Analysis: Week 2 testing developments

After a relatively uninformative first week of testing, the teams are back out on track in Barcelona racking up the miles in the sun. And already the development race is at full tilt with all of the teams bringing a plethora of updates to their cars in the second week of 2018.

The design around the front of the W09 is as complex as you’ll find on the grid this year. The long wheelbase philosophy has been discussed at length versus the shorter wheelbases of Ferrari in 2017 and Red Bull and McLaren this year with the latter two opting for a higher rake over complexity around the bargeboard areas.

New to the car though for week two is the ‘cape’ either side of the nose of the car. James Allison and the rest of the Mercedes aerodynamics department have been busy creating an even more complex design around the bargeboard and front suspension of their Silver Arrow and the ‘cape’ designed to direct airflow towards the complexity of the bargeboard layout and floor of the car, expect a few more teams to be following this design as the season progresses.

The Papaya orange didn’t do much to hide a burn mark on the engine cover during the first week of testing and it has been widely reported that the MCL33 is suffering from overheating issues. It is no surprise then that the Woking-based outfit have turned up for the second week of testing with new cooling outlets just behind the driver’s head either side of the airbox.

They have run into several issues so far in testing and have logged less laps than their former engine partner Honda’s new team, Toro Rosso. With each day of testing, they need to hope they get on top of their overheating issues as the days tick away before the lights go out in Melbourne.

The team in yellow have a number of interesting elements on their car to take note of, most noticeably their blown rear wing. Using the exhaust gasses from their layout, a metal strip is obvious on the bottom plane of the rear wing to prevent the wing from structural damage due to melting.

New on the car though is a small aero wing visible underneath the airbox behind the driver. How much affect it will have on airflow around the car is debatable but perhaps the reason it is there is due to the halo on the cars preventing as much air from getting into the airbox and disrupting the aerodynamics of the cars. A small wing like that may look innocent enough but as discussed above, cooling issues can cause havoc for teams.