Formula One car development blog

As was expected, Ferrari have fitted their F2012 with yet another version of their exhaust exits. When the cars were being unpacked on Thursday at Canada, the Ferrari featured an exhaust that is extremely similar to McLaren's design.

The Italian has been struggling with its car since the very beginning of the season, and Pat Fry was quoted at the Mugello test that the team would be introducing a new design at the Canadian GP for evaluation. While it is not clear if the car will comp... Read more

Mercedes GP's W02 has been struggling with overheating issues ever since it hit the track during winter testing, and it seems the team have yet to find a definitive solution. After adding shark gills at various locations on the rear end of the sidepods, at China a new cooling opening suggests that wasn't sufficient.

Replacing the 3 small gills is now a single large opening, exactly above the engine exhaust. The hole exposes the exhaust pipe to the viewer as it helps to evacuate hot ... Read more

Ferrari have appeared at Brazil with a new diffuser modification, introducing its own version of an open fronted diffuser. As marked, the diffuser is now open where it meets the floor, allowing exhaust gases to flow through this opening into the lower deck. Red Bull debuted this type of diffuser, and many teams followed quickly. It is thus surprising that Ferrari comes up with development with just 2 more races to go, especially as this design feature will be outlawed on 2011.

Techn... Read more

As part of a big update to its car, McLaren introduced a new front wing at Singapore. The new wing has a totally revised stacked element, in fact the one element featured at Spa and Monza is now replaced by two seperate elements. The outer one is a simple, small two-element wing attached to the main front wing endplate. The wing itself has its own endplate as well, as indicated by an arrow.

The more inward part of the stacked element looks rather more sophisticated and connects to t... Read more

Apart from its new front wing, Renault also brought a new rear wing to Monza. While at basically remained the same, the upper panel was cut out at its trailing edge, apart from the attachment points to the endplates as well as the midpoint of the wing.

Also marked with arrows is the F-duct exit which blows air when the stalling device is not operating. Interestingly, this is the only air exhaust one can see on the Renault from behind, in sharp contrast with Red Bull. Renault have de... Read more

Renault introduced yet another front wing, this time a much simpler one as less downforce is required at Monza. The complicated end plates have become a bit more simple as the stacked front wing element and the winglet outward of the panel were ditched to reduce drag.

Renault did retain the basic structure of the wing, but a V-cut was made into the upper panel, ahead of the inside of the front wheel. While it could help brake cooling, the team's wind tunnel tests had certainly shown... Read more

Virgin Racing have still not given up on development of their 2010 car, and as a result they brought a new rear and front wing to the high speed circuit. While the rear wing is still simple and has less drag through its reduced panel surface, the front wing is a major change.

At least it is for Virgin, one of the new teams. It is well known that Wirth Research and Virgin aim to do cost effective development and only change what gives the most benefit. The front wing endplates are th... Read more

As Monza is by far the lowest downforce circuit on the racing calendar, teams usually develop new front and rear wings to achieve higher top speeds. As did McLaren, bringing a new front wing with significantly less frontal surface and without an F-duct, a first for McLaren this year.

After both drivers tested a variety of setups, including a change of rear wings, only Lewis Hamilton decided to use it beyond Friday practices. Jenson Button meanwhile opted for the higher downforce set... Read more

Renault has become the most recent team to add an F-duct, and in fact the last of the established teams to do so. The team was working on the device for months inside the factory, and upon introduction at Spa found it working as expected, a feat that Red Bull for instance did not enjoy at their introduction of the F-duct several races back.

Team manager Eric Bouillier was extremely happy after the race, and rightly so. During the race, the Renaults had top speeds matching those of R... Read more

Ferrari have raced a new version of their exhaust blown diffuser at Spa. The team did not change anything on it since the exhaust blowing principle was copied from Red Bull and introduced at Valencia. The team decided to learn it as they ran it, and now is the first update on the concept.

As marked in the image, the profile of the lower and upper deck have been changed to improve downforce generation by means of the complex flow from the floor, the exhaust and around the sidepods.