F1technical.net

This should be rolled back into the RB6 thread. There is nothing specific here regarding the RB6's performance in qualifying 3, and indeed, if any discrepancy exists between qualifying and the race.

xpensive wrote:@mep. interesting thought there.

The original idea by John Barnard with the "canard wings" on the MP4-someting in the 80s was to create downforce by utilizing the difference in air speed under the car (high) and the speed ahead of the rear wheels (low), but what the heck is that duct doing?

Increasing airspeed under the canards just ahead of the wheels?

Feel free to post any pictures of that car otherwise I don't really get what you are talking about.

I doubt that very much mep, If you wish to guiide air around the rear wheel in any significant way, you would need a little more than that me thinks. A mystery however, it sure looks like a duct of sorts but to what purpose,

It depends how much air you want to guide. All the parts you put on the car are a trade of between advantage and disadvantage. In this case lets say between drag and downforce. I think the following posts explain the basic idea quite good:

BreezyRacer :
Guys the real reason that Red Bull placed these exhausts where they did was to isolate the diffuser from the rear tire turbulence. It's that simple. In fact, if in doubt, look at the diffuser box .. it's narrower than the regs allow. Why did they do that? Because volume alone doesn't make an effective diffuser. Isolation from turbulence in the floor area and the diffuser exit are critical. BTW, look at the new Ferrari diffuser .. it's even a bit narrower than the Red Bull, for the same reason.

speedsense:
Consider a rotating wheel, in aero terms as a " rotary air pump". The wheel pumps air in both directions, outboard and inboard. The air is turbulent and literally a tornado.
A few millimeters away is the side gap of the diffuser and the ground and this pumped air tornado is "aimed" directly at this gap.
With the rules the sides of the diffuser cannot be "sealed" to the ground, so the tornado of air can freely enter the side of the diffuser, reducing it's effectiveness. The only way to reduce this is and to effect this tornado is with another "controlled" tornado or simply "vortex generation" with purpose built generators. Adding heat to this vortex accelerates it and intensifies it's energy causing less air to get "forced" into the bottom of the diffuser. IMHO

You see, you want to seal the floor against the surrounding air. The air from the tires somehow disturb your diffusor air. So you take air with high velocity (exhaust) to blow that effect away and seal the flow with a air curtain.
The little duct may do the same. The effect might be even bigger as the smal duct makes you belive. There is a high pressure bubble over this duct. I don't actualy think that the bubble is big enough to press the air into the duct but I can imagine that the stagnation point in front of it might guide more air trough the duct.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Ps: Guys keep up posting pictures the threats live from it. They really help to get an idea of the car and not everybody has the time to search through the whole web for good ones. Threats with several dozen pages are worthless when they don’t have pics.

could it be this duct was for optimised use of the pressure field building up in front of the wheel?
Air rushing on top of the diffusser towards the rear wheel could break up this pressure zone and this would be a loss in downforce ...
channelling this high speed air may be useful to reenergise the flow of the undertray that has gone downstream under the car or it is creating a barrier for the air leaking from the sides into the underfloor area in front of the rear tyres ,creating something like a crosswind ?

Listening again to sound in the Belgian Grand Prix video, everytime a McLaren goes past, the exhaust tone is almost as if a person got a sore throat or something. Is that the retarded ignition mapping?

Yeah, to push more energy out the exhausts on the over-run, giving more downforce through the diffuser.

SiLo wrote:Yeah, to push more energy out the exhausts on the over-run, giving more downforce through the diffuser.

from what i heardand saw, they are he only team uing this during the actual race!?

ell66 wrote:

SiLo wrote:Yeah, to push more energy out the exhausts on the over-run, giving more downforce through the diffuser.

from what i heardand saw, they are he only team uing this during the actual race!?

that must be quite a bag of heat they put into the engine and exhaust..at a time when the system is normally only cooling ..

I wonder though if that will take a toll in Monza. It would put the engine on extreme stress loads at an already engine-killing circuit wouldn't it?

raymondu999 wrote:I wonder though if that will take a toll in Monza. It would put the engine on extreme stress loads at an already engine-killing circuit wouldn't it?

That would depend upon exactly how they're doing it. People have speculated that Red Bull use a special Q3 engine map which alters the engine timing etc. to push more hot gas out the exhaust than has actually been used in the cylinders, but we don't KNOW that this is the case.

I'm not sure I can think of any other way of doing it though!

I was at the race in Hungary

In FP2 both Redbull cars did a longrun with this retarded ignition mapping.
Especially in turn 12 midcorner between downshifting and beeing back on throttle there was a strange noise.

While qualifing and race we were sitting at the main straight, so i'm not sure if they were using it in the race, but while one vettel's overtaking attempt in the last corner on alonso this noise was again noticeable.

I just watched a replay of the qualy and noticed this:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us



Uploaded with ImageShack.us



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The blue flame was visible through the whole corner without any discontinuity so I start to believe this retarded ignition really exists.
That’s the first time I see a prove for it.

Alonso said after quali that they were using experimental maps or something. I wonder if they're doing it as well. And why are Merc and Ferrari engines, then, able to do it for 61 laps but RB's Renault isn't? It'd be interesting to see if Renault adopts it successfully too.

One should not forget that McLaren builds the SECU. If there is a new program feature which benefits the racing team one can imagine it goes on top of the to do list of the MES guys pretty quickly.

is it retarded ignition?

sorry for pic.

Looks like turn 1... seems like it's more of pedals overlapping rather than fancy ignition. Welcome to the forum btw