I was watching the Qualifying last night and i din't notice any team with wheelcovers besides Mclaren. Is it my eyes? Williams has them but weren't running, RedBull wasn't, iirc they have them as well, fezza didn't appear to be but it could be my eyes. Honda didn't, but i don't think they ever bothered with them.
the four immutable forces:
static balance
dynamic balance
static imbalance
dynamic imbalance
McLaren and Ferrari were the only teams to use them during qualifying.
I suspect the ambient air temperature did not allow covering the front wheels. After all, these wheel covers are aerodynamic devices and are still unlikely to improve cooling compared to the open air solution.
Keeping the brakes cool at 35°C Australia was a priority I guess...
Well some of the corners are pretty hard in on the brakes in Melbourne and there isn't a huge amount of speed to be picked up to cool the rotors so you may be right. But if it's mostly the temp i wouldn't expect too much racing with them down the line. Sepang is toasty, Bahrain is frying, hell in Montreal we get +30 on a regular basis come june. And France is famous for killing their elderly via days of net-45+ degrees.
Maybe these two are the only ones who've fully committed as far as their wheelsets are considered and couldn't run without if they wanted to - or - they both figured the aero gains would help in getting a pole, worked for Hamilton. But nobody's really expected honda to be so close and they were able to match times er, roughly without running covers.
My powers of divination fail me. I mean i know the aero benefits must be there, but somehow it doesn't add up, it feels like a red herring but i'm worried it's not. Does that make any sense?
the four immutable forces:
static balance
dynamic balance
static imbalance
dynamic imbalance
