TECH ANALYSIS: McLaren with higher downforce setup in Baku compared to Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull

With the Baku street track posing contrasting challenging with its unique layout, teams are split in their choices for the downforce levels that they wish to use at this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The 6.003km track made its debut on the F1 schedule in 2016, and has pretty much unchanged since then. The challenging street circuit features a total of 20 corners of which some are right-angle turns – such as the first seven – while others through the old part of the city are very slow.

The layout ends with some high-speed corners that are taken flat out, with these turns forming a two-kilometre flat-out section with the start/finish straight.

This is a unique section of the track, and it saw Valtteri Bottas record fastest ever top speed by a Formula 1 car in an official event. The Finn driver clocked at 378 km/h in his Williams-Mercedes during qualifying for the inaugural event in 2016.

Although this extremely long, full-throttle section might lead one to believe that teams will use Monza-style rear wings, it is often not the case, with teams usually trying out a wide variety of rear wing designs on the opening practice day. The inner sections of the track is much slower, and while the cars usually rely on the tyre-generated grip, rear wing play a crucial role in generating temperatures in the tyres. This factor usually prompts teams to use slightly higher rear wing levels to achieve the necessary tyre temperatures.

Another important factor is the track width which varies a lot across the track. While the circuit is only seven metres at turn 8, it is wide enough to accommodate three cars abreast down the main straight.

The images of the respected F1 journalist Albert Fabrega show that teams are set to use similar downforce levels at Baku, but two teams stand out with their choices.

Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari are set to run a similar downforce level at Baku, with all three teams having brought a relatively flat mainplane. By contrast, McLaren appears to begin the Baku weekend with a rear wing that produces a higher downforce level which of course comes along with a higher degree of drag.

Ferrari’s mainplane features a spoon-shape design. The relatively steep upper flap sports a rectangular tip section while it also incorporates a half-ellipse notch around its centreline.

Having emerged as the fastest team in recent weeks, McLaren has arrived at Baku with a high downforce configuration than its rivals. The middle section of the mainplane features a pronounced spoon shape. The rear wing assembly features a V-shaped notch around the upper flap’s centreline and a semi-detached tip section that is bent rearwards.

Alpine and the Visa Cash RB outfit stand out with their rear wing choice, with both teams set to run an extremely low downforce configuration. The Alpine’s design is reminiscent of its Monza-style assembly, with the mainplane being a flat section. By contrast, the Faenza-based outfit opted for a mainplane that sports a spoon-shape design while the trailing edge of the flap features a concave design.

With Alpine and RB having opted to run an unusually low-downforce setup, they might play an interesting strategy in the race. The two teams will secure less benefit from the DRS on the long start-finish straight, but they might try to fend off any attacks with their higher top speed.