Williams FW26 Technical Side

[hit_guy]

Any ideas on why Williams have gone for this new nose ("new "would be a understatement)
Any technical reasons on why it is so.
Personally I think the smaller nose coupled with the twin keel suspension (very wide angle) would provide smoother and cleaner air below.
Where this air is directed later I do not know perhaps the sidepod or under the wooden plank to the diffuser???
Any ideas on this configuration or inputs from fellow forums friends would be appreciated
Bye

[f1rules]

This is from the atlasf1 forum

Firstly that additional carbon must weigh something and although it is kept fairly low with respect to CoG, it being right on the front could affect polar moment of inertia.

Also, it looks a fairly bulky, ie draggy, device. Having said that, the frontal area doesn’t seem that much greater than normal wing struts. What’s really important is how much turbulence it causes. There is plenty time for some fine tuning before Melbourne.

However, flow through that area then across the splitter and under the car is the ultimate deciding factor in underbody downforce. Either this car will have levels of ground effect not seen since the skirt ban – and beat all comers – or handle like a dog and sport a standard wing by Melbourne.

Also the sidepods slope downwards quite a bit – just like a Champ Car. I hope this combined with a very tight rear does not lead to cooling issues. The new rules mean any engine failure this season will be very damaging.

Every other F1 team areo department is probably running CFD on that design this afternoon.

[mirdavanfe]

so scarbs,where are the pics???
did you managed to get an interview??
when will you update your website???

[supertec]

My first impressions of the nose cone was it acts as another wing seeing as how wide it is adding downforce to the front and channelling the air more efficiently to the undertray but wouldn't the size of the nose cone be too much and induce too much drag? I am not quite sure about this concept, I am still looking at the photos and scratching my head.. this is one of the most radical designs we have seen it quite awhile.

[Guest]

the fw 26have nclaren inspiration the front wing is the first piece toch in the air not the nose that will create more downforce like mp4 19 and the front wing perfil is like the mp4 19

[SpeedTech]

Check out F1 racing live.com there are some pretty good shots of the FW26.

[scarbs]

Heres some shots....

http://www.scarbsf1.com/tmp/album1.html

[drspeed]

It occurs to me that some F1 teams no longer put high emphasis in very low CofG. Renault abandoned it's 111 degree layout for a 72 degree unit, and Williams is channeling air from the front to the rear via the underbody. William's solution may mean that something has to move up to make room for air to move to the rear.

What motivates teams to take these decisions? I'm guessing that since super slow corners only exist in Monaco and Monza, improving tire performance and suspension systems, they decided to put more attention on fast corners.

But as you would have seen in Montecarlo last year, Ferraris struggled not only due to poor tires, but also because they had too much weight in the rear and were relying on aerodynamics to compensate for this disadvantage. Aeros only work on high speed, so it didnt work there.

Wouldnt a similar problem arise if other teams take these kind of solutions as well? Are teams putting less importance in vehicle stability where aerodynamics are less effective (ie. slow twisty roads such as montecarlo)?

[Beostar]

no idea just guessing here but maybe the use of traction control can make up for the loss in CofG...
a higher CofG forses the car more on 2 wheels using the fact that the michelins can use more surface that way cause more grip..

these are all just guesses here. Nothing really based on some fundamentals

Greetings
Beostar

[Steven]

hmm I don't quite agree with the CofG comments here.
The only reason why there is not spoken about it concerning the FW26 was the consternation about the front wing. True they gave very much attention to the aerodynamics, but still there are as many other engineers as last year that deal with the mechanical parts.

They have redesigned the cooling system, and I don't think they have forgotten about CofG.
Furthermore, there is not that much weight in the nose, especially not in the part that is exchanged when a front wing got broken. So the change of the nosetip is not that much of disadvantage I think. Their nose was already high with the FW25.
There is also a certain Adrian Newey, who explained about the MP4/19 that it has radically lower CofG (he said in as many words).
Also... note that the underside of the McLaren nose is quite high from the ground to, just 50 cm after the tip of it. Front suspension system is there, so not much difference there with the FW26.

To close... Newey is not the man to ignore the fact that engines will weigh more, and will try to compensate the disadvantage in weight distribution and CofG

[Beostar]

Tomba has a point there

[scarbs]

I think also that aero is now so important that is affecting basic chassis principles such as CofG,

All F1 cars are underweight, in fact thay can be so underweight that the designers have the luxury of making lower components unnecessarily heavier, Jaguar brass sump, Renault steel sump\engine mount, Ferrari heavy bottomed monocoque. This saves them finding space for tungsten ballast.

so if the aero guys want to make something that adds speed at the cost of weight then fine (twin keels are heavier for the stiffness of a single keel). Williams shorter nose that has to slow the impact test in a shorter space than usual, so could be expected to be heavier than a normal one, the CofG effect can be countered with more ballast, look at the thickness of front splitter of the new Williams, I would wager it is more metal than carbon.
Likewise the renault move to a 72-degree engine is counter intuitive to a good CofG, but balancing it with ballast makes up for it.

[NickT]

I like the inovation, that gapping hole in the nose seems to maximise the volume of relatively clean air being pushed under the monocock and down onto the top of the splitter. However styling wise it still looks like the ugly duckling, but I guess if it wins the chamionship it'll become a swan

Wasn't it Arrows who came up with the twin keel design in the first place, and Sauber have been using it longer than any of the surviving constructors

[drspeed]

Having seen the FW26 for a couple of days now, it makes most other F1 cars look boring. If Jordans used to be Bees, then the new Williams is a Spider!

[Reca]

Scarbs : I have a doubt that probably you can solve since you had the chance of a closer look to the car. One of the first things I considered while seeing that nose is that rules, at least until 2003 it was that way, requires the frontal impact absorbing structure to have a minimum cross section of 9000 mm2 50 mm behind the forward most point. I think that the mounts are part of the structure so, is the cross section large enough ? I’ve noticed that in the rear edge of the mount there’s a squared part not connected with the current flap and there’s also a small and rounded metallic part in the rear edge. Is the purpose of that extension to increase the cross section ? Or the distance from the foremost point is > 50 mm and so the reason for that shape is different (aerodynamic or maybe to fix a flap different from the one fitted at this stage of testing) ? Thanks in advance.

NickT : it was Sauber that introduced twin keel concept in F1 in 2000, they took inspiration from the Honda F1 test car developed in conjunction with Dallara and tested by Verstappen in ’99