Pup wrote:Surely the most impressive thing about these ducts is how they disappear when looked at from a different angle...
Err, photographs of two different wings.
For a couple of days they ran a wing which was widely photographed with no ducts, Button ran a blue flow-viz'd wing for a few laps that has been photographed from numerous angles as looking to be ducted, and then for a day and a half they ran the original wing with no ducting visible.
It's only quarter turn bolts which secure nose assemblies, McLaren mechanics are competent enough to figure out how to unbolt one and try a development part for an engineering work in progress.
Now whether this is a front wing f-duct or not is clearly not able to be ascertained at this time. And even if it is, how far developed the concept may or may not be, or even if the concept actually works is completely unknown.
But just because the FIA add rules about closed surfaces on rear wing elements, to think all team suddenly forgot all they learned about adaptive aerodynamics seems utterly unlikely to me.
Use two side ducts to detect yaw and use the output of that pneumatic circuit to fluidically switch on or off front wing elements. It seems at least likely to me that someone would stick such a wing on for a few laps and see what happens.
Now if we get better photography, and it turns out to be stray electrical tape, so be it, but right now, all the photos I've seen of it, it looks like that blue wing is ducted ... so that's what I'll put my money on for now.