The new Shanghai track offered the teams multiple challenges in car set up. A constantly changing track surface, a mixture of fast straights and tight corners, and the mere unfamiliarity with the venue put the teams to the test. Atlas F1's technical writer Craig Scarborough takes a look at how each team handled the technical challenge and what changes were seen on which car

The new Shanghai track boasts two major straights linked with several slower tightening corners. As the track was hardly used before the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix, the surface was developing all weekend, leaving the teams with even more set-up problems to cope with than the basic pairing of understanding a new track and gaining a baseline set-up for a new shape of track. With the season in its last few races and with the logistics of three shortly spaced flyaway races, there were few technical developments around the pitlane.

Of course the teams have had access to 3D maps of the track for some time, but these can never reflect the track's layout as accurately as the teams would like. A set-up for Shanghai needs to provide the front-end grip for the slower corners and rear-end grip for traction on to the long straights, allied to an aerodynamic trim aimed in between the slow corners and fast straights. Teams could opt for a high or low downforce set-up and achieve the same laptimes - this facet of a circuit's demands is known as the aero-profile (or aero-map).

The track's surface was working the tyres hard - particularly for the Bridgestone runners, who suffered bad graining all weekend. Therefore, the preference is for a medium downforce level rather than the light one, such as at Monza. The higher level of downforce lowers straight-line speeds, increases slow corner speeds and critically gives the tyres an easier time. However, the level of wing is also a factor of the amount of power the engine produces to outweigh the drag penalty. Teams with lesser-powered engine suffered as a result.

Curiously, Renault - with a relatively low power output - were still hard to overtake on the main straights. This was not so much a reflection of their engine power nor their wing level, but the excellent traction out of the slow corners that lead onto the straight, requiring the following car to make up the lost ground before getting into a slipstreaming position.

As the tyre suppliers' products were repeating their recent form, the Michelin product was better when fresh and unscrubbed, losing its grip towards the end of the stint, while the Bridgestones were behaving as per Michelin's 2003 tyres: suffering drop-off when fresh and then remaining durable for long stints. As a result, and because the pitlane surface was slippery, Bridgestone teams tended towards less stops and used scrubbed tyres in the race. Michelin Runners were erring towards multiple stop with fresh tyres.

2005 Developments

The design process for the 2005 cars is well underway. In fact, the aerodynamic philosophy of the car has been worked on since early this year, with major layout decisions reached around May-June. Engine work is completed a year in advance so most teams will have their 2004 spec engines nearing completion. However, this year the impossible situation of unconfirmed rules and far reaching ones at that are making for a tense time amongst the design fraternity. No specific rule changes have been confirmed, the original set of aerodynamic rules were revised and grouped into three packs of options for the teams to debate. And these are not to be agreed on until Mid October.

Some simpler rules that were agreed in a meeting at Monza were safety related, including wider padding around the cockpit, stronger wheel tethers and the wrapping of certain bodywork in Kevlar to reduce debris from accidents. These rules were reaffirmed by the Technical Working Group at Shanghai.

As the teams need to be working on contingencies for next year, most teams have scrapped their initial 2005 designs in order to accommodate the raised front wing and bargeboards restrictions. Already teams are suggesting starting the season with revised 2005 spec cars, in order to produce a definitive car optimised for the rule changes in order to be competitive for the larger part of the season.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of work that can be carried out while the aerodynamics delay the monocoque build. The engine, gearbox and control systems can be tested in an interim car, the suspension and mechanical parts can be tested if the new car does not deviate too far from this year's (i.e. if the car retains the same keel set up).

Also, the team can evaluate new carbon composite construction techniques. The Monocoque of the car is made using sheets of carbon fibre laid up around a honeycomb inner core. The type of carbon fibre cloth and its orientation are critical in achieving the lightness/stiffness efficiency required for the car. Teams already adopt sophisticated software programmes to design and predict the performance of different lay ups. This year several teams have raced new chassis - Toyota with their TF104B, and more recently Renault and Jaguar. As the external shape of the monocoque does not need to change, these alterations are invisible. Only the amount of ballast the lightening process allows the teams to run gives the game away.

Team by Team

Ferrari

Running a familiar combination of aerodynamic parts, the Ferraris had a less comfortable weekend than they have been used to. Friday saw too much understeer, so the team were chasing the set-up along with the changing track conditions. Michael Schumacher had a rare technical failure during practice, leaving him stranded at the end of the pitlane with Electronic problems.

Saturday saw the team topping the time sheets in practice, as the track had appeared to favour the Bridgestones. After setting the fastest time in the first qualifying session, Michael Schumacher was out of shape at the last corner of the track, when starting the defining qualifying lap after a very cautious warm up lap. He went into the first corner and lost the rear end, spinning out and pitting without completing the timed lap. The spin was curious as he had suffered understeer and not oversteer up until that point.

Schumacher did not blame the team or himself after the event. It is likely that he simply hadn't warmed his rear tyres enough and braked too late for the corner. Regardless of the reason, the World Champion had to start from the back of the grid without a planned fuel load to cope with that situation. Overnight the team checked over the car for any faults and decided to change the engine, hydraulics and the tyres. Schumacher started from the pitlane in order to take on a full tank of fuel for a long opening stint.

Rubens Barrichello, on pole, made a clean start and was immediately under pressure from the other faster starting cars and latterly Kimi Raikkonen for most of the first half of the race. Seemingly unable to open up a lead, Barrichello's three stop strategy was aided by Raikkonen's gamble on a short middle stint. By the time of his last stop, Barrichello was clearly in the lead and he held it to the finish.

Schumacher's race was one of his worst. He was initially slow with the fuel load and soon was putting in fastest laps and making passes, until he tried to pass Christian Klien and banged wheels. Undamaged he continued until he spun when running in Fernando Alonso's dirty air, and finally a puncture cost Schumacher so much time that he was only up in twelfth place at the race's end.

Williams

With yet another development on the car, the Williams aerodynamic department is still working hard to regain the team's pace before the end of the year.

This weekend, the front floor came in for a major shift in philosophy. No longer using the wide horizontal flow conditioners in front of the sidepods, the new set-up used an extension to the outer part of the floor and an inner fin to manage the flow in front of the sidepods. The function of the outer extension is a progression from the usual fin and follows Renault's bargeboard "Axe Heads". As the chassis and bargeboards split the flow from under the nose to around the sidepods, the fin stops flow going under the floor and any flow trying to go under the inner edge of the fin would be flicked back up and over the sidepod/floor by the radiused outer edge. This keeps flow under the car cleaner and kept to a minimum.

Also, Williams have made the small section of sidepod that mounts the mirror a separate piece of bodywork. This area is critical to the flow between the sidepod and chassis - even the mirrors' shape and mounting are optimised to improve the flow. The separate panel allows the team to modify the part without requiring new sidepod moldings. There is a fastener accessed from a hole in the panel that has been adjusted during pit stops during at lest two recent races. What the function of the adjuster beneath it, is unknown.

Although Friday went without problems, it also failed to see any real pace form either car. Ralf Schumacher, now back in the driver's seat after his Indianapolis shunt, had some testing under his belt to get used to the revised car. Juan Pablo Montoya struggled with the car and circuit and qualifying saw him out of the top ten while Ralf Schumacher posted the fifth fastest time.

Sunday saw both cars perform only at a midfield level, with Montoya fighting with the Saubers and Villeneuve's Renault to finish fifth. Ralf Schumacher's race return was working out well until an optimistic move from Coulthard resulted in damage to Ralf's car. He spun once then again while returning to the pits. As he drew up to the pit, the team were preparing for Montoya's stop, and the German almost drove through for another lap when the team spotted the puncture.

Ralf parked the car in the McLaren 3rd-car pit garage while the pitstops (including a McLaren stop) were completed. The car was then checked over and no suspension damage was found. But by this stage too much time had passed and Ralf retired himself from the race.

McLaren

McLaren ran their cars largely unchanged and again with the grooved discs that have been seen at other circuits which require heavy braking.

Friday practice saw both drivers well on the pace and happy with the car. This success lead on to qualifying, with Raikkonen taking a wide line out of the last turn but still finishing second, while David Coulthard was less happy with the car's oversteer, and after a slow second sector was tenth.

In the race, Raikkonen held his position at the start despite being pressured. He soon tucked in behind Barrichello but was unable to line up a pass on him. Figuring he was faster, the team brought the Finn in early for his first stop and ran a short stint to try to get him out in clean air and ahead of Barrichello. Traffic put paid to the strategy and he eventually lost second place too.

David Coulthard, trying to recover from his lower grid position, tried to force his way through, to the point where a racing incident with Ralf Schumacher damaged his front wheel and lost him time as he limped back to the pits for a wheel change.

Renault

As well as their lightened chassis, Renault sported new front and rear wings. The front wing features slight raised sections near the endplate.

Even though the Friday session is not about aiming for fast laps, Renault were struggling straight away with the unfamiliar circuit and new driver Jacques Villeneuve in the car after only a short test at Silverstone. The R24 has always been a tricky car to set up, with the sweet spot on a knife-edge between oversteer and understeer. This weekend the team struggled to get the best from the car even though they would be hindered by the lower power output of the engine on the long straights.

Friday evening saw the team revise the set up, electronics and gear ratios - the latter change is unheard of for a GP weekend.

Qualifying saw Alonso have a clean lap despite the ever-shifting balance of the car's handling, while Villeneuve - less accustomed to the car and qualifying - was down in thirteenth.

At the start of the race, Alonso made his usual challenge for the lead before settling into third. Villeneuve did not follow Alonso's exuberant parade lap tyre warming antics and struggled over the opening lap with colder tyres. During the race, the Spaniard merely fought his place and did not challenge the leaders, while the Canadian took time to find his pace and the feel of the car on the grippier track.

Both drivers were able to protect themselves from overtaking on the long straight despite their lack of straight-line speed, merely by having much better traction out of the preceding corners, thus creating a sufficient gap to cushion themselves from slipstreaming moves.

BAR

As well as some new engine developments, BAR returned with their reinforced rear wing and cooling chimneys. Added to that, the team sported a new front wing and stepped endplate assembly - following other teams' lead, BAR have gone even further by making the leading edge of the wing turn down and form the lower part of the endplate, while the upper half of the endplate starts much further inboard, creating less of a sweep in between the front wheels.

However, the endplate is still in one piece and separate from the front wing, but it does form the first few inches of the wing. The design philosophy is beneficial as the unswept upper part of the endplate creates less pressure at the wingtip, reducing unwanted vortices, while the width of the underside of the wing (which actually creates the suction) is maximised.

One other curious detail on the BAR is the addition of a small Gurney strip under the mid wing. Looking up close at the winglet, it is clear that it's creating lift, not downforce; the Gurney strip now added to the lower outer edges further enhances that effect. While this is at first counter intuitive to creating downforce, it actually allows the rear wing to work more effectively. As the flow and vortices trailing off the mid wing point downwards towards the rear wing, making the rear wing think it is not as steep as it actually is, which prevents the very steep wing stalling.

On Friday it was the new engine developments that both aided and hindered the team. While Anthony Davidson and Jenson Button went well, Takuma Sato had a major engine failure at the start of the second practice and lost the whole session. Qualifying went well for the team, but with Sato having a new engine, he was going to lose ten grid positions, so his lap was run with more fuel and slowed by an error in the third sector.

In the race. Button was jumped by Felipe Massa, before taking the position back. The Briton ran a two stop race, taking a gamble on the BAR taking care of the Michelins. A solid run was rewarded when he came out ahead of Raikkonen at the last round of stops. Sato too was running a heavy fuel load and made tremendous progress to finally take sixth place, having started from 17th.

Sauber

Sauber announced they will run in 2005 their own gearboxes on the back of the Ferrari engines - no longer using a Ferrari unit, which was only a stop gap for 2004 - citing their technical independence as the prime reason, in contrast to the common perception of technology exchange between the teams.

From the start of the weekend the track suited the Sauber and its tyres, despite trouble with graining particularly for Giancarlo Fisichella. Felipe Massa's run to fourth in qualifying was impressive albeit aided by a short opening-stint fuel load. Fisichella suffered yet more graining on his heavier fuel load to the detriment of his lap time.

Massa made the most of his grid position and regained his place from the faster starting Button, but within a few laps his tyres were graining and he dropped far from the pace. The same problem afflicted Fisichella, but he finished in seventh place while Massa held back Coulthard to take the final point in eighth.

Jaguar

Despite the team being on the market, Jaguar pressed on with the debut of a lightened chassis run by Christian Klien for the weekend. Furthermore, the team announced that the 2005 engine/gearbox would be ready for testing in Spain this week, in the back of a revised R5 chassis. A derivative of interim car will probably race in the early part of 2005.

Despite a huge lap count from all three drivers, Jaguar posted few top times on Friday. Saturday also failed to bring fast times despite no problems reported from the team. The engine output was pointed out as a limitation at Shanghai, as the team could neither run fast on the straights nor run more wing to corner faster.

A similar pattern emerged in the race, with neither driver making an impression. Klien was hit by Michael Schumacher leading to rear suspension damage, while Mark Webber struggled through to finish down in tenth.

Toyota

There were no recognizable changes on the Toyota B spec car for this race. Shanghai suited the Toyota and its Michelins, with Friday seeing all three cars queued up from ninth to eleventh. Qualifying allowed Olivier Panis to excel with an eighth grid position, while Ricardo Zonta had errors in each sector of his lap, pushing him down to 14th.

The smooth weekend went awry at the start of the race. Panis's car stuttered on the grid as his anti-stall system unexpectedly kicked in - but much to the surprise of the Williams behind him on the grid, Panis was able to continue. From the back of the field he rejoined and finally finished fourteenth, unlike Zonta who retired with gearbox problems.

Jordan

Jordan ran an unchanged EJ14 in China. With Cosworth's sale threatening their engine supply in 2005, the team are potentially in need of another supplier. While Toyota is the manufacturer most often connected with the team, there is no deal or even negotiations in progress.

Suffering with graining along with the other Bridgestone runners, Jordan also had technical problems with power steering and the engine on the third car of Dutch debuting Robert Doornbos. Saturday was better for the tyres, but qualifying only realistically saw Jordan beat the Minardis, and Nick Heidfeld set a time faster than Christian Klien's troubled run in his Jaguar.

Heidfeld was also the better of the Jordans in the race, with a double finish for both cars only troubled by more graining of the tyres.

Minardi

A few small aerodynamic changes on the rear wing were all Minardi had to boast this weekend. More pressing for the team was the Cosworth engine supply in 2005. The team had already agreed to a supply of the 90-degree engines for next year, replacing the ancient 72-degree units. However, the team do have some ownership rights to the 72-degree engine programme going back to the European badged version predating the Asiatech supply. By owning the part of the current engine supply it is possible that the team could race next year without Cosworth.

Nevertheless, Paul Stoddart has said he doesn't have the finances to redesign the 2005 car for the narrower engines, as it is already been designed with the 90-degree engine in mind. He has been asking for permission from the other teams to run a 2004 chassis/engine next year instead (see the interview with Stoddart in this week's issue). While the top teams would not fear this proposition, lesser teams might.

Only a gearbox problem marred Minardi's Friday session, unlike Saturday which saw the cars' handling tending towards oversteer. This possibly helped Gianmaria Bruni spin on his qualifying lap. Bruni also suffered in the race after a puncture in his first stint and lost his front wheel completely towards the end of the race. His teammate Zsolt Baumgartner had a better race, despite sliding into his pit box and hitting a mechanic - fortunately without serious injury.

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