The F1 Technical Developments Thread

The diffuser war of 2009 could rear its head this season as Formula One awaits the rumoured introduction of Mercedes GP's new super diffuser.

Throughout the final week of pre-season testing, speculation was rife in the Barcelona paddock that Mercedes GP, headed up by Ross Brawn, would unveil a new diffuser design at the season-opening race in Bahrain, which could give them a healthy advantage over their rivals.

And although the team has confirmed that major upgrades are on the agenda, they have refused to confirm rumours of the diffuser.

"We have a new package for Bahrain and I hope that's going to make the difference," said Brawn while Nico Rosberg revealed that "the car will make a big step forward in Bahrain. It'll be almost like a new car, so everything might be completely different once we are there."

The team's refusal to acknowledge the diffuser - or test it at Barcelona - has some questioning whether the rumours have any substance to them.

"I do not know what Brawn (Mercedes GP) will have in Bahrain, but we'll see if it really is something new," Ferrari's Fernando Alonso told El Pais newspaper.

"For me, it is just a rumour, like many others. Like for the past year it has been said that Renault is going to leave Formula One."

But, if it's not just buzz and Mercedes GP do seize the advantage, there could be a repeat of last year's diffuser war as team's squabble about the grey areas in the Formula One regulations.

In fact, even Brawn admits there could be technical wars between the teams going into the new season.

"In the last months we have asked many things of (FIA race director) Charlie Whiting to know if they are permitted or not. Some equipment has been taken to the edge of the regulations and could have problems," admitted Brawn.

http://www.planetf1.com/story/0,18954,3213_5996955,00.html

:hmm:

With this being said, which team won't bring a fair bit of updates for Bahrain anyway?
 
And just after I get confident of McLaren's pace, Mr. Brawn scares me shitless again...:(

I think everyone will be bringing significant updates, but Mercedes will have the biggest one, as they didn't really do anything until then...
 
They haven't had a whole year to design this one, don't worry. It won't be like last year. Even if it's quicker it won't be by a lot.
 
And just after I get confident of McLaren's pace, Mr. Brawn scares me shitless again...:(

I think everyone will be bringing significant updates, but Mercedes will have the biggest one, as they didn't really do anything until then...

I want a video of Stefano's reaction upon first seeing the thing. If it lives up to the speculation I imagine it would be the Italian equivalent of "ahhhh fuck no!!!! fuck no!!!!", then running off to the stewards office.
 
Next year 'double diffusers' are banned (max diffuser height will be a lot lower).
 
but next year engineers will find something else to exploit
 
That's good, imo, that's what makes the cars of F1 so great, clever engineers looking for slightly grey areas of the rules.
 
The rear wing drama:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81832

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner has revealed that his team and Ferrari are seeking clarification from the FIA about the legality of McLaren's rear wing design.

The design of the MP4-25 was the subject of discussion during last week's final pre-season test at Barcelona in Spain - amid suggestions that the layout of its airbox and engine cover was helping to stall the rear-wing at high-speed and delivering the car extra straight-line performance.

Now, Horner has revealed, his team and Ferrari have taken the matter to the FIA to ask whether the governing body believes it to be legal.

"There's a bit of a fuss over McLaren's rear wing," Horner said during a lunch with British newspaper journalists.

"They have a slot on it and they can pick up a lot of straight-line speed. I think it will get resolved before the first race. We've asked the FIA for clarification although I think Ferrari are probably more excited than we are to be honest."

Horner said that the introduction of wing slot-gap separators several years ago was designed to stop attempts to stall wings - but he thinks the McLaren design could be being used as a way of getting around the regulations.

"Basically, if you stall the wing you take all the drag off it and pick up straight-line speed," he said. "It's something that's been done quite a lot over the years but with the wing separators you're not supposed to do that.

"Our question ultimately will be: 'Is it clever design or is it in breach of the regulations'?"

Blown wings explained:

http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/blown-rear-wings-seperating-and-stalling/

For an F1 car the rear wing creates around a third of the cars downforce. But running at high speed the drag from the rear wing is tremendous. Anything that reduces the drag of the rear wing will aid top speed. If this can be done in a non linear way, that is; high downforce\drag at lower speeds increasing towards top speed and then less drag only at speeds where car is in a straight line and doesn?t need downforce, then laptimes will show an improvement.

As airflows over the surface of a wing it has a tendency to slow down and separate from the wing. Particularly underneath the wing which runs at a lower pressure than the top surface. This separation initially reduces efficiency by adding drag to the wing, before the airflow totally breaks up and the wing stalls. When a wing stalls the wing loses most of its downforce and drag.

The steeper a wings angle, the greater chance of separation. To combat this aerodynamicists need to speed up the flow near the wings surface, to do this they split the wing into separate elements, this creates a slot. Which sends high pressure air from above the wing through the slot, which then speeds the local flow underneath the wing. The more slots the steeper the wing can run.

In the nineties teams were unlimited in the number of elements they could use. Slowly the rulemakers sought to reduce the wings potential for downforce and reduced the number of elements (defined as ?closed sections? within the rules), initially to four then three and currently two. Modern rear wings are made up to two elements, a main plane (the forward section of wing) and a flap (which sits behind it). Thus the wing is intended only to have a single slot and hence only one place to speed up the flow under the wing. However the rules are typically vague, thus a small 15cm section in the middle of the wing is exempt from this rule, teams have been adding a slot in this area for several years now. This slot is the same dimension on the front as it is on the back of the wing, so there has been no issues of legality within the rules, most team run a wing of this configuration.

Last year BMW Sauber and McLaren ran wings with the narrow 15cm opening on the front of the wing, but this inlet diverged to make a slot the full width of the rear wing (normally within the main plane). This slot was aligned to send its airflow at an acute angle, roughly inline with the general flow over the wing. Again this was deemed legal as the slot made the wing profile an ?open section? only in the middle of the wing, where as the outers spans remained a ?closed section? albeit one with a ?U? shape. With this design the slot could allow the entire wing to be steeper and not just the geometry in the middle 15cm of the wing. This year Williams have joined the group running these sorts of wings.

Again previously teams have sought to use the wing stalling to gain top speed (from the reduced drag). By flexing the wings at higher speed, the wings move to create smaller slot gaps and this leads to the wings stalling. The FIA has acted with both load tests and in the past few year slot gap separators to prevent this practice. Slot gap separators are now mandated for the rear wing, and appear a plate fitted around the profile of the two wing elements to prevent them moving.

The McLaren 2010 wing uses a slot in the flap (not the main plane), this time fed by the shark fin and an opening above the drivers head. If the teams? protests about its legality are true, then the issue is that McLaren are using the slot to stall the wing.

This could be possible in several ways; one could be having the slot orientated differently to the airflow over the wing, if it were at nearer right angles to the flow it could blow hard enough to disrupt the airflow enough to stall the wing. Another solution might be that the slot blows at lower speed maintaining a clean airflow over the wing, then at higher speed the slot chokes with the greater airflow trying to pass through it, the slot no longer blowing stalls the wing.

These approaches would have to be tuned to have no effect at speeds lower than the top speed on the straight, thus the wing would provide normal downforce until near top speed. Then near top speed the flow through the slot would start disrupt the wings flow and stall the wing. The difficulty in getting this tuning to work is what?s given rise to the rumour about the driver operated snorkel duct on the McLaren.
 
That is very clever.

Formula1 must really be the greatest place an Engineer can ever hope to work =) That has got to be seriously interesting.
 
Shell and Ferrari about the fuel development:

[YOUTUBE]bh8fD2F4QvE[/YOUTUBE]
 
I'm starting to find Massa's interviews very boring.
well these promo videos are scripted. Besides the subject matter is fuel, which only James May finds fascinating! :p
 
well these promo videos are scripted. Besides the subject matter is fuel, which only James May finds fascinating! :p

yeah, alonso didn't exactly come across that great either. I reckon any driver will have problems trying to make fuel a riveting topic :p
 
Love the dramatic music.
 
So Ferrari uses Shell. What do the others use?
 
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