Formula 1: The GOAT

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Fatih was lightly tapping on the table, his head leaning slightly to the side with his headphones on, listening to the second day’s pre-session 1 briefing.

The laptop in front of him showed the test plan for Session 1 as they discussed what they expected to get from the tests while updating the drivers on the expected characteristics due to the car setup. If they felt any deviations from that, they were to update the team.

The tests included in Session 1 were focused mostly on things that needed driver feedback, compared to what was planned for the second session, which involved things where sensors would be the dominant focus. This made it clear that the team was leaving things that needed experience to Gasly, while leaving everything else to Tsunoda so that he could focus on getting time on the track.

”Anyone with anything to add?” Franz Tost asked, looking around, not expecting anyone to add anything. To his surprise, someone raised his hand.

”Fatih?” he asked, twisting his head slightly as everyone turned to look at Fatih, who had his hand up. ”Go ahead,” he added, very curious about what this driver of theirs had to say.

”Yes,” Fatih said, his expression remaining the same despite knowing that he was currently being watched not only by those in the room but also by those at the home base in Italy attending the briefing.

”I would like to add something on the balance characteristics we saw through the high-speed sections; I don’t think the wing adjustment will change it,” he said, highlighting something that both drivers had complained about yesterday but that the team had failed to pinpoint the exact cause of.

Franz, who was listening to Fatih, paused for a moment. ”We discussed this. The interaction between the two packages produces characteristics that don’t respond linearly to single-parameter changes. The wing sweep will give us the data to understand it properly.”

Despite hearing the answer, Fatih didn’t accept it. He knew they were focusing on something else that could also produce the same characteristics, but he needed to prevent them from straying too far from the actual problem, since it was very fundamental. If they failed to solve it, it would taint all their data from the testing weekend.

”We adjusted the wing angle three times yesterday during the long runs, but the characteristics didn’t change,” Fatih said, pointing out that they were trying to do something they had already tried yesterday in some form.

Some people in the room and at the home base raised their eyebrows, wondering why he was so stubborn when he hadn’t even driven the car for his feedback to have any positive effect.

But Franz, just like those who knew Fatih, didn’t react with dismissal. ”The interaction effect means you won’t necessarily see a direct response to a single adjustment. That’s why we need the full sweep—to characterize the sensitivity properly rather than drawing conclusions from isolated changes,” he explained, pausing for a moment before adding, ”The car feels good. The lap times yesterday were strong, and despite the many problems we have yet to address, we are already at the same lap times as last year. So, let’s get more data this morning before we start forming conclusions.”

Fatih looked around for a moment, knowing that Franz wasn’t saying this because he was looking down on him. Had it been someone else, that would have been a possibility, but not from Franz. So, he decided to just go for the technical side and not leave anything hanging. ”Can I ask a technical question?”

Upon hearing the specific question, several people who were about to stand up, thinking the meeting was over, sat down again, dropping the things in their hands.

”If a component in the rear suspension had a small, consistent deflection under combined peak load, 0.2, maybe 0.3mm at a pickup point, would that be visible in the data you collected yesterday?” he asked, this time looking at the vehicle dynamics engineer, Thomas, sitting across the table.

Thomas looked at Franz for a moment before he answered, ”It would depend on the component and its location in the...”

But before he could finish, Fatih added, ”At the lower rear wishbone inboard pickup. Given the leverage geometry from that point to the wheel.”

There was a pause in the room as Thomas fell silent, as if he were doing some calculations in his head, while some of those who had been wondering when the meeting would end dropped that thought and just looked at Fatih.

”At that specific location...” Thomas said slowly, ”...a deflection that size would propagate. You’d expect to see 0.05 to 0.08 degrees of toe deviation at the wheel under load. Possibly a small camber contribution, depending on the direction of deflection.”

”What would that feel like from the cockpit under combined loading?” Fatih asked as a follow-up.

Thomas started describing it in a way a driver would, and just as he was done, someone else chimed in.

”That is what I felt and tried to describe yesterday,” Pierre Gasly said, which immediately gave Fatih’s question a weight that it previously lacked, since he was yet to drive the car.

”What makes you think this is the cause?” Franz asked Fatih, nodding to Gasly, wanting to know why he had specified such a specific area. The characteristics they were seeing were things that could be caused by multiple issues, so it was very difficult to pinpoint a specific area immediately. They usually solved this by going through possible suspects one after another, which was what they were planning to do.

”The conditions they were describing remained the same every lap at the same loading conditions, independent of temperature, tyre age, fuel load, and wing angle. A wing angle change only affects the aero balance; ride height changes the aero platform, but neither changes this. The only thing that seems to matter is the loading condition itself. It grows with the load, and it disappears when the load goes away, which is not an aerodynamic characteristic but most often a material’s response.”

As Fatih explained his reasoning, the suspension designer, Hendrik, sitting three seats away from him, hadn’t moved for a few seconds, his expression remaining carefully neutral—the look of someone listening very hard while giving nothing away.