Front Wing F-Duct

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

And according to AMUS, Mercedes is developping an F duct for next year


http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 51930.html

[ESPImperium]

With an aggressive 2012 entry with an aggressive technichal team as well the MGP W03 could be the most aggressive car on the grid, and is rumored to be using a F-Duct on the front wing to reduce drag and is already under development on the 2011 car the MGP W02. Auto Moto und Sport reports of the new legal development for 2012:

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate ... 51930.html

[marcush.]

something we discussed on this board a year ago...but good to see them developing not just looking over the fence.

[wesley123]

Imo it doesnt make sense at all, you are stalling the front wing and comprimising everything behind it. Someone came with such idea a year ago and this was kind of the outcome.

Now for them it is hoping they achieve something with it

[ESPImperium]

Unless its just to stall the bits of the wing next to the pillars so there can be a smoother airflow to the T-Tray/Splitter and thus give a cleaner flow of air to the diffuser so it can create more downforce???

I doubt you would want to stall the main areas of the front wing for creating downforce.

[amouzouris]

One question....why the hell are they revealing their secret??

[raymondu999]

Apparently it wasn't a secret in the paddock anymore and Whitmarsh knew about it; and was possibly the leak. I don't know how HE knew though

[ESPImperium]

May take longer than we mak think to optomise. As Martin Whitmarsh said, if they have started now, the rest are already playing catch-up. If they have been looking at it for the past 3-4 months, and have just started testing the concept, they will have till Febuary to optomise, whitch will mean they will be futher down the track than the rest.

Look at how long it too some teams to get a F-Duct last year, and by the time they were getting it to work correctly the season was gone. Also look at the DDD, when introduced it took some teams 14 events to get it on their cars and then it was too late as the teams they were chasing were already 10-20 points ahead of them in the championship. There were teams that said that to copy the FEE would have taken arround 2-3 months to do where to copy the EBD will take 2 to 3 weeks for the basic interpritation.

Id say Mercedes are already a long way down the path for next years car and i think if they get this concept to work and correctly and well, itcould just give thgem the leap into the sharp end. Id say if they have a good base car with this outstanding consept, id recon they can concentrate on developing the rest of their car and making time there whilst the rest spend time on one area wasting resource.

I think Mercedes and Ferrari are already quite advanced on their 2012 car as they are testing ideas already for 2012.Id expect other teams to do the same in the rest of the season with exeption to the Renault/Force India/Sauber/Toro Rosso fight.

[aleks_ader]

Namesto tega poiščite HEY guys! Hmm! Front pasive F duct system... For me is just one question: What caint of preassure create this system under the wing? If is low preasure(accelerate particles)will system provide higher downforce... For me ist also comfusing that i dont se any adnvatage in konstant open ducts... The thing will be a lot more efficient if the Merc inovate the on/off trigfer withaout manipilation from the driver! I will conenct this duct with antiroll efect and create some caint valve, whitch will on the srait open or close the duct...In that way i discus in my head!I hope do you understand what i whant to say!Please if you dont understand ask me i not going to be mad!

[Ferraripilot]

FDUCT PART 2

As I am seeing this, the main advtange will be the additional air volume offered underneath the car. I fully expect MB to have some sort of high flow arrangement on their lower 2012 front nose which flows as much air as possible to this wing

[beelsebob]

Pretty clever way to get clean air to the front of the car... I'm wondering though, surely this could be used in a switched way to stall the wing out still. If for example they did something like this in the wing supports, using an extra hole, and air flow into it to redirect the main flow of air (horrible drawing, but bear with me):

So, while the car is moving relatively slowly:


While the car is moving faster:


The flow through when the car is moving fast could then be used to stall out the front wing potentially.

[Shrieker]

Which would be perfect while going through fast corners

[beelsebob]

Which would be perfect while going through fast corners

Haha, touché

[wesley123]

stalling the central section(or around the pillars) doesnt even sound like such an bad idea.

McLaren does something not very different with the front wing, making it pivot, reducing downforce in high speed turns.

It seems quite useful by this way, but their great find is now already lost.

[Shrieker]

Which would be perfect while going through fast corners

Haha, touché

The great thing with McLaren's f-duct was that there were no moving mechanical parts yet the reasoning was done by a human being,ie a driver plugging a hole (pardon the pun ) whenever he wanted to.

But you could still configure it(Mercedes' front wing) to stall only in very high speeds -say- above 300-310 km/h, there aren't many corners in F1 taken above those speeds (if any), so it would still give some kind of an advantage. So all is not lost.