The Shanghai round was the first event where F1’s latest sprint format was deployed – with parc ferme restrictions on car settings being eased between the two Saturday sessions.
This opened up the possibility for teams to use very experimental settings in shorter races – particularly for cars starting outside the top 10 of the grid – but in practice competitors felt that the changes they could bring were more limited, even if they could. be considered an aggressive hope.
“We had a lot of these discussions in the run-up to the event [regarding] rear fender level setup [etc]”, said Tom McCullough, Aston Martin’s performance director. “But ultimately, doing a lap of 19 [sprint] the relay is still difficult and we can’t really make two big changes from the main race.
McCullough also suggested that the changes made by F1 teams in China between the sprint and the GP were actually relatively more important than the adjustments needed to be made elsewhere to improve race tire wear for longer competitions.
This is due to the modified surface of the Shanghai track and the lack of data from the teams with the new ground effect cars for this venue before the weekend.
“Maybe it was bigger here just because we haven’t been here that long,” he added.
“When we were last here, the 2019 cars had three times the rear ride height of what we’re using now and the stiffness of the car, everything is so different, the tires, the aero.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“We all simulated and prepared, [and] the grip on the track itself was perhaps worse – more limitation in the rear than in the past, which I think we kind of predicted just to have these tires and how car generation works .
“[Aston] we kind of walked where we thought, “you have a chance” [in FP1]bang, you make some changes before sprint qualifying.
“But it’s after the sprint race that you learn the most about long, fuel-intensive races. A long race of around thirty kilos can be learned.
“And then we said, ‘Okay, what’s going to happen when we put in another 70kg of fuel, what tires do we have to take care of, what do we have to do, bang, make some changes’ .
“It wasn’t really a big change. Everyone in the pit lane would have done [those] changes.”
The most dramatic turnaround in the Shanghai weekend’s set-up results came from Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg, whose sprint settings “actually made the car worse”, according to Haas team principal, Ayao Komatsu.
Hülkenberg fell from 13th to last in the sprint before the American team was able to return to a proven arrangement and he scored a point in the GP.
Nico Hulkenberg, Haas VF-24
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella believes “this reopened parc ferme will definitely be used to sort out the balance of the car”, but added, “sometimes it could be big changes if you find that you are significantly behind”.
He continues: “The possibility of reopening the parc ferme after the sprint has two implications. The first is that the weekend is slightly more lenient.
“Because if you get certain ride heights wrong or you find that the balance needs adjustments depending on how the tires behave, for example, you can do that.
“And that, at the same time, I think, allows you to be slightly more aggressive in the first place in terms of which direction to take, or, for example, in terms of ride height, because you can compensate.
“And actually, from a purely technical point of view, we found it interesting because we had the opportunity to see the balance in the sprint.
“Obviously, if there had been miracle solutions, we would have already deployed them.
“So we only talked about a few adjustments. But it’s interesting from a technical point of view that you can do it. This change is welcome for us.
