Formula One car development blog

McLaren have run two interesting wing packages at both Spa and then Monza, two circuits known for their high speed straights, with Spa adding a high number of medium speed corners to the mix.

At the Belgian GP, McLaren had a medium downforce rear wing ready for both drivers, but only Jenson Button decided to use it - and he went on to win the Grand Prix with ease. The rear wing featured an upward curve on the leading edge of the wing, causing a lower pressure difference between the ... Read more

Sauber have been furiously at work to develop their car and keep up with the progress other teams are making throughout the season. Considering their pace at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza, that does not look like a problem for the Swiss team.

One of the updates used at Monza was a low drag front wing. Contrary to many other teams who ditched the cascading elements on the front wing, Sauber instead chose to apply minor modifications to the red part of their wing. Especially close to th... Read more

McLaren have brought quite an interesting update to Spa as they have changed the way to tackle airflow around the top and edges of the sidepod. Previously, the car's sidepod featured a fairly traditional, vertical and solid sidepod panel. Since the Spanish GP, the leading edge of the top of the sidepods featured two or three vertical fins - as on the Lotus - to better manage airflow that will eventually end up streaming over the exhaust outlet.

This time around, McLaren ditched the ... Read more

McLaren's car updates have pushed the car back up in between the front runners, and unsurprisingly, the improvement came once again from exhaust modifications. McLaren redesigned the sidepod to have the exhaust exit lower above the ground and further back, creating a more consistent flow onto the outer extremities of the diffuser.

In essence, McLaren's update appears to be influenced by Ferrari's famous acer ducts, something which the MP4-27 now features as well. The ducts are slopi... Read more

Since their major car update at the European GP in Valencia, Ferrari have been testing a new version of its front wing. Since then, the wing has appeared in every free practice session on Friday and Saturday, on both cars, but at no occasion has it been used to race. While the visual changes do not seem to be major, the new wing certainly has an interesting influence on the car's balance given that the team prefer to test it a little bit longer. Of course, the rain in Silverstone an... Read more

Pictures taken at Silverstone this weekend have uncovered that Red Bull have adopted or are at least testing an exhaust chamber. Also known as a Helmholz exhaust, the regular exhaust pipe features a blind additional branch which can accumulate exhaust gases when pressure is high in the exhaust pipe. It can then release those gases again when the driver gets off the throttle, hence evening out the pressure differences that occur in the exhaust pipe.

Apart from the evening out in an a... Read more

Just two weeks after introducing a major rear end upgrade on the RB8, Red Bull have fitted their car with yet another exhaust tweak at Silverstone. This time around the change is small but may have a big effect nonetheless.

The sides of the exhaust channel have been raised to have two small bulges on each side of the channel, trying to keep the exhaust flow from spilling over the sides. Remember that the actual exhaust exit is point 10° upwards, as defined by the regulations. Ever s... Read more

Caterham F1 have updated their CT01 with a major new aerodynamic package focusing on the rear end of the car. It is quite obvious the team have found inspiration at McLaren and Sauber as the team have now (finally) also implemented a downwash exhaust that aims to extract more downforce out of the diffuser.

First and foremost, the exhaust is now in a hub similar to what is seen on the McLaren. The exhaust exit is now more rearward and more outboard than it was before. As the hub aims... Read more

Amidst a large number of updates brought to Valencia, Ferrari changed the mirror supports to gain an aerodynamic effect from those as well. In the image, Massa is pictures on Friday with the old supports which is a neutral element with its length as short as possible to keep drag low.

The new version, as in the upper part of the image shows how Ferrari modified the supports to be aligned with the vortex generators at each side of the cockpit.

By introducing yet another new sidepod version, Red Bull is the only team that can compete with Ferrari when you consider the number of changes made to the rear end of the sidepods since the beginning of the season.

The team has now changed the tunnel that goes underneath the exhaust ramp, making the inlet much larger than it was in the previous version. Aerodynamic tests on track had shown that the tunnel was not acting as the team expected because airflow through the tunnel was mu... Read more