F1 Explained: What are aero rakes and why do teams use them in pre-season testing?

Formula 1 cars are finally back on track with pre-season testing in Bahrain now well underway.

Heading into the new season, several topics are worthy of discussion, none more so than Lewis Hamilton's stunning move to Ferrari. Can the Brit make it eight titles in a row with the Scuderia? Only time will tell.

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However, whilst that is undoubtedly a question on everyone's minds, there are also some more technical aspects of F1 testing that those watching from home might not be entirely familiar with.

Of course, one of these is regarding the huge metal fences seen near the front of the cars on some of their laps. You rarely see these during a grand prix weekend, but they will be a regular fixture throughout testing this week.

What are the metal grids on F1 cars in testing?

The metal attachments with square grids in F1 testing are known as aero rakes. Aero rakes resemble metal fences that are mounted on the car and consist of sensors that can measure pressure and temperature. They also measure how the airflow flows from, for example, the tires or the front wing.

Teams can compare data from the wind tunnel with data from the aero rakes to come up with a better aerodynamic setup for a particular circuit.

From the data from the aero rakes, teams can see how different settings change the car's performance.

In this way, it can be determined whether, for example, the front wing needs to be adjusted a little for more downforce.

Former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley explained to F1: "[The] information then goes back to the aerodynamics team, and they can then use that data in order to then optimize and improve the upstream flow structure generation.

"The data that comes back from the aero rakes is very quick – it’s almost real-time. Teams have developed software that takes the raw data and spits out these really interesting images and video files.

"Some of the stuff, you can act on immediately. So if you’re doing a ‘front wing polar’, for example, which means stepping through from a low angle up to the maximum angle of the front wing, then we’re able to see if that front polar is healthy. Or we can see if there’s a point where the front wing ‘falls over’, as we term it, where we’re not generating the downforce on the front anymore. You might be getting a stall or a semi-stall, and at that point, the information from the aero rakes is telling the race engineers to stay away from that area of running the car.

"Equally, there are sometimes more fundamental things that we pick up from the aero rakes that we can’t solve at the track, and that then goes back to the aerodynamics team and they can deliberate on how to solve these fundamental problems and to put these flow structures in a more optimized position."

How to watch F1 pre-season testing on TV and live stream

Wednesday's pre-season testing action from the Bahrain International Circuit is set to be shown live on ESPN+ in the United States.

Broadcast details vary depending on your location. Please check below to see how to watch F1 live in your country.

F1 TV Pro subscribers can also watch all of the action from Bahrain pre-season testing live in select regions.

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