AlphaTauri Formula 1 Technical Director Jody Egginton asserts that adopting a downwash aero concept doesn’t guarantee success in this era, citing the “devil is in the detail”.
Since the regulations were overhauled to return to ground effect machinery in 2022, Red Bull has exploited the downwash sidepod solution to log 39 wins in 44 races.
Subsequently, last season witnessed the teams converge on that philosophy in a bid to understand before the time came to sign off on the designs for their 2024 challengers.
However, Egginton has highlighted that replicating that aero model won’t determine a side’s competitiveness and that the more refined elements will make the difference.
“People do converge in any regulation,” Egginton told Autosport. “And Red Bull and McLaren and a few of the teams have shown some really interesting development directions, and everyone’s looking at what everyone’s doing.
“And at top level, our concept is a downwashing concept, not dissimilar to a number of other teams.
“But the devil is in the detail. There are cars that are not scoring podiums every weekend that have got some really nice features on them.
“We’re always looking at what people are doing, and it’s about bringing all that together and understanding it, you got to understand that.
“The downwashing concept, we can all sit there and draw it, it’s not a problem. But the devil is the detail, and we’re moving ourselves forward with lots of small detail on the car.”
Egginton pointed to McLaren’s remarkable mid-season turnaround from struggling to even avoid Q1 eliminations to battling for regular podiums as the standout example.
He added: “The McLaren is the obvious one that really shows you what you can do once you’ve got your head around the detail.”
Egginton highlighted that every team’s overriding ambition is to assemble a package that is consistent enough to work across a broad array of circuit layouts.
“There’s lots of carrots and things to look for,” he explained. “But you’ve got to make sure that the car’s got a good operating envelope, and it’s driveable.
“As the regulations mature, that becomes more and more important, to not fall into a trap of being too attracted to a certain way, and missing out on a certain handling characteristic.
“We want a big operating envelope so that the drivers can make use of the aero performance for various different circuit types.
“If you want to win a championship or be very strong, you’ve got to be consistent, and one thing we learned from 2019, ‘20 to ‘21, was the importance of that.”
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