Falling short: Jenson Button leads Fernando Alonso at the British GP

With Fernando Alonso virtually certain to be leaving Ferrari and in serious discussion with McLaren about a seat there, it’s a good time to consider the competitive prospects of each team into 2015.

Both have fallen well short of the standard set by Mercedes this year (McLaren even more than Ferrari) and it might be considered a big stretch to believe they could each make up that deficit in one move. Furthermore, looked at superficially the pattern at Ferrari over the last few seasons has been one of general decline from the title-winning ways of a few years ago while McLaren has for two consecutive years produced an aerodynamically mediocre car – and next year begins a partnership with an engine manufacturer one year behind the others. But scratch below the surface and there are genuine reasons for both teams to be optimistic about 2015.

For both Ferrari and McLaren, the reasons for their 2014 under-performance are well understood and in both cases originate from a misjudgement under the radically different regulations of where the technical emphasis needed to be. Those misjudgements are clear in hindsight and therefore readily correctable under regulations that this time around remain stable.

Ferrari: Emphasis with F14T is on aerodynamic performance

In the case of Ferrari, this year’s car was conceived around the belief that aerodynamic performance was going to require absolute priority over power unit performance. Their assessment was that the new aerodynamic restrictions meant that extreme solutions there would bring more performance than compromising the aero for the benefit of the power unit. Consequently, the oil tank was moved to the back of the car (allowing the engine to be moved forwards to create space for a bigger diffuser) and the engine department was instructed to prioritise minimal heat rejection (for smaller radiators) even at the expense of horsepower. The resulting F14T was a car with excellent downforce in high speed corners but a serious power deficit. In the fuel flow formula this has turned out not to be the optimum solution; relative to the competition, the potential aero gains of this approach are smaller than the performance lost to the power shortfall.

A significant chunk, therefore, of Ferrari’s horsepower deficit should be relatively easily gained for next year. In terms of the 2015 chassis, it’s the first to be overseen by the very highly-rated technical director James Allison – who joined when the concept and design of the F14T was already well underway and committed to. A new Allison-led chassis concept with a more powerful and efficient engine is the basis for the 2015 car as the team fine-tunes its approach to the demands of the new formula. There is real cause for optimism there.

Meanwhile at McLaren the power unit configuration was supplied by Mercedes, leaving the team to concentrate on maximising the aerodynamic concept around that. Its belief was that rear downforce was going to be at a particular premium because of the increased torque of the new engines going through delicate rear tyres. The concept of the MP4-29 was based around that belief – with a nose design that supplied a lot of airflow to the centre underbody of the car and on to the diffuser, even at the expense of some front-end downforce. With this increased airflow to the rear, the unique rear suspension was designed in such a way as to aerodynamically link up the diffuser and rear wing in much the same way that the lower beam wing banned in the 2014 regs used to do. The team believed it could find the shortfall in front-end downforce by other means – in the way it worked the airflow around the front wheels to create vortices that would pull the air over the wing harder and faster.

McLaren: MP4-29 lacks front-end downforce

As it turned out, it has not been able to do that. The front-end aerodynamics of the car have proved stubbornly unresponsive to development. The rear end produces a lot of downforce, but the nose configuration in combination with the placement of the suspension arms – both hard-wired into the design and not readily changeable – have limited the potential for creating the vortices in the right places for increasing front downforce. The aerodynamically weak front end has defined the car’s limit as fairly low relative to Mercedes.

That is now all understood and the concept of the MP4-30 will obviously encompass that new knowledge. Meanwhile, Ron Dennis is adamant that the new Honda V6 is going to be fully competitive in its first season.

The form of Ferrari and McLaren in 2014 may have very little to do with their prospects in 2015. The early days of the radically new formula means that the competitive order year-to-year may be much more mercurial than in previous years.

MH