SiLo wrote:He probably means the concept of turning a lot more air outside the front wheel. Whereas before they didn't turn so much of it.
Gather round kids, it's time for another Turbof1's winged special!
Let's do a comparative analysis and show that Mercedes and Red Bull wing are completely seperate concepts which have no influence on eachother.
Mercedes Wing:
Red Bull Wing:
Let's first focus on the main wing elements:
As you can see Mercedes sacrifices a bit of main wing area on the outside in order to have it a nice outwards bending curve.
Red Bull on the other hand prefers to maximize close to the maximum allowed surface. Note that the edges of the 2 uppermost elements are integrated in the endplate! It also uses a strake on the uppermost elements. This strake is very important in managing the airflow around the tyre. In short red bull uses more of an upwash solution then effectively an outwash one, although the latter mentioned strake is a very important 'outlet' to outwash to quite an extent, pressing air between it and the endplate.
Then we have the cascades:
Again Mercedes profiled their cascades to accentuate outwash, evident by the turning vane cascade and by bending the endplate the cascade.
Again different philosophy here at red bull. They are producing more downforce and are more about upwashing their airflow rather then forcefully bending it outwards.
Finally we have endplate and apendages:
A continuous endplate which curls quite heavy at the back, designed to outwash and upwash the airflow around the tyre. Creates vortices at its tips. The outside strake also generates a vortex which enhances the vortices upstream. The inside strake aids in upwashing the airflow along with creating a vortex on its own.
Red Bull on the other hand does not have a continuous plate. Due the wing elements being so close to the footplate, red bull needed to make a slot to get sufficient air inbetween the elements to prevent stalling. The endplate curves a bit at the back, but not as much as the Mercedes on does. One has to note that Red Bull simply has not the room to do so because of the endplate being so much closer to the footplate edge. It's winglets on the inside have almost no AoA, and are there to guide the airflow towards the upper element strake, which helps outwashing the airflow.
As you can see, there's not a single part on both wings that have the same approach. Red Bull's and Mercedes' wings are 2 completely different approaches, with the rest of the field picking solution between the 2. Red Bull did this last year too btw; just like Mercedes they only finetuned what they got and did not introduce anything really new.
