Haas will continue to work in Ferrari’s Formula 1 wind tunnel despite signing a high-profile technical partnership with Toyota last year.
Although Toyota’s F1 team came and went expensively during the 2000s without securing a single victory, its wind tunnel in Cologne was once considered so cutting edge that other F1 outfits used it in preference to their own.
However, Haas has decided to stick to the same Ferrari tunnel that it has used since its entry into F1 in 2016.
The decision is a strategic one which involves Haas’s search for a new HQ in which it will be able to rationalise performance work currently split between the US, the UK and Italy. This will also include the integration of a new driver-in-loop simulator Haas will build as part of Toyota’s investment.
To establish an aerodynamics group located in Cologne, or have one commuting there, would add costs and make logistics more complicated. The Toyota tunnel also has a specific shortcoming which directly affects research into ground effect.
“Never is a strong word,” team boss Ayao Komatsu told Autosport and a select group of media during a pre-season briefing, “but for the foreseeable future, we have no plans to move out of the Maranello wind tunnel.”
Wind tunnel
Photo by: McLaren
Following Toyota’s withdrawal from F1 at the end of 2009, several teams – including McLaren, Williams, Force India (now Aston Martin) and even Ferrari – shifted research into the Japanese marque’s tunnel, although in the Scuderia’s case it was a temporary measure while it refitted its own tunnel, which is housed inside a spectacular Renzo Piano-designed structure near the rear entrance to the Maranello factory. Currently only the Cadillac team is working in Cologne.
At the time, Toyota’s tunnel enjoyed a significant advantage over others because it offered Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), a technique in which tiny particles illuminated by a laser sheet are used instead of smoke to give a visual representation of the flow field around a car. PIV is considered more accurate because the tracer particles exert less of an influence over airflow than smoke particles.
Now, though, most teams have upgraded their facilities to include PIV and attention has shifted to the form of the rolling road. In the new ground-effect era, where the cars run closer to the ground, the interaction between the car floor and track surface has become a key performance…
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