In Formula 1, neither money nor time is available for any kind of detour, least of all in development. Therefore, parts that have proven their worth in the previous season’s car are very often adopted, especially those components that do not directly affect performance. A Formula 1 race car consists of approximately 5,000 individual parts ranging from the common screw to complex electronic components. Such is the pace of Formula 1 that roughly 3,500 of these are modified over the course of a season. “The car is constantly being changed,” Fisher says. “There is always something that can be improved even further.”

The complex jigsaw of new ideas and tried and tested parts is pieced together step by step using computers. The simulations, using powerful CAD (Computer-Aided Design) workstations, are the crash tests for ideas. High-performance computers use special software to create three-dimensional models of the individual components and complete vehicle. Other software systems, such as CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), illustrate how the model will behave in the wind tunnel and how the various environmental factors will affect the car. Despite all this technology, the designers still occasionally pick up their sketching pens. A race car is not created with logic alone: intuition also plays a part. It’s 50 per cent science, 50 per cent emotion – although the days of the one-man show at the drawing board are long gone, this rule of thumb still applies.

During the development phase of the new car, a constant comparison with data recorded in the current season takes place. Once the design of the parts has been completed and their effect on the vehicle as a whole has been tested by the computers, the corresponding data is fed into the CAM (Computer-Aided Manufacturing) systems. Maximum-precision machines then manufacture the parts, usually from very expensive materials. For the metal components of the engine block, human effort is almost entirely unnecessary, while carbon-fibre parts, such as the monocoque, still require a good deal of manual labour. Even this early in the process, the first testing of sample parts in the wind tunnel is intended to provide the maximum possible operational safety of the new developments. This way, trust in exact procedures is created.

Throughout the year, the teams’ technical departments conduct a very special kind of division of labour. One part of the team takes care of the current car, while another works on improvements for the current season, and a third concentrates on developing the new vehicle. The resources need to be carefully balanced. There are tripwires everywhere: if one starts concentrating on the new car too early, there is the risk of falling behind in the remaining races of the current season. If, on the other hand, too much time is spent with the current vehicle, the new season can begin with a nasty shock.

It is mostly between seasons that the race factories begin their final countdown. The past season is history; now all production capacity is focused solely on the new model. During this transitional period, the teams usually use interim cars that are partially equipped with components of the as-yet incomplete new vehicle – these are, of course, still excellently camouflaged because the competition is also still testing. The necessary test kilometres away from the test stands and the wind tunnels are accumulated by the new generation of race car in the two months before the start of the season. The teams work virtually round the clock to make the race car reliable quickly (and reliably quick).

And before the new car has even run its first grand prix, the team specialists are already working on the next season’s vehicles. The cycle begins again and the speed is as fast as ever.

And did you know...

...that designing a Formula 1 chassis takes around 250,000 hours of labour, and the actual construction requires a further 250,000? During the design phase of the new FW27, WilliamsF1 created 4,500 drawings, and roughly another 4,000 drawings will be added over the course of the season. For its vehicles, WilliamsF1 produces approximately 200,000 individual components a year.