2025 car comparison thread

[Vanja #66]

McLaren goes slightly bigger, Ferrari a lot smaller and Top Speed shift is +5kmh Ferrari

[Vanja #66]

RB and Merc

[AR3-GP]

Note: Ham reached 337km/h.

I have the distinct impression that the Mclaren is quite draggy again but from looking only at the rear wings and beam wings, it's not apparent why that is the case. 5km/h is a big margin. Where is that energy being dissipated?

Also, Mercedes and Red Bull have double beam wings structures and are still the quickest on the straights. Mercedes outright quickest.

[AR3-GP]

I thought it was interesting to compare all of the cars through Turn 7 ( just after 40 second timestamp in each video). Mercedes and Mclaren are bouncing through the corner. Red Bull and Ferrari don't bounce.

For 2025 on premium plan F1TV has upped the resolution to 1080p and bitrate to ~6 Mb/s along with much better audio quality. A big improvement. Onboards looking better than ever, we now get almost official broadcast quality.

Some laps from qualifying:

P01 piastri china 2025 q3 1.30.641
https://streamable.com/aseg6e


P02 russell china 2025 q3 1.30.723
https://streamable.com/qxnnr5


P04 verstappen china 2025 q3 1.30.817
https://streamable.com/5pzkkk


P05 hamilton china 2025 q3 1.30.927
https://streamable.com/sb2t66


P07 hadjar china 2025 q3 1.31.079
https://streamable.com/w7uv5n


HF

[SB15]

McLaren goes slightly bigger, Ferrari a lot smaller and Top Speed shift is +5kmh Ferrari

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GmkEUSIaEAM ... ame=medium

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GmkETSbaEAM ... ame=medium

Look from these Images, I noticed the Ferrari is running a little bit more camber vs the others in china.

[SB15]

McLaren goes slightly bigger, Ferrari a lot smaller and Top Speed shift is +5kmh Ferrari

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GmkEUSIaEAM ... ame=medium

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GmkETSbaEAM ... ame=medium

Looking from these Images, I noticed the Ferrari is running a little bit more camber vs the others in china.

[Vanja #66]

With @xavigazquez providing us beautiful rear-view shots from Australia, we can use them to get a better visual analysis of diffuser keel geometry on the Top 4 cars in 2025. Photos are arranged by my estimation of diffuser keel drag, but they also correlate to current WCC standings among the Top 4

The vertical kicks were first introduced on RB18 in 2022, and you can read more about them in this thread -> https://x.com/AeroTechVH/status/1870068370734735406

These have since proved to be a very tricky geometrical feature to make use of in generating good and stable aerodynamic load on the floor. Ferrari had big issues with them on 2024 Barcelona-spec floor and have since removed all kicks they previously had, choosing to rely mostly on tunnels to provide the aerodynamic load.

I have also included horizontal thin blue lines to show a small local suction generated by mandatory transition radii between different surfaces on the floor and I believe the load generated by these also depends on the load generated by neighbouring kicks. So basically, these have a different influence level on every car

McLaren have found a way to control these vertical kicks and the downforce they generate across various ride heights. This is the big tricky topic, as massive kick surface can generate massive downforce peak that disappears if the kick stalls locally - while also leading to high-speed bouncing that Ferrari struggled with.

I believe this floor design is part of the reason McLaren exhibits lower Top Speed figures, both with and without DRS, compared to rest of Top 4 cars.

Mercedes are doing a similar thing, though having a much narrower central keel kick section which reduces the downforce and drag, but also reduces the risk associated with this design. Together with less loaded Rear Wing, it's not surprising they have higher Top Speed than McLaren, despite running larger Beam Wings

Red Bull had a hybrid keel design on Day 1 and 2 in Bahrain test and they switched to kick-less design on Day 3 (this may be the other way around; RB did not provide details on which floor is which of course). With kick-less design of the keel, they only have side vertical kicks on the central boat section

Ferrari SF25 has a diffuser not too dissimilar to final SF24 spec, but they did re-introduce a small central kick on the keel fin - which is now thick enough not to be considered a simple fin anymore. They also have no vertical kicks on boat section, just a small lateral kick which generates secondary downforce increase on the floor tunnel locally

[Emag]

* cut for better readability

Thank you for the great overview. I have also noticed significant differences in the "mouths" before the diffuser exit (not sure if there's a proper name for it) between teams and I have been meaning to make a post about it.

What I am referring to by the "mouth" is this area here :



What could be the implications of each team's design? It seems like McLaren's and RedBull's are visually bigger whereas Ferrari's is the smallest of the bunch.

[Mattchu]

Thank you for the great overview. I have also noticed significant differences in the "mouths" before the diffuser exit (not sure if there's a proper name for it) between teams and I have been meaning to make a post about it.

What I am referring to by the "mouth" is this area here :

It`s commonly referred to as the "mouse hole"... Something to do with tyre squirt maybe? I can imagine a tunnel of airflow accross the contact patch could help clean it up.

[yinlad]

Thank you for the great overview. I have also noticed significant differences in the "mouths" before the diffuser exit (not sure if there's a proper name for it) between teams and I have been meaning to make a post about it.

What I am referring to by the "mouth" is this area here :

It`s commonly referred to as the "mouse hole"... Something to do with tyre squirt maybe? I can imagine a tunnel of airflow accross the contact patch could help clean it up.

I can only speak to this from an experimentation perspective but I was able to find performance on psuedo-2022 spec cars using the mouse hole to control diffuser wall vortex generation and shedding into the larger vortex formation already passing through the floor/diffuser



is the result of a double mouse hole formation

[Mattchu]

I can only speak to this from an experimentation perspective but I was able to find performance on psuedo-2022 spec cars using the mouse hole to control diffuser wall vortex generation and shedding into the larger vortex formation already passing through the floor/diffuser

Good stuff

So it helps to clean up the airflow in the diffuser (stops the walls interfering with the main vortex too much) and basically helps blow the air out the back better?

[AR3-GP]

It's crazy how little rear wing Verstappen used in Japan.

[Emag]

It's crazy how little rear wing Verstappen used in Japan.

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c ... pg?w=600&h

Spoon vs Conventional skews the differences a bit, but Max was still lower overall I would say.

This is a crude photoshop attempt at making RedBull's wing spoon-shaped:

[AR3-GP]

It's crazy how little rear wing Verstappen used in Japan.

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c ... pg?w=600&h

Spoon vs Conventional skews the differences a bit, but Max was still lower overall I would say.

This is a crude photoshop attempt at making RedBull's wing spoon-shaped:
https://i.imgur.com/ZMumeRb.jpeg

The wingtips are less efficient generating downforce due to the lack of a proper endplate, so the downforce generated in the spoon is more effective than that which is generated near the endplates. In other words, I wouldn't just shift the outboard area into a spoon shape because the outboard area is also less powerful.

There was a reason for this:

[Farnborough]

The tyre "banding" wear marks show RB with a little more camber on rear than McL in that comparison.