Ian Morgan, Red Bull Racing’s head of race engineering, talks us through the highs and low downforce of racing at Monza.
Ian, does the team arrive in Monza having learned anything useful at Spa?
To a certain extent we do. Spa-Francorchamps is a lower downforce circuit than anywhere we’ve run all season, so it’s a step in the direction of Monza. Obviously Monza requires a level of downforce quite a lot lower, and the end of straight speeds are quite a lot higher, so for the drivers, getting used to braking points and the feel of the car under braking is very different at Monza, especially as some of the braking points at Spa are uphill. To answer the question Spa was a step in the right direction but only takes us 20 per cent of the way to what we face here.
Usually there’s a Monza test a week or two before the race. This year, does the testing ban make your life easier or harder?
Without a shadow of doubt it’s easier to race here after having tested! But it’s part of the new F1 structure and the same for everyone. This year we have relied more on up-front simulation to get the correct drag and downforce level for optimum lap-time. The simulation itself isn’t new: we would have done it before a test to find out where we were, and the test would have been mostly for verification. This year that verification is something we will find out in the first practice session on Friday.
With the primary characteristic of Monza being the long, long straights, how compromised are the cars when cornering?
It’s a big compromise. The straights are dominant, but you would like to have a lot of downforce to get through the corners. If the straights weren’t so long, we would run with much higher downforce. It’s a compromise but because we have tested a lot here in the past, the drivers have quite a bit of mileage on this circuit and they know what to expect.
How extreme is the setup – is the level of downforce as low as it could feasibly be?
No. It’s designed in the wind tunnel to reduce drag to the point we think will be needed to be competitive. We do a lot of simulation and we go to as low a level as we think we need, but we’ll also simulate going higher to find an optimum lap time.
Does the moveable front wing, new for this season, have an effect?
It’s there to trim the car, and it helps us a little bit, but it doesn’t help us aerodynamically because the range of adjustment isn’t significant enough to be able to use it strategically – and you can’t change it often enough anyway. What it does do is help us balance the car through the life of the tyres, and even from one set of tyres to the next if it needs a small trim. As a setup tool it’s very useful.
Who decides how it is deployed. The driver or the pitwall?
It works both ways, but once they’re into it, the drivers do it for themselves. We watch it from the wall to some extent, and if we see something we think is beneficial, we’ll give them a nudge. It might be that there are a couple of places on the track where more or less might be useful, and we’ll pass that information on.
Monza is traditionally a destroyer of engines – with Sebastian Vettel fast running out of useable powerplants, how will his preparation be affected?
Seb has two fresh engines left, and a couple more with some mileage on them. If we want to get him through the rest of the year without incurring engine change penalties, we will have to limit his running – but we hope it doesn’t compromise him too much. I think we have the potential to reduce his running a little bit but still keep his preparation for Saturday and Sunday to a level that won’t compromise him – certainly at Monza which is a track he knows well. We’ll have to think a little bit harder when we get to less familiar places like Abu Dhabi and, to a lesser extent, Singapore.
Is it a straightforward setup here?
I think so. There’s lots of historical data from previous races and the fact we’ve tested here every year except this year is useful also. It’s mostly a question of setting the drag level and achieving the end of straight speed we want and then working with the chassis around that.
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What is a good par EOS speed at Monza?
Traditionally we’d say around 220mph, but it could be quicker this year because there is more mechanical grip thanks to the return of slick tyres.
Does the fact that last year’s race took place under monsoon conditions limit the usefulness of your most recent set of historical data?
The 2008 race data won’t be that helpful, but we did have a week to test before the race and that will be much more relevant. Wet info can be useful, but it varies so much we focus more on other information if we have it. Even though the cars have changed for this year, the old data is still relevant. We can see how the car performs at each track this year, relative to how it performed last year, so you have good reference points for each race you go to.
The received wisdom is that the RB05 is at its best on the faster tracks – but does that relate to all quick circuits or just those like Spa with high-speed corners?
I think it’s fair to say our strength lies in going through a corner quickly. It doesn’t necessarily relate to a faster track in terms of a place where you have a very high end-of-straight speed. But Monza has quick corners too, like Parabolica, the Curva Grande and some of the chicanes . So having the downforce we appear to be generating this year certainly isn’t going to do us any harm…
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