xpensive wrote:You could use a bit of imagination yourself WB, the idea of the adjustable rear wing for the following car was hatched by Wirth when working on that split-wing for MrM some years back, but yes, the proximity-thing could be rather new.
So we are finally talking sense now. The idea of a movable wing is fairly old and was already on the table in 1996 as we can read at GP.com. It was old when the CDG wing was proposed in 2005 as you seem to remember.
Peter Wright at GP.com in 1997 wrote:By the end of the last year's racing season, no solution to reducing aerodynamic loads had been found. The FIA backed a proposal from some teams for an active front wing - the incidence would be actively controlled to permit a change of balance in the wake of a leading car. Some teams rose to the challenge, while others recoiled from it, and without unanimity it did not get accepted.
Btw, the F1 designer who was associated with the CDG project in the press was Newey. He was on gardening leave and supposedly looked at the AMD sponsored FiA research. I have still not seen a hint that Nick Wirth was involved but it may be possible that he was in 1996 or even earlier.