Little interesting bit I noticed in practice is that vertical elements toward the inside of the rear wing have taken on a new form. They both lean in the same direction on Takuma Sato's car making for an assymmetrical rear wing. Davidson's car had the more conventional symmetrical rear wing. Didn't see any pictures of Button's car with enough resolution.
Also, Williams seems to have copied theis feature--the vertical elements, not the assymmetry--with obvious vertical elements. They don't seem as sculpted as on the BAR but they are there nonetheless.
I should take back some of my comments. There is no lean to the plates...it just looks that way because they are curved like the Williams's. So, in reality, they really aren't that sculpted at all.
Something else I noticed that Williams seems to have copied from the BAR is the double rear wheel flip up. I'm not sure what else to call it, but as far as I know, they are the only two cars on the grid with it, and BAR had it first.
Obviously Williams is paying very close attention to Willis's work and I think that shows a lot of respect.
The rear wing also has a two vertical elements connecting the both horizontal plates to each other. The (disputable) reason for this is to limit sideways draft, but we at least know for sure it comes from WRC. The link is then quickly made, since BAR boss David Richards is head of prodrive, a WRC manufacturer.
Excellent job by Dave Richards and Goeff Willis. Notice the IRL style airbox, it looks like an upside down triagle shape, which allows more airflow towards the rear wing compared to ones used by Jaguars...McLarens.
It is quite interesting how Geoff Willis was sacked from Williams, found his feet at BAR, and now the BAR is catching up with the williams'. Frank and Patrick with undoubtably be looking at any interesting developments on the BAR with this in mind. But so would everyone else. I mean if you where a team boss and you where witnessing the meteroric rise of BAR would you not be interested in any developments on this car? Of course you would. You see what others have done to improve and you test it's benifits in the windtunnel. Thats what happened when Ferrai introduced the "droop-nose" in 2001. Now look...all the cars use a varialtion of it (excluding the radical FW26). Often though teams will be looking at the same concepts at the same time. It could be that Williams have been looking at those plates when willis was still with the team, but found no real benifit. When it appeas on a car with as much imporovement as the BAR it makes you go back and re-analise any benifits it may induce. It could be that with only two elemnts in the rear-wing, they have a more profound effect than on the old three elemnt rear wings.
well,Willies was not sacked ,as far as I know....
I believe a lot of this stuff is giving the driver some trick bits to believe the car is better...so he is more comitted to drive to the outer limits of the performance envelope.
Just look how the appendicies on the cars evolve and very often things we saw two years ago are reintroduced as the hot ticket....In reality ,these things are not worth a lot and drivers making mistakes are throwing away the possible benefit away at a single corner by simply braking a little late or going a bit offline and flooring the throttle too commited...look at bahrein qualifying no driver managed a lap without an error worth at least
.5 of a second,that is the answer why some Mark Webber is doing so well
on occasion ,he is able to maximise on the cars potential due to confidence...unfortunatelly ,that confidence got a huge blow in last GPs Qualifying...
well the rise of BAR continues race by race by comfortably beating Trulli's Renault in a straight race to the flag, would have been interesting to see if he could have challenged Montoya for 3rd without the Williams having problems.
But Willis does seem to be pulling the package together quite nicely and I did read somewhere the they think Honda may be in the top 3 or 4 engines now which is a nice turnaround and bout time too.
Jaguar, who drew attention to the illegality
of the BAR and Williams fences have themselves
employed a very prominenent version of their own
at Barcelona......
hey timstr,
i have been following this post but wasnt aware that the fences didnt comply with regulation. do you know what the official verdict is regarding them??
hmmm i was really looking forward to this weekends race to see if BAR are the real deal since Catalunya is maybe the biggest test on an F1 car and it would seem that they are right up there.
-shr3d- wrote:hey timstr,
i have been following this post but wasnt aware that the fences didnt comply with regulation. do you know what the official verdict is regarding them??
hmmm i was really looking forward to this weekends race to see if BAR are the real deal since Catalunya is maybe the biggest test on an F1 car and it would seem that they are right up there.
Well it had to do a clarification of the rearwing regulation (which was related to another develpment which BAR had in the pipeleine), unintendedly, the cross-sectional shape of the fences run by BAR (and later Williams) were deemed illegal. Both BAR and Willams have now adopted much smaller fences, complying with the cross sectional shape stipulated in the rules.
Remember how the AUDI R8 got away with the larger rear wing endplate on it's prototype? Jaguar have incorperated this idea. Whereas the BAR and Williams solutions had the lower element attached to the upper element via the shark fine, Jaguar have it so the upper and lower elements do not touch when the car is static. Under load, the two plates touch forming a tight seal, creating better airflow over the rear wing.
ahh i was wondering what that design BAR came up with was going to be..
never found out...
do you mind me asking how the fences do not comply with the current regulations instead of searching for the answer??
