From what I've been able to see the front of the RB undertray is very similar to the McLaren. I have to say the build quality of the McLaren is very poor in contrast to the RB, at the rear anyways. It loks like the undertray has been overheated and patched numerous times around the rear wheels. Not very smooth .. and the very large cutouts in front of the rear wheels might be weakening the diffuser flow. I don't think they work too well but till you can see the CFD you don't know ..
The devil of the details in all this lies in the ports for the DD. It becomes a packaging exercise, as aero often is. The Brawn and Toy were designed with DD in mind from the beginning. The RB was not but at the same time they released their DD they also came out with a new CF tranny, which no doubt has helped them work out near optimal packaging.
BTW, the front of Brawn undertray is completely different in that it does not try to build a high pressure above the undertray entry, rather it's top surface tapers off to the sidepod fronts. However Brawn have spent a lot of time creating strong vortexes along the sides of the entry. If they can find a way to get that vortex all the way back to the diffuser, that would be a nice advantage. Who knows though, till you can see the CFD on it (like that would ever happen!). All I can say is that the proof is in the result. Despite Brawn having among the lowest trap speeds in Turkey, they were quite dominate there. They have probably traded efficiency (low drag) for increased downforce. If it proves to work at a track like Turkey like it did, then you can argue that they figured it out best. IMO, look for RB to be experimenting with a revised undertray inlet area to try to emulate what Brawn has done.
richard_leeds wrote:Great pics guys, thanks!
It would be really informative to compare the the pics below (front and rear of the plank) with Brawn and Red Bull cars.
Small hitch - we'll have to wait for them to crash and get craned off the track so wecan see the underside... May be waiting some time!
Great stuff bar555, thanks again.[/quote]