2010 Cars and Steering Arms

[KevlarUSA]

One interesting thing I've noticed on almost all of the 2010 cars is a separate steering arm that's not shrouded with the upper arm, except with Lotus. It seems it would be beneficial to have the arm in line with the other suspension bits for less drag. but nobody seems to be doing that this year. Is this to do with the higher noses and suspension geometry or something else?

[deus1066]

Mclaren have also incorporated the steering track rod into the wishbone, unlike last years car which had a separate one.

[marcush.]

to me this is package driven and a classic tradeoff .with the vshaped bottom of the tub theres no space for a bottom wishbone aligned rack ,so MERC did abandon that concept for 2010
putting the top wishbone in line with the rack might give you a bit more chord of the aeroprofile but with the necessary gap between the two parts ,maybe the flow is worse in reality than having two distinct clean profiles?

btw technically the item we are talking here is the trackrod ,not the steering arm.