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At the
previous round of the championship in Barcelona, where
Fernando Alonso produced yet another fantastic drive in
his Ferrari F2012 to take second place, the majority of
teams had introduced new packages to coincide with the
first European race of the season. If some elements had
failed to deliver a clear picture of their benefits,
there was usually talk of waiting to see how they would
perform in Canada. Had the designers and engineers
forgotten that, before going to Montreal, the F1 circus
stops off at its most famous venue in Monte Carlo? Not
at all, it’s just that the Monaco Grand Prix throws up
such a unique technical challenge it simply does not fit
into the overall picture of how the season is evolving.
“You have to
set the car up quite differently for Monaco,” explains
Scuderia Ferrari’s Technical Director, Pat Fry. “On the
street circuit you don’t attack all the corner entries
as hard as you would on a normal circuit, because the
barriers are so close to the track at the entry and
exit. However, trying to get the right car balance is as
difficult as at the other venues.”
The Monaco Grand Prix is older than the World
Championship itself and in fact it celebrates its
seventieth birthday this year. One element that has not
changed in all that time is that the lap is short and
very slow, the slowest on the calendar in fact. “This
means it is more about downforce and less about
efficiency and engine power,”” continues Fry. “You need
as much downforce as possible and a car that behaves
consistently.” Even if Monaco is unique, many of the
updates introduced on the F2012 in Spain were aimed
specifically at generating aerodynamic downforce and
will therefore prove useful this weekend. “As a result
of a lot of work in the wind tunnel and on the track, we
had a lot of updates including a different front wing,
floor, turning vanes, brake ducts and a new rear wing.
All in all, we’re reasonably happy with the update we
made, but obviously we’ve still got a long way to go and
we have to keep on working at a similar rate. In fact,
we will have a few more small updates this weekend to
add a bit more downforce to the car and, as usual this
season, it will be interesting to see how each car uses
its tyres.”
It is true that tyre behaviour has been the single most
influential factor on the evolution of the five races so
far this year and Monaco’s unique characteristics will
not make this weekend’s race immune to that. “We have
seen that just a small change in track temperature can
have a large effect on tyre performance,” maintains the
English engineer. “And apart from this sensitivity to
temperature, they are also quite sensitive to the way
the drivers use them. In a race where three pit stops
would be considered the norm, if the driver is very very
careful on the rear tyres, you might be able to keep
them in good enough shape to do just two stops. But if
you push hard on the tyres they degrade and a driver can
damage them a little bit by pushing. So, when you are
fighting in traffic, you take more out of the tyres than
you would do if you’re running in clean air.” Given that
Monaco is synonymous with traffic, whether or not a race
is taking place, finding that elusive clean air is the
main challenge for the strategists. “Monaco is a short
lap, so your thinking time is reduced,” says Fry turning
to the subject of race planning. “While you look at all
the usual factors such as tyres degradation, you have to
be very aware of trying to keep the drivers out of
traffic so as to try and give them a clear run. So if
you are starting from the mid-field it’s always a
challenge, therefore starting at the front of the grid
makes the job a little bit easier.”
After two pairs of back-to-back races to kick start the
season, we are now back in the classic routine of a race
every fortnight all the way through to the
Germany-Hungary double-header at the end of July.
Therefore, while for Fry and the team the immediate
focus is on Monaco, the work never stops on developing
the car for each coming race. “In the medium term we are
constantly driving to bring in updates, as indeed is the
case for all teams,” reveals Fry. “For Canada, we will
have a different rear wing and front wing package, which
will deliver a slightly different downforce level for
this circuit. Work on the exhaust system is ongoing and
we have new versions to test. Having learned a lot at
the start of the year, we were able to address some of
our problems at the Mugello test prior to the Spanish GP
and I think now we have a good understanding of our car,
trying to add performance to it in a constant drive that
will go all the way through to the final race.”
As for this weekend, on the streets of the Principality,
Fry believes that much of the improvement in lap times
over the weekend comes from having good trouble free
practice sessions, which allows the drivers to
reacquaint themselves with the idiosyncrasies of the
circuit, gaining confidence with each passing lap. Both
the Scuderia’s current drivers have proved they have
that confidence. In fact, Fernando Alonso will be trying
to record a third Monegasque win with a third different
team, having won twice before in 2006 and 2007. The
Spaniard also finished second last year and has twice
started from pole position. As for Felipe Massa, he has
two third places to his name, in 2007 and ’08, the
latter after he started from pole, while the following
year, he set the race fastest lap. As for the Prancing
Horse, the most famous team in the sport does not have
the greatest record at the most famous race in the
world, with a total of just eight wins since the
championship began in 1950. In a topsy turvy season,
could this be the weekend for Scuderia Ferrari to end a
Monegasque drought that dates back to Michael
Schumacher’s win in 2001?
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