I would like to discuss the purpose of a monkey seat or Rear-Y75-winglet (as F1T dictionary likes to call it) underneath the rear wing of an F1 car.
While the primary purpose appears to be a "strap on" device for more downforce circuits, they have also appeared to have been used in medium downforce circuits. Why would there be a necessity to disturb the flow on the suction side of the wing esp. in the central region where the wing is a "2D" profile, contributing to most downforce. Since 2014, this winglet sits above the exhaust, working in conjunction with the exhaust and contributing to the upwash.
Perhaps, more experienced members can contribute.
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If i got it right the Monkey Seat is not only there for Downforce Purposes, but also to "connect" the Diffusor and the Rear Wing for more stable Downforce. I think it was Massa spinning on Track sometime this Year when they were testing without the Monkey Seat and apparently the Rear Wing stalled.
Well, monkey seats were there along with beam wings in previous years. While many teams use a distinct wingfence, Merc seems to have simplified the entire seat.
Just another parallel thought which may fit in well with the loss of beam wing theory.
I just realised that the rear crash structure sits in the middle and does not help with reduce drag due to its bluff shape.The monkey seat makes up for the loss in downforce due to this?
Oh.. this topic again. hmm OK.. I guess might as well give another primate...erm, primer on the monkey seat.
The monkey seat is to attract the ghost of each track to sit on it.
It so happens that the track ghosts are the souls of dead monkeys.
These monkeys died of over-consumption of alcohol, pizza topped with bananas and doritos. As you can imagine the chronic lifestyle diseases are just too much for a monkey. For some reason the monkeys like to sit on formula 1 cars. If the monkey seat is asymmetrical enough, integrates some segment of an ellipse or is has Mercury impregnated in the carbon fibres, the monkey ghost will be irresistibly attracted to the monkey seat. Some say the monkey will try to "hump" the seat wing.
These track ghost have different body weights depending on the track. Don't ask me how ghost have weight because I cannot tell you. Anyway, the Japanese Monkey track ghost only weighs about 140 lbs while on the other end of the scale the American monkey ghost weighs upwards of 350 pounds - with a gut to match. (Everything is bigger in Texas as they say). The bigger the ghost the more down-force. This is why the monkey wings are designed to be ultra heavy and reinforced for the North American tracks.
The monkey ghost perch on the seats and you get an instant increase in rear down-force but a bit more drag. Because of this trade-off the monkey ghost can be a disadvantage at high speed tracks so to make him fall of the seat at high speeds the engineers make the seat smaller.
Sometimes when rain falls you can see a monkeyshaped refraction in the raindrops in the wake of the cars, but another way you can tell a monkey goast is present on the seat is by the shape of the rooster tail. If the rooster tail is full and firm a monkey is on the seat.
Anyways there are more intricate details of how the monkey ghosts interact with the seat but alas a you could write a book on each one! The key thing to remember is to never make him angry!
