This special Ferrari episode of Myst Apex Podcast is brought to you by Global Hey guys, Spanners here. So for the first time in 11 years, And believe me, we've tried for the first time in 11 years of podcasting at Miss Apex podcast. We are speaking to an active and current member of a team from the strategy department of.
Scuderia Ferrari HP. We're joined by Francesco Compello. Hello, Francesco. Welcome to Miss Apex Podcast. Hello, Spanners. Can you just start off by telling us what your role is at Scuderia Ferrari HP? Yes, I am part of the Arrow performance group. and within that I am trackside aerodynamicist, which means I travel to races, actually half of them when I'm there I work on.
optimizing and monitoring the aerodynamic performance of the car during race events and when I'm not doing that Our group focuses, of course, on events preparation and analysis, correlation and model modeling, amongst other things.
So you go from the factory and then you go to the track and see if it all worked out. I'd love to ask you all about that kind of correlation from factory to track. But first of all, how do you even get, it sounds like a dream job, at Scuderia Ferrari? Was that always your plan? It wasn't always my plan, but I studied aeronautical engineering in London and while doing that, I realized that that would be mostly relevant for planes or Formula One cars, which... sound a lot more fun.
While studying there I did a work placement in Formula 1 and then once I graduated I started working here in Ferrari. in the wind tunnel, which I did for about four years. Then I did a stint in modeling still within the aerodynamics department. And then I moved to my current position within the auto performance group and the track side stuff.
So I also went to a school of electrical and aeronautical engineering, and I went into the defense side of things. I have to say, I think your life is probably better than mine worked out. So I think you did the right thing. But so many guys that work in defense, no guys.
that did the same things but ended up in formula one yeah well there is ups and downs but i'm definitely not complaining no it definitely sounds like it seems like a good life so you're mainly involved in aero and we we know that it's it's vital in formula one but just How much does aero dominate whether a car is going to be successful or not over a Grand Prix weekend? Formula 1 works a little bit with regulation cycles, so that answer will actually vary depending on
where you sit within a given cycle. At the moment in Formula 1 we are the place in which engine regs have been stable for over a decade now. We have a single common tire supplier and therefore, as a consequence, yes, the aero package takes a big chunk and plays a big role in terms of being a performance differentiator. Now it's important to understand that, for example, the packaging of the engine or the gearbox frees up or can free up a lot of aerodynamic development potential.
or the suspension layout can do the same or even the suspension kinematics can allow you to exploit better your aerodynamic platform. Therefore when we talk about our package we need to keep in mind that it's a broad concept, we're not just talking about carbon parts, wings etc. Yeah, sometimes you go, oh, they've got a new mirror. Why have they done that? But even little things like that can be a new aero platform. They are. They are. Ended.
So everything can be exploited. So, I mean, a quick diversion, but I do remember maybe in the mid 2000s, you had the winglet wars where every single surface seemed to have an extra little aero wing. But I guess that's a little bit more restricted now. Yeah, the regulations have changed in that sense, for sure. So when you go track to track, you know, we often hear people talking about, oh, they've brought their Monza spec wing here, or they've brought their high downforce wing.
How much does that process change from track to track? And do you kind of know, oh, we're going to Mexico. We've got a set. uh low downforce wing that we're going to use or oh no mexico's the opposite isn't it full downforce but you have kind of like a shelf where you go and get right let's start with that heavy downforce wing and go from there
Yeah, of course. Well, to stay obvious, I mean, it's common knowledge, but once you've optimized your arrow package, then if you want to add downforce, you also have to add drag. You know, there are kind of two faces of the same coin.
So the trade-off between these two, the optimum, will depend on the track layout. So the speed that you want to gain in the corners by adding downforce is balanced up against the fact that you're going to be slower in the straights because of the... other drags or the track layout itself whether you are in Monza for example which has a lot of straights and little corners you can afford.
to drop a lot your drag and sacrifice downforce and that will make your lap time lower and the opposite of course will be true for Monaco, for example. it's not just about the track layout uh there is atmospheric conditions can play a big role and a particular one you mentioned it before is Mexico. Mexico sits more than I think more than 2,000 meters above sea level so the air density there is like 80% and having 80% of the air density means having 80% of the downforce and 80% of the drag.
Now interestingly 80% is about the downforce range that you want to modulate in between a Monza and a Monte Carlo which are both at sea level. So that's the order of magnitude we're talking about. in Mexico City doesn't look particularly twisty. what happens is that team will run their Monaco package there, so maximum downforce. but effectively will be generating Monza levels of downforce.
there and it's not just about the air density either there is other factors for example the temperature because i mean we talked about aerodynamics in terms of generating downforce and minimizing drag which that's a big part, but we also use air to cool brakes engines for example, so you'll see the aerodynamic configuration of a car changing at times in between sessions on the same track. just because we want to use the minimal amount.
of air to cool the car because every airflow that is used to cool the car is then unused to generate downforce so you always want to be right at the limit with your cooling and so the configuration will change because of that.
and then there is great variations as well on the same track so for the same layout the grip can change because of temperature or wind but i think the biggest one obvious to anyone is rain and when it rains of course the drip the grip will drop a lot and having less grip means that you have to go slower through the corners and if you're going slower through a corner then a corner effectively becomes longer. and the straight will become shorter.
So when they're talking about running the same track layout, with a lowered grip will look like a track with more corners and therefore will require higher level downforce. So when to carry short when it rains we will run higher level downforce sometimes. This is just a few examples of of how much the error configuration can change depending on different factors.
Yeah, so that's interesting. So a weekend like this in Miami where there's a really different weather could be possible. So you might have all of the sprint race in the dry and then there's thunderstorms.
for sunday you have a substantially different setup for the for the rain and i've really always wondered when they say right we're gonna set up the car in case of rain what they mean and i didn't even think about the fact of the speed going through the corners is going to be completely different so if you're deciding whether to do a wet or a dry package that's quite a big gamble there
It is. It is. And sometimes you have to gamble because, you know, the park permit rule exists in Formula One, which means once you enter in qualifying, you do not change the car anymore. So... At that point you are Saturday and then the race is on Sunday and you might need to rely on the forecast you have and decide whether to bias yourself towards one scenario or the other.
And who makes that decision? Is that Francesco has to sit there and go, mmm, rain. No, we have a chief race engineer that takes this kind of decision on the track. We have ways to evaluate the downforce levels based on what we call attack or defense strategies.
so a given downforce level might be a bit better whether you're defending or a bit better when you're attacking so if you expect to start for the back or for the front that might influence not as much as previous factors i mentioned but it can come into play
Well, I'd say they are definitely thinking about that. I think we can get pole, therefore we're a bit defensive this weekend. That comes into play. Especially for cooling, actually, that one will play a big role because the car will be a lot warmer if you're following other people, so... It can play a role. So with the cooling, on the show, I've had this big bugbear. So my job was a supportability engineer and I used to call myself the contact with reality engineer. So you'd have engineers
designing these systems and I always felt that cooling was the thing that they neglected. Do you have a kind of battle with the engineers that want to consider cooling more and the ones that are saying no, no, no? minimum cooling to make sure we get maximum performance because it seems like that always is a blind spot for design engineers. There is a...
There is a little bit of this kind of discussion sometimes between engine guys that always want to look after the engine or the department that wants to maximize the performance of the car. It's mostly for gig because ultimately nobody wants to see the car go out and sets itself on fire after two laps. So we just try to do the right thing.
One thing that fascinates us as podcasters and wannabe pundits is we try and follow the weekend from the Friday. And in reality, as audience people, we can't look at it and see who's going to be far. on a friday but that doesn't stop us trying and guessing so i wonder if you could walk us through the process of the car setups you know um what what is friday fp1 for and when do you know that you've got a package and a setup that's going to be good or bad
Well, of course, to stay the obvious, the name of the game through the week and through the three practice sessions that you have is to optimize your package. And despite it's not really what you asked, but of course, the closer you start. from FP1 to the optimum then the bigger chance you have to actually reach it. So there is a lot of work that goes on before even FP1 where everything is scanned in simulations.
every spring, every setup, every area configuration and you try to start as close as possible to what is the optimum on paper then FP1 is often used as a session to do bigger scans, because then you try to narrow it down along the rest of the weekend, especially because Often FP1 is not as representative as for then qualifying in the race because
Sometimes it's just because it's hotter, because it's early in the day, or because the track is green, at least what we call green, so it needs to be laid out with rubber, and therefore you need to try things that are big enough to cut through the noise. of factors that might change. Sometimes, even during FP1, we dedicate some running to the acquisition of brakes, which are those big metal gates that you sometimes see installed on the cars.
That kind of data acquisition is not dedicated to that current weekend as a little sacrifice of that weekend that you do for future races, future car, future packages. and then you go into FP2 and usually FP2 is more for fine-tuning and to answer your question that's when you start having an idea of where you sit that weekend in the packing order.
and then if everything goes well fp3 uh can be left more to the for the driver to drive because he has also his uh his tests to do driving lines gear users, etc. So if you give them a consistent car, you can try out different things with the same platform and then be ready for quality.
And at this point, are you talking to the drivers about how they're interacting with the car? For example, you know, you need to use more engine braking here to get the car rotated. Is that the time that that's happening? Yeah, that happens throughout, but I imagine it intensifies as the noise around car setup and car changes diminishes, although there's people that do that job specifically, which is not mine.
And if you can help us when we're watching on a Friday, everybody is looking at the headline times. Is it worthless for us to be looking at those timing sheets on a Friday? Lower engine modes, higher engine modes? uh higher fuel lower fuel without giving away any secrets from your end what kind of factors dictate that
So, first of all, it's not entirely useless, especially if you look at FP2. I guess if you look back and try to draw some kind of correlation between page one or the time sheet in FP2 and in Quali, you will find some correlation.
and the reason why there's different choices of fuel loads or engine modes that will depend on what they team to be uh realistic or representative kind of running and then in with the choice of engine modes there is a discussion about reliability so you can push your engine to the mic only for a given amount of kilometers so you don't want to really use that specific training and everybody, every team will have its own
limitations and reason to do different things. I mean the engine mode is something that is fairly easy, readable from the top speed that the team reaches during a session, especially if it changes. within the same session that they haven't changed their downforce level, for example, which might be another factor that might pump their speed races up in the straight.
Francesco I'm being selfish here because every weekend you know I'm trying to play a pundit so I'm trying to find out the things to look for so that is interesting so if we keep a track of whether they're making setup changes and then monitor that top speed. then that can give us a little bit of a clue on engine modes. That's really interesting. And so when you get to FP3, you see people strapping on the softest tyre and kind of really preparing.
for qualifying and and what i really would like to know is how much of a compromise is there between qualifying and race pace do you always have to kind of choose which way you want to bias your setup Yes, there will be small compromises to be made and that will depend on
the ease of overtakes in that particular circuit. So I think it's common knowledge, for example, in Monaco, qualifying is everything. So any factor that might bias the race to quality performance One in Monaco has chosen full-on thinking about qualifying because if you start at the front, you'll stay at the front.
and then there is other tracks in which it's much easier to overtake for the amount of DRS zones that you have or other factors in which then you might be willing to sacrifice a little bit of your quality performance just gambling on what will happen in the race and the fact that you can overtake.
Could you give me an example of how you do that? So what do I do if I go, no, we want more quality pace or no, we want more race pace. Is it all about getting the tires fired up and scrubbing them too much? There could be many examples, but... I just won't go on. I want one example just to go back to something we were talking about before. could be the cooling. So you don't have to cool the car over one lap, you have to cool the car over multiple consecutive laps.
So you might be willing to close up all of your cooling to do a mega quality lap. And then you will have to save cooling or do lift and coast or whatever strategies during the race. And that will slow you down during the race because you're limited by cooling and it's a choice that you made to be faster in quality. I love that. Thank you. That is the best answer. Yeah, I've really wondered how crucial those cooling things are and how people can, I'm sure there's more.
But that bit of information for me is fantastic and fascinating. So away from setups then, you know, we're at the end of a regulation set and there's close competition i.e. the if you make a small mistake in qualifying now you're going to drop down the grid Do you think these current regulations promote closer racing as well? And from a broader point of view, what would you do if you wanted there to be more overtakes, closer racing?
I think these regulations, the current regulations, at least the aerodynamic regulations that started in 2022, They were aimed at that a lot and I think they were successful in that. I wouldn't have right now better suggestions. So what they did mostly in two steps to make it simple. First is that they restricted a lot the freedom that we have with the geometry of our dynamic surfaces. So if you ever wonder why all the Formula 1 cars look the same nowadays, because they have to.
Now, of course, if you reduce the freedom of development of geometries you will also reduce the margins and there is a misconception that the reduction of these margins actually makes the technical side less relevant in Formula One. I hear that a lot, which is really not true if anything is the opposite because the packing order i mean the cars are not spread out by seconds now they're spread by tenths of second but that tenths is still measurable and is not obtained by luck
So there's still actually even more work to be on the right side of the gap than there could be to be on the right side of a one second gap. And the fact is, as you were saying, with the gaps being so narrow, everything, every other factor, for example, the execution of a race, we can have strategy mistakes or any wrong choices.
then also comes into play. If you are ahead by one second you can afford to be sloppy on many other things, which means that the technical challenge is a lot broader, it's not just in car design, it is as much as it would be with other freer regulation in terms of car design, but then the technical effort to be perfect.
around the block is also there and is very interesting. And then another interesting thing that they try to do is to provoke closer racing is to make it easier to follow another car. Now, the reason why it's complicated for the guy following is because a car leaves awake which is the let's say the aerodynamic footprint of having extracted downforce while going through the air and the wake is a region of dirty air you can call it or just you know flow with little potential now if you wanted to
reduce the weight, you could remove aerodynamics altogether, which would not be very fun for anyone. And you'd lose your job. And it would definitely not be fun for me. So what they try to do instead is to reshape the previous generation of regulations. could generate a lot of outwash. Outwash is the capability of the car to pump air on the sides, which then led to a very
broad, squashed out, low wake, which was really bad then for the guy coming behind. What they tried to do with this new regulation and ground effect car is to shoot the wake upward. straight out because straight out because Of course that doesn't mean the wake is not there. And it's not a big change, but from both driver feedback when we first did the tracking 2022 and our data. that worked. So the dirty air is further up and it's less impacting the guy behind.
So we're talking about the small margins. I was watching since the 80s and very often you'd have one driver lap the pack a couple of times. The gaps would be very big as you're evolving through a season now. you can't afford to to give up on that development race and i suppose now looking throughout the season you can't relax but also the cars ahead of you do you think well we can get those cars because we've got five or six chances to bring upgrades
Yes, you do. You have a few shots during the season to upgrade your car, literally in terms of bite. but there is also a constant evolution of the understanding of how to exploit.
uh your current package which also is uh is constantly ongoing and uh finally francesco this has been amazing but i'd love to know how much the driver's feedback comes into it and how much... of that is is weighted versus just what happens in the wind tunnel because we often hear about a car being developed towards a driver they have styles and things they
ask for. How much influence does the driver actually have when you go back to the factory with your data? The driver is there to exploit the platform and exploitability or drivability or predictability, call it whatever you want. it's very important if you think about a car that has a potential of 100 let's say but it's only exploitable to 80 ultimately will be slower than a car that is worth 90 but is fully exploitable So the name of the game in this sense.
is to be able to develop metrics and KPIs such that your development doesn't only take into account the potential of the car. but also its exploitability or the drownability. And it's a very complicated game because there's a human factor in between, so there's stuff like fear, margin-taking, etc., all these kind of things that come into play. It's possible through a lot of data, a lot of simulation and having a driving simulator as well. Okay, put it this way. If you could put a figure on it.
how much do you think the driver makes a difference? Like when you get a better driver or you've got a more difficult driver, can you really feel the difference in your job? well for us it doesn't it doesn't affect that much to be honest the the car development in the sense that the car has plenty of tools that can then can be set up on the fly during a race weekend sometimes even during a lot that can allow each driver to tune the car, fine-tune the car to his preferences.
But in terms of developing the car, we try to develop a car that has the highest potential possible and we try to make sure that that potential is exploitable in general. Francesco Compello from Scuderia Ferrari HP. Thank you so much for spending time in the shed. Thank you. For the entirety of our Miami adventure, Mist Apex is partnered with Global Poker, an online social poker platform that's always free to play with no download required.
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