Renaults New Rear Wing

[strad]

I don't see this discussed anywhere..If I'm wrong the mods should delete this.
Renault it appears have a new DRS and rear wing.
I thought the specs were set by the FIA and I would have thought all the teams would have gone this way from the start.

Technical director James Allison (of Renault) explained that a larger DRS flap on the rear wing would allow the Renault's to gain a bigger advantage over one lap.

"As always, there will be a host of aero updates," he said. "The most significant of these will be a new top rear wing with a bigger DRS switching effect. This will bring outright lap time in qualifying and offer better overtaking potential during the race."

[AcoidanBM]

Hi.
I think the FIA regulations only specify this:
- The distance between both rear wing sections (before and after the DRS activation)
- The physical point of rotation of the rearmost and uppermost closed section
- The curvature of the rearmost and uppermost closed section
- The chord of the rearmost and uppermost closed section must always be smaller than the chord of the lowermost section

So if teams satisfy this, they could change the design of the drs system.

For more information, articles 3.10.2 and 3.18 of the FIA 2011 Formula One Technical Regulations.

[Muulka]

I would imagine that he's referring to the upper element of the wing, i.e the one which moves. If you look up and down the field, you will see that some, such as McLaren, have very large upper elements, but others, Mercedes for example, have much smaller ones.

It is thought that the smaller element gives less overall downforce, but a much larger decrease in dragwhen DRS is activated, though this has never been conclusively confirmed.

[Dragonfly]

"As always, there will be a host of aero updates," he said. "The most significant of these will be a new top rear wing with a bigger DRS switching effect. This will bring outright lap time in qualifying and offer better overtaking potential during the race."

He speaks about the effect, not the size of the element. Like Muulka says, the smaller one on the MGP car gives larger drag difference at closed and open position.

[Pierce89]

"As always, there will be a host of aero updates," he said. "The most significant of these will be a new top rear wing with a bigger DRS switching effect. This will bring outright lap time in qualifying and offer better overtaking potential during the race."

He speaks about the effect, not the size of the element. Like Muulka says, the smaller one on the MGP car gives larger drag difference at closed and open position.

Correct. the leading edge of the flap moves 50 mm. With the tiny flaps, oyu get a larger redution in AoA.