Formula One car development blog

Red Bull Racing introduced a new front wing on their car, maintaining the same basic concept but with small modifications all over the wing. Mark Webber left the pitlane with the new wing filled with flowviz in the morning, ready to do some flow verification.

The changes include the addition of two apertures in the end plates to catch a little more air and push it up over the flaps. The stacked element has been modified accordingly, now curving more down close to the endplate. The t... Read more

Lotus is continuing to try out different versions of its exhaust channel, trying to maximize rear downforce. Davide Valsecchi was this morning testing again with an inconel exhaust channel, featuring a different curve and depth. Similar parts were spotted earlier on at the Jerez test.

The team earlier noted that the inconel metallic parts are not being used to resolve overheating issues with the carbon fibre exhaust channel. In fact, the inconel parts are easier and quicker to manuf... Read more

As was expected, Williams F1 have today changed their car by introducing a ramp style exhaust slope, similar to what Lotus F1 and Red Bull Racing are running, not coincidentally two teams that are also powered by a Renault Sport F1 engine. Along with the introduction of the new exhaust the team also re-fitted their high nose. It must be seen whether this is now the preferred choice in combination with the ramp exhaust, or if the team will continue to try out its different nose cones... Read more

McLaren have tested a new front wing (in the lower part of the image) on their MP4-28 to improve car balance and frontal downforce. The team have basically simplified the main place by removing the inner humps that were introduced during the 2012 season. The new front wing is a almost entirely flat, as low as possible to the ground to help create downforce and only bulges towars the endplate to control the downforce generation under steering and yaw.

Along with this, the endings on ... Read more

Lotus was seen running its DRD system yesterday at Barcelona, but interestingly that is not all that changes about the car. In fact, the team changes rear wings along with the fitting of the DRD, and reverts to the previous rear wing when continuing to run without DRD - or passive DRS, or DDRS.

Although the differences between the rear wings are quite marginal, it does show the complexity of the DRD in Formula One. When DRD is fitted, the raer wing endplates do not feature strakes o... Read more

Ferrari have introduced their updates exhaust one day ahead of schedule. Luca Marmorini earlier spoke out of his worries about introducing such a new layout so close to the end of testing, but it appears that Ferrari have managed to speed up the manufacturing process for this particular item. As such, while Felipe Massa was running on Thursday with the same exhaust layout as the car was launched, Fernando Alonso's F138 is now fitted with the update.

The new sidepod bodywork aims to ... Read more

Given that the FIA declared Caterham's exhaust vane and Williams' exhaust bridge illegal, both teams have opted to back out of the option and not risk being disqualified at the Australian GP, the first race of the season where cars will be fully checked on their compliance with the technical regulations. Both teams simple bolted different parts on their cars, knowing that for both the CT03 as well as the FW35 the contested items were easily removable.

The image clearly shows the lac... Read more

Detail pictures of the roll hoop on the McLaren MP4-28 have revealed that the team has largely retained the cooling layout of the 27. Just as on any other current F1 car, the main, somewhat triangular inlet feeds air to the engine required for burning fuel in the cylinders. Contrary to popular belief though, air is not pushed into this inlet, but the engine is sucking air in, reducing the drag penalty a normal cooling inlet would generate.

Underneath this main inlet is a smaller one... Read more

Williams technical director Mike Coughlan has clearly been looking near the boundaries of the regulations to find ever more performance while designing the FW35. Today at Barcelona the car appeared with open wheel nuts, contrary to the traditional pointy ones as can be seen in the inset.

By using wheel nuts, which are btw integrated into the new Rays magnesium alloy wheels, the team can push air through the hollow wheel axle. This means that part of the air caught by the brake ducts... Read more

Williams and Caterham have created a stir during winter testing as both the Williams FW35 and the earlier launched Caterham CT03 feature elements within the exhaust channels. In both cases, the exhaust tailpipe exits into a channel that is part of the sidepod's aerodynamic shell. The channel is designed in a manner that exhaust gases are curved down towards the car's floor as much as possible. Such exhausts, named Coanda according to the identically named principle that a fluid (in ... Read more