Formula One car development blog

McLaren have introduced an entirely new rear wing at Silverstone, completely departing the philosophy the team has followed since the beginning of the season. As the inset shows, McLaren have run an upper rear wing flap with a long chord and were about the only team left to use this extreme design. It allowed for the DRS actuator to be small with little aerodynamic impact, but McLaren found it was not enough.

Instead, the new rear wing has a much smaller uppermost flap. As the regul... Read more

McLaren introduced at Valencia yet another new iteration of its front wing endplate. The new endplate is targeted at catching more air from around the endplate and feed it under the wing's panels. This will increase downforce creation at the outer extremities of the front wing and will certainly influence airflow around the front wheels.

McLaren had other new bits on their cars as well and are expected to have another host of new components at Silverstone, the first event with the h... Read more

Hispania have chosen to continue running their lower downforce rear wing specification at Valencia after introducing it at Canada. The wing's endplates are identical to the previous specification rear wing, but the main flap has been reduced in size.

Particular about this wing is that it's not fixed at the maximum height of the rear wing, but instead is a bit lower to the ground. In fact it's the lower possible according to the regulations. While Red Bull have gone the other way wit... Read more

Since the Spanish Grand Prix, Red Bull have new rear wing endplates that feature an extension behind the diffuser. Pioneered on the Toyota TF109, McLaren have been using a similar design since the beginning of this season, and as of the Spanish GP have gotten company by Ferrari and Red Bull. All designs feature a number of fins, considered in the regulations as part of the rear wing endplate.

Because they are allowed to extend down to the level of the reference plane, they are parti... Read more

The Sauber C30 underwent a face-lift at the Spanish GP as several different updates were added to the car. One of those is the new turning vane combination, attached to the bottom of the nose cone. The new version has one smaller vane outside of the nose cone, with another one behind it, positioned a little more inward.

The newer design provides the car with better front airflow management in combination with its all new front wing. By placing the second vane more inward, more air i... Read more

Mercedes GP have made no secret of their issues of managing the rear tyres, and they have moved to resolve that issue through some aerodynamic tweaks. Since Turkey, the W02 had a small turning vane fitted on top of the car's floor, just ahead of the rear wheel. This element tries to keep exhaust gases away from the tyre's frontal surface and instead guide them onto the diffuser.

Other teams are having much less issues here because most, including Red Bull and its copycats, channel t... Read more

Ferrari have been trying out several versions of its rear wing during the Friday practice sessions at Barcelona. On the top right of the image is the version that was also raced at the Turkish GP. It features a typical Red Bull style dip in the centre of the trailing edge of the wing. The endplate of the wing is designed with 3 slot gaps while the lower panel has a very pronounced upward curve on its leading edge.

The newer version on the top left have a much less upward angle at th... Read more

Among other updates, Sauber have introduced a brand new front wing design at Barcelona, with both drivers testing the wing during Friday practice sessions. The new wing appears to put the emphasis of creating downforce in the area just ahead of the front wheel, whereas the flap part closest to the car's centreline has less surface to allow a more clean airflow towards the sidepod inlets.

As ever, much performance is found in the front wing endplates, and as such the design has evolv... Read more

The Turkish GP saw the first major update on the Ferrari F150 since the team found out a serious problem between the correlation of their windtunnel with track performance. The Italian team is struggling to correctly measure vortices and are therefore now verifying their updates in Toyota's windtunnel which has a PIV system to accurately measure airflow and feed it back into CFD systems.

At Turkey, both cars featured new front wings and different brake ducts. While the stacked eleme... Read more

While most teams are planning major upgrades at the next event at Barcelona, Force India brought a considerable front aero package to Turkey. Paul Di Resta and then Adrian Sutil tested it in the Friday sessions, not to see it return for qualifying or racing. The team mainly ran the device to get a first benchmark of what to expect.

In essence, the package brings a brand new front wing that sees a third panel added. The wing itself looks very simple, even the stacked element lacks an... Read more