Formula One car development blog

Renault have added a small slit into the lower element of the rear wheel flipup. The change was introduced at the European GP at the Nürburgring, not accidentally coinciding with the addition of their new front wing. The wing was said to generally improve the car's handling and reduce rear tyre wear while also requiring a vastly different car set-up. As the flipup largely works on air that already passed the front wing, this item shows how important it is to look at the car as a who... Read more

Renault is working long days lately in order to regain some of their beloved pace that they showed in 2005 and 2006. This year proves to be troublesome for the French team as the Bridgestone tyres have a worrying effect on downforce. As a result, another new front wing has been developed. Although initially planned for Hungary it was already fitted on the car at the European Grand Prix. The new wing has a deeper spoon curve under the nose tip to improve low speed downforce. Similar ... Read more

Although it's starting to look rare these days, Renault ran an unstacked front wing to fit the lower drag requirements at Montreal. The upper elements were removed, making the front wing look more like an item from 2005. The team also dropped their mid wing for this race and most likely will retain a similar configuration for the Indianapolis race. While it is visible, note the little gurney flap at the trailing outer edge of the wing. This effectively creates more downforce at the ... Read more

The mid wing that Renault had just introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix has again been removed from the car after only two appearances. With 2 tracks ahead that require high top speeds, the team opted to remove the wing in favour of the reduced drag. The reduction in downforce is not an issue for Canada or the American GP since a medium to low downforce configurations are used for the wings too. The image on the left shows the locations where the wing was previously attached. It is ... Read more

In an urgent challenge to improve the performance of their R27, Renault have followed suit with McLaren and Ferrari to add a mid-wing. The two leading teams have been running these since the beginning of the season, and Renault introduced the item in Spain. It still proves to be useful for a high downforce circuit like Monaco. Contrary to what some may expect, the mid-wing itself is not designed to generate but instead helps to improve airflow onto the rear wing, thereby increasing ... Read more

In an attempt to regain some pace from last year, Renault introduced several updates for the Spanish Grand Prix. One of these changes are the modified exhaust covers that are now smaller at the base. The arrow denotes the new version that is designed to improve the airflow towards the rear wing. The smaller base size will decrease the air cooling along with the exhaust pipes but lowers the drag.

As of the beginning of tyre testing with Bridgestone, Renault realised the weight bias had to move forward compared to what the team used with Michelin. However, as testing went on, it appeared more was needed, and so the team decided on a redesign of the highly efficient nose to a cone with more internal volume. The nose of the R27 (above part of image) resembles more to the nose of the R25, which afterall was the predecessor of the R26 (lower part of image). The solution that Rena... Read more

As reported earlier in this blog, Renault have integrated their rear view mirrors onto the sidepod panel. Ferrari gave the example of hiding the mirrors behind the front wheels in 2006 after which several teams adopted the idea in their 2007 competitors. The initial Renault design as it appeared at the launch and winter tests apparently proved a little too weak in order to maintain good driver visibility at high speeds. The team have therefore added a small extra support for the mir... Read more

The new Renault R27 mirrors are one of the most eye-catching novelties on the 2007 contenders. After Ferrari came up with the idea to put the mirrors on the outer side or the sidepod, several teams investigated the idea. Together with the sidepod panels that Renault introduced at Canada last year they make for a good combination of minimising drag. The new mirror position is especially beneficial because it is behind the front wheel and not visible on a front view of the car (and th... Read more