Renault R29

[Shaddock]

Am I reading the rules correctly here,

The reason why Renault have a small gap between their front wing flap and the nose cone is that the FIA stipulate a 250mm distance between the cars centre line and the start of the flap. A wide nose reduces this gap as the space is taken up with the cars hooter.

3.18 Driver adjustable bodywork :
A single closed section situated each side of car centre line in the volume bounded by :
- lines 450mm and 800mm in front of the front wheel centre line ;
- a vertical plane which intersects these lines at a distance 250mm from the car centre line.

[wesley123]

How ugly is that?

The car is genial at the rear but soo ugly.

The nose wont make it to australia.

smart to let the sidepods be really low and then large cooling at the top so the lower part can guide air to the diffuser.

[modbaraban]

The nose wont make it to australia.

How can you be so sure? It looks quite complicated underneath. There must be a method in their madness.


PS: nice livery tho

[i70q7m7ghw]

How ugly is that?

The car is genial at the rear but soo ugly.

The nose wont make it to australia.

smart to let the sidepods be really low and then large cooling at the top so the lower part can guide air to the diffuser.

Care to explain why the nose won't make it to Oz? I highly doubt they would have even bothered to make to if it was truly that bad. It could turn out to be the best solution so far. You don't win races by having the best looking car

[vyselegend]

The nose wont make it to australia.

How can you be so sure? It looks quite complicated underneath. There must be a method in their madness.

Time to hire Bourdais?

[WhiteBlue]

It reminds me of a pancake or a toad.

[i70q7m7ghw]

The nose wont make it to australia.

How can you be so sure? It looks quite complicated underneath. There must be a method in their madness.


PS: nice livery tho

Nice one, you've just unearthed why the Renault is so fat!

[ben_watkins]

One word...

UGLY!

[enkidu]

You don't win races by having the best looking car

Well I actually think you do, every car that finishes the race 1st and beats the others usually looks pleasing to the eye. Ferrari never make a square looking car and they win, same with mclaren and redbull A (didn't win but looked nice) & B (won). Renault when it won 2 championships looked very nice not so much last year though....

[Jersey Tom]

Unique! I do like how the rear bodywork streams down to the end of the car. Significantly different than some of the other chassis. Might be awesome.. might not..

Still not a big fan of the colors. Still think the best was the blue from the Mild Seven days.

[vyselegend]

I have a though suddently. Do you think this horrible nosecone could be a bungled solution to get the car ready for today's test, since the original design reportedly failed two of the mandatory crash tests last week?


I think I have the explaination for the horrible looking of the livery. It's not that bad, just, the fact is it doesn't fit the R29 design at all. I'm sure in these days of spy scandals and all, teams are not very keen to give away overall design details of the future car to non-critical employees such as graphists, so those may very credibly have to work their graphical charts with some extrapolations based on currents car...

On Renault website, you can spot that:



I guess this is the model which has been used as a base to draw this livery (a R27 with extrapolated 2009 wings & R28 mirrors, minus aero bits). And honnestly on this model I found the livery pretty sexy.

[Metar]

I have a though suddently. Do you think this horrible nosecone could be a bungled solution to get the car ready for today's test, since the original design reportedly failed two of the mandatory crash tests last week?

I thought it failed the side-impact tests?

[rjsa]

The body work at the rear looks really clever. It appears to be trying to do that same job as the main flip-up we have seen in previous years, channeling air around and over the top of the diffuser... any thoughts?

Let's see if I hit it until Australia:

[Spencifer_Murphy]

That's one seriously ugly front end...the back tho, I like (with the exception of that infernal shark fin). The rear of the sidepods in really interesting. It appars that they are trying to have a large top surface (which reminds me of the Williams FW16):


In order to somehow manage the airflow over the top of the sidepods andkeep it seperate from the lower side of the side pods which are heavily under cut (much like on the FW16 again, but they obviously were only ever so slightly undercut at the rear):


I'm guessing that its a balance between the low area of the coke bottle effect designs and the advantages of the flipups which are no longer allowed (as stated before by (i think) Diesel).

All in all though, whilst not a looker of a car, I am impressed. Its innovative. The question is, is it going to be another Walrus FW26 flop or a resounding sucess? March can't come soon enough!

[Conceptual]

Funny enough, that nosecone seem to follow logic that Conceptual did with his drawings in Ferrari F60 thread.
With that fences I think they try to create low pressure area at the tip of the nose, notice that they also raised the outer parts of the front wing to get more airflow towards the floor. Idea seems o be reasonable, but I wonder how it will work in yaw conditions.

With Pat Symonds being a major part of the OWG, I would look to see the renault in title contention this year. That is of course if the rest of the OWG doesn't do a ton better...

The car looks good with your eyes shut. Once you can mentally strip away all of those intrusive colors, the car is quite remarkable.

I am calling it right now, Renault the Dark Horse of 2009, and Alonso wins his third.

And thanks Timbo for the credit. This is exactly what I was getting at, I just used the nose hole to help it along...