Formula One car development blog
Ferrari copy Red Bull exhaust system
Just as rumours suggested in recent days and weeks, Ferrari's aerodynamic update at Valencia includes a revised exhaust system that mimicks the Red Bull's design. Rather than exiting the exhaust gases through the upper side of the sidepods, the pipes are now relocated to push gases out just above the car's flow, ahead of the rear diffuser.
At the same time, Ferrari also shielded its lower wishbones to protect them from the heat while strips are added to measure the exact temperature of the suspension arms. The team also revised the rear brake ducts to make sure they don't fetch too much of the hot exhaust gases.
The change marks the departure of the high exhausts, introduced by Ferrari and quickly followed by its competitors. The last time a low exhaust was tried was on the McLaren MP4-18, again a Newey designed car. That one however had its exhausts exit into the diffuser, causing troubled pressure differences. The MP4-18 eventually got revised with high exhausts before it was first raced.
Turning vanes extract extra speed of RB6
The constant quest for cleaner airflow around and below the car made Red Bull to adopt a small set of turning vanes under the nose at China to optimize the airflow towards the lower part of the car. The vanes are positioned in between the front wheels, ahead of the wheel axle.
The new turning vanes are similar to Ferrari's items and of course triggered a series of other changes to the car.
The front wing was modified with a new inner flap profile, simplifying its shape. The area where the principle flap meets the endplate has been revised having now less volume and a new shape in an attempt to separate better the flow of air entering the two venturi channels (pointed by a and b notes) under the wing.
Meeting the air first, the simpler front wing inner flap shape may still offer a similar amount of downforce but now causes significantly less vortices behind it. The less disrupted flow of air from the plane is then guided outwards by the outer surface of the turning vanes. At the same time a clean and undisturbed airflow enters under the wide and thin nose cone the channel created by the mentioned before set, is sped up and finally split by the car’s floor extension. One part of air goes under the car’s floor and another one over the sidepod bottom sides. To decrease drag , because of the sped up airflow, the team reduced the sidepod panels width to let more air “bleed” freely through the inner panel-sidepod zone.
Image and elaboration by bar555
Mercedes reposition airbox behind driver's helmet
Mercedes' W01 features considerable updates at Spain, including an all new airbox. The team is taking a completely different route in this area compared to its rivals by lowering the height of the air inlet to just behind the driver's helmet. The vertical crash structure is now completely decoupled from that aerodynamic function. In the first 4 races of the season, the W01 already featured this vertical crash protection running through the airbox.
The new design attempt to improve the airflow onto the rear wing by reducing as much elements as possible from the upper air stream. Mercedes is also still running its passive blown rear wing system, contrary to other teams attempting to make an active one through a shark fin engine cover.
Image by F1fanatic
Mercedes experiment with blown rear wing
Mercedes have also brought a new rear wing to try out the advantages of McLaren's blown rear wing. Both drivers initially tested the new design, but only Nico Rosberg chose to use it during the race, a move which Schumacher dubbed as 'probably a better choice than my opinion' after he found his teammate 0.6 tenths quicker during qualifying.
The new design is still experimental and features a small channel in the middle of the wing. Two small openings in the low deck of the rear wing feed the channel that exits again on the rear end of the upper deck.
Ferrari try their own blown rear wing
Although not exactly an F-duct, Ferrari are testing their version of a blown rear wing at Chinese free practices. The F10 sees the addition of a channel up in the shark fin that runs through into the rear wing, with the known rearward slots in the upper deck.
While the shark fin element is now considerably thicker than it previously was, there is at this time no evidence that the driver has any input in this, contrary to McLaren's F-duct design. Air is fetched just behind the airbox and then channeled towards the rear wing.
One interesting addition however is a channel exiting under a tiny winglet atop of the rear impact crash structure. While still secretive, it's not unthinkable that this is a diversion for air that is not needed as a stall inducer on the rear wing.
Ride height control systems are the new must-have
Two weeks ago, in the parc fermé at Bahrain, the Red Bull RB6 was seen to have an extremely high ride height. In fact the car's suspension was holding the car up so high that the rear tyres were in contact with the car's floor, a position that obviously never be useful when running.
After many speculations, it has now been confirmed that Red Bull, and notably also some of the smaller teams' cars have a special ride height control system that allows them to run the cars lower to the ground during qualifying. Since qualifying is now run with the lowest fuel levels possible, and given the fact that a car's suspension has been set up for the race to also withstand high car weights, cars with normal suspension designs are naturally higher above the ground. While this could equal a marginal difference of 1mm, any such difference is vastly important for the efficiency of the car's underbody and diffuser.
Now that everyone has understood the advantages, others teams, including McLaren have confirmed to be anxiously developing similar system which they previously thought were illegal.
McLaren continue with snowplough design
McLaren Mercedes have copied the snowplough that featured on the 2009 Williams contender. As McLaren introduced it as of its first test with the MP4/25, Williams dumped it in favour of cleaner frontal aerodynamic.
The system itself is fairly simple in its operation and effectively acts like a diffuser mounted higher above the ground. Part of the airflow under the nose is split left and right of the plough, while everything that flows underneath is slightly expanded, reducing its pressure and therefore creating a suction effect of the car towards the ground. The aerodynamics of it are also similar to the nosecone of the Renault R29, but possibly a bit more efficient.
Another new front wing from Renault
After having displayed their 2009 front wing on the presented R30, the team ran a curvy front wing during all winter testing, before introducing this new spec at free practice in Bahrain. While the base profile retains largely the same shape, the cascade element now features a much deeper spoon to catch more air and push it upwards. The item also has extends above the front wing endplate and in fact has its own small endplate attached on the outer edge of the panel.
Also interesting is the lower end of the front wing endplate which sort of forms an extension to the wing's elements. Renault is obviously aware of where they lost last year's development race, and are now pushing heavily on front wing development.
Performing tyre changes in 3 seconds
As the cars completed all the testing that is allowed, the crew on track and at the factory have been practicing pitstops without refuelling the car. While previously the tyre changers were not the critical path of a pitstop procedure due to the longer refuelling time, they certainly will be now.
Williams have stated a 3.5s stop will be "decent", but rumours from Red Bull claims pitstops of under 3 seconds. To optimise this process, most of the experienced teams have designed special wheel nuts that can unlock the wheel safety fastener and the wheel at one time. Ferrari did it by adding two clips on each side of the nut.
Many will surely be eager to find out the car's relative performances at Bahrain, but the teams' pitstops will be at least as interesting.
Force India introduce outboard mirrors
Outboard mirrors are more and more becoming the standard, and Force India is now jumping on the bandwagon by replacing its inboard mirrors - connected to the cockpit sides - with mirrors fixed on top of the sidepod panels.
BMW Sauber is one of the teams to have made the same design change during this season. Renault on the other hand are using conventional inboard mirrors after having introduced this type of mirror positioning on their Renault R27.
