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With the old metallic rolling road, as well as with less extreme solutions from recent years, the wind tunnel operators had to avoid pushing the search for minimal ground clearance too far. Any contact with the floor, which on the track produces spectacular sparks, could cause serious damage to the model, slowing down the development program and delaying the introduction of potential new aerodynamic update packages.
Thanks to the latest “plastic” materials, it’s now possible to have a rolling road that is highly resistant to wear, considering that the metallic matrix had almost zero wear and with a surface free of micro-roughness. This allows for cleaner airflow under the model, enabling the floor to be closer to the ground.
Wind tunnel investigations have become increasingly precise, with very complex aerodynamic maps. While research was once limited to studying the model facing the airflow head-on, it now includes analyzing the car’s behavior during yaw, with steering angles, simulating the car in a corner.
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Red Bull was the first team to adopt an advanced rolling road, followed by McLaren. The Woking team initially used Toyota’s wind tunnel in Cologne but has made impressive progress since utilizing its new wind tunnel in Woking. The MCL38 is now considered the benchmark car of the moment.
