A few things I noticed at the tests last week (I was there Wednesday from 9 am till 4 pm).
As usual all the teams adopted a very low downforce rear wing. Most radical approach was adopted, although with different executions, by McLaren and Renault, a single element airfoil.
Renault used the same wing on both cars, single element with short chord and, relatively, pronounced curvature of the camberline. The leading edge is a bit lower near the tips. No slots on the endplate on the upper part, the usual ones for the lower element :
[IMG:150:128]http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/3315 ... bw3.th.jpg[/img]
The also used the front wing without the upper elements, already seen in North America. Didn’t notice further modifications on the car.
McLaren tried two different rear wings.
On Paffett’s car a “classic” main + flap :
[IMG:150:128]http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/707/ ... fd9.th.jpg[/img]
On De La Rosa car a single element with very limited curvature but generous chord. No slots on endplates :
[IMG:150:128]http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/2391 ... zp8.th.jpg[/img]
Additionally you can see that McLaren removed, on both cars, the winglets above sidepods and adopted, if I’m not mistaken, slightly smaller chimneys. Contrarily to last year they kept the airbox horns.
Last thing, both drivers lost the left wing mirror, Pedro the morning and Paffett the afternoon. Maybe they should consider a more expensive glue...
Ferrari adopted a new rear wing with a more evident cut in the endplate near the wheels, a single slot on top and the usual ones for the lower element. Other than that it’s a straight wing, main + flap, with a relatively thick main airfoil.
[IMG:150:128]http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/897/ ... lp5.th.jpg[/img]
[IMG:150:128]http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/4909/massazu0.th.jpg[/img]
Another modification at the front. Obviously the flap has short chord but also the main element is different with a less evident spoon in the central section. The whole main element is also a bit higher that usual as noticeable from the increased gap between wing and lower edge of the FWEP.
Contrarily to Renault the wing features the upper elements, apparently unmodified.
Still at the front, they substituted the two thick symmetrical black winglets that some people call camera fairings and substituted them with two winglets having a pronounced curvature of the camberline.
They also removed all the winglets on the inner side of front wheels, while on the contrary kept the fairings on the rear wheels and the serrated bargeboards introduced in Turkey, although with two “steps” instead of three.
Williams, just like McLaren removed the winglets attached to sidepods. They also removed all the airbox winglets. They kept the flick ups with several slots used on other tracks :
[IMG:150:128]http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/420/ ... sf0.th.jpg[/img]
The rear wing is a standard main + flap, both with very short chord. There’s a single slot quite high on the endplate. Strangely, in my pics I can’t see the mandatory spacer.
Another strange thing, looking at pics I noticed that Webber in the morning was running without the flip up in front of the left sidepod :
[IMG:150:128]http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/1870/webberng9.th.jpg[/img]
I would assume he lost it but I’ve also a pic, still from Ascari, taken in the afternoon (the particular in the square), and although unfortunately the pic is quite blurred it seems to me that the flipup is still missing, at least, in the pic of Rosberg car in similar position I posted above, the flip up is clearly visible. One would think they had more than enough time to replace it during the 1h30m pause for lunch, strange they didn’t.
Another team that removed the winglets on sidepods is BMW. They also removed the flip ups in front of sidepods and the horns on the airbox. The rear wing has a “wavy” central part. The chord of the main element is quite short and the flap’s one quite long.
Comparing Heidfeld wing with Kubica’s one it looks like the latter was using a bit more downforce :
[IMG:150:128]http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/9607/bmwac2.th.jpg[/img]
Toyota adopts a single winglet on the airbox, a relatively standard design for rear wing, and a wavy front wing with a short chord flap. As expectable they removed a few of the winglets that characterize the car. It also seems to me they have a new flick up in front of rear wheels with a vertical wall starting basically few cm behind the winglet. But Toyota isn’t a car I look very close so it’s possible that they already used it before and I didn’t notice :
[IMG:150:128]http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/8145 ... kk5.th.jpg[/img]
Honda. I see nothing particularly strange (besides obviously low downforce wings), but same thing said for Toyota is valid here, it’s not a car I look at very closely so I leave it to somebody else to see the new things :
[IMG:150:128]http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/4637/hondacn9.th.jpg[/img]
Red Bull removed both chimneys and winglets from sidepods, Midland only the winglets :
[IMG:150:128]http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/4859 ... ey5.th.jpg[/img]
Excluding that, nothing to write home about... just like nothing relevant on STR and SA.