F1) The facility that even F1 teams rolling in dough find hard to utilize freely

F1) The facility that even F1 teams drowning in cash find hard to utilize freely

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The Wind Tunnel, or *Pung-dong*. Of course, the facility itself is pretty common in F1—most major teams, and even some midfield/lower-tier teams, have their own wind tunnels. BUT, the cost to build and operate a high-performance wind tunnel capable of building a championship-winning car is seriously insane, making it tough even for top-tier teams who are loaded. You might be thinking, 'Huh, what's so expensive about just blowing some air?'

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The pic is the wind tunnel facility used by Ferrari, and that entire building was constructed just to run the tunnel. First off, the tunnel that shoots air at the race car has to be super long, and they don't just blast air and stop; they have an intake on the opposite side to cycle the air back around. Obviously, since this is for race cars, they can't just aim haphazardly; they have to shoot air consistently, fast, and adjust intensity. Naturally, as soon as you start adding fancy features like cross-wind sensors or computer simulation capabilities, the money starts breaking the bank. That's why even teams that spend money like water, like Red Bull and Mercedes, often just stick to using their existing tunnels instead of rushing to build the newest one. This actually led to an interesting situation.

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Back in 2006, when BMW bought the Sauber F1 team to enter F1, BMW used its own money to build a wind tunnel facility for Sauber specifically for developing their race cars. Here's the kicker: Sauber's new wind tunnel was the most state-of-the-art facility among all the participating teams at the time. So, you had huge teams aiming for the championship, like McLaren and Renault, paying the shrimpy team Sauber to rent their wind tunnel instead of using their own.