrow it could be his turn, in all likelihood he has friends suffering, or it was even his team until the previous year that suffered. In the paddock no one smiles when others have a hard time. That is why there is general concern after what was observed in the teams that gave the fewest laps in the Catalan ‘sheikdáun’.
Nobody steals in prison because there are the professionals of theft
—Do you look at the time table in the premiere tests of cars as innovative as these? “They are not much use,” says the hooded engineer. «In the first days you do not look too much at the times, only out of the corner of your eye. Yes, of course, if something good comes out of course you’re happy, but it’s not the key. It is the number of laps you make. It is essential, not because you show reliability but because you know that your test program works. The more laps, the more exits to the track, the more runs more tested parts. The more parts of the car that work, the more improvements you can make to its evolution, ”says the insider anonymously.
“Those above are always above. They are there because they do things better than others, they have more people polishing ideas, making the most of their developments, removing weight, adding aerodynamic efficiency, adding load points, providing reliability. To do that you need more money and more personnel, and since they have it, that’s it.
In FIA they were terrified that some team would find a silver bullet, an invention that would bring an obvious superiority to some ‘inventor’. To avoid that they put two of the most (sportingly) Machiavellian minds of recent decades: Ross Brawn and Pat Symmonds. No one steals in jail because there are the larceny professionals, that’s why sneaking it into this couple is like robbing a bank branch in Alcalá-Meco. But this pair of two needed a small army to fight on their behalf. That is why they have developed a new procedure, a golden rule to follow: “Every time you invent something different, you show it to me”.
The teams are very reluctant to send information electronically, use cyber clouds and leave things lying around. They are sensitive issues, and it is not that they distrust the curators, but that they fear that their knowledge and inventions end up in unwanted pockets for one reason or another. Hackers, hacking, data theft… there are a thousand exogenous reasons, because when you send one of these things out there you know where you send them, but not how far they can go. That is why during 2021 a small team of technical referees have been visiting door to door each and every one of the headquarters of the teams to carry out a preliminary scrutiny ‘by hand’ and in person. And they have not only limited themselves to taking a look at the binary plans of each car.
In long meetings of several hours they have sat next to the designer and have been asking him about each of the corners that they interpreted could collide with the regulations. During the season, a similar mechanism will be developed to supervise improvements and modifications on the plan.. It is not yet known if it will be in the factories or on the circuits. The first would be possible although costly; the second more complicated because those responsible for each car have a lot of homework on race weekends, although a sort of exam day is being considered on Thursdays.
That small technical team, developed by Liberty Media with the idea of improving the appearance of the cars, has come to depend on the FIA. For this reason, they are no longer friendly proposals, but tangible and limiting rules that must be accepted.. In reality they are the same faces, but now the logos visible on the uniform are not from F1 but from the FIA.
Another of his fears was that the cars looked too much alike. On the front wing there are few variations, almost none on the rear. On the other hand, the area of the pontoons is a festival of shapes and figures, although they suspect that over time one and the other will end up converging. At the moment and informally, the techno-commissioners say they have not found anything out of the ordinary, nor any exotic invention that provides an unexpected advantage. Gone are the silver bullets, exotic inventions, and originality advantage.
The third subject to be approved by the rule builders was that the single-seaters could run closer together, closer together, more similar to what happens in NASCAR. The key to this was to suspend as much as possible the effect of the turbulence that each car sends backwards in its advance, with which it does the heck to the car behind.
The new overall design pushes the hollowness in the atmosphere created while driving far above the ground, much higher. “As it is unfeasible to eliminate this, we are going to change its influence”, seems to be the equation and everything looks like they have achieved it. The tests with water on the last test day produced a series of photographs that testified that exactly what was desired would happen. Many threw their hands to their heads when they saw the trails of water, although the reality is that the water is more or less the same, but now it is thrown more upwards. They do not raise more quantity, but it is dissipated in another way.
The regulators suspect that this first year there are cars that can escape from the group because they have found the key before the rest, although they believe that between the middle of the season and the end of the next one, the group may be quite compressed. The regulations stop the smarts in the class from walking and leave room for the less gifted to catch their breath.
—With what feelings did you return home from Montmeló? «Well, a little bit. It seems that the Ferrari is doing very well. It is appreciated in high load curves. Their drivers go in with complete confidence, but Mercedes and Red Bull will be there. It would be logical. It may happen that at first they have not found the solution, but they will fix it. If a big team has a different solution, and Ferrari is very different from the rest, it is because they have certainly made many different designs and that is the one that has given them the best result. Surely that is the best, at least for them. Small teams can’t afford so much change, so much variability in their designs. When you talk to the FIA they don’t tell you anything, but it’s clear that no one has done anything incredible. Some team has scratched here or there, although so far they have not found anything out of bounds. They do tell us this.”
—Everyone talks about Ferrari as this year’s bogeyman, can it be? You see, Ferrari is a very political team. You never know if they are bluffing or really have something. But this year they exude success. They haven’t had any breakdowns and they’ve driven a lot, and that’s a very good sign. Sometimes they sell smoke and are ‘winter champions’ and then they go wrong. It may be, and if so, they have sold a very good smoke, very well finished (laughs)».
“If Ferrari has sold smoke, it is a very good one and very well finished”
—What else have you seen in the tests, any unexpected difficulties? “Ugh… we went from very tall cars to very low. There is much to learn. We have many spy photos, why deny it, but nothing like seeing cars in situ. When you get up close and look in three dimensions you see much more. You observe the volumes, the depth, the geometries, and with that you can suspect what they are looking for, what effect they want to achieve. When you know that you end up learning a little about the behavior, you look for explanations and suspect more things. It also happens that when you see an original solution you get pissed off and beat yourself up because that hasn’t occurred to you (laughs). The McLaren is a very interesting car, it has very elegant details, very well finished, very fine. It is obvious that he has a lot of work done.
“Hey, do you know about Williams and the bunnies?”
-What happened?
—Well, in the presentation of Duracell someone wanted to be nice, and asked the representative of the brand, “This year are we going to have to dress the mechanics as bunnies at the pitstops?”. The guy didn’t like it very much.
“Don’t fuck with me, really?”
“Everyone was very quiet. It must have been awkward.
Those present at the event drained their glass to stare at the car. No one else asked about a rabbit all night.
Some answers have been slightly retouched to anonymize the interlocutor, who requested that it be so.
Photos: Motor.es