TD
T EC H N I CA L DE B R I E F
Wi t h G i org i o P i o l a an d Matthew Som erfield
Technical
Debrief
FROM A TINY ACORN...
WITH GIORGIO PIOLA
& M AT T H E W S O M E R F I E L D
McLaren eyes 2017
M
cLaren has undoubtedly been using the
latter part of the 2016 season as an extended
pre-season test session, with an eye on
improving next year’s car before it even
gets out of the blocks
The video documents some of the changes made by the team
since Melbourne, which as you can see has seen the team
move the point at which the airflow moves across the front of
the tyre and out around it.
The use of outwash front wings have been prevalent
since 2009, but the teams have been forced to refine how
that airflow moves rearward depending on the prevailing
regulations and tyre construction provided by Pirelli.
However, the wider tyres and regulatory changes for 2017
are hinting at a re-imagining of these flow structures, with
some of the wing still poised to take care of outwash, but
most of the flow will now most likely be sent inboard, making
use of the additional surface area and protection from tyre
wake that the larger bargeboards behind will provide.
The wing used during Free Practice sessions by McLaren
since Austin displays some of these tendencies and is seen as
an indication of the direction they’ll take for 2017.
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The video goes onto to look at some of the rear wing solutions
presented by McLaren this season, with the failed introduction
of the long slotted endplate in Austria (above), followed by
the introduction of the open-ended louvre endplate that was
pioneered by Toro Rosso at the start of the season (below).
From a technical point of view many of the things we see on
Formula 1 cars aren’t new, rather a re-imagining of something
that has gone before it.
Perhaps they’ve become redundant due to a regulation
change, or as other concepts have matured elsewhere on the
car their importance has waned.
Whatever the reason we often see solutions that circle
back several years down the line as a team looks to achieve
a similar aerodynamic goal.
One such case has started to crop up during this
regulation set, with a proliferation of airflow controlling
devices found under the chassis’ of the lead cars, as they
look to improve the direction of other airflow structures in
that region.
Mercedes was the first to introduce a ‘bat-wing’ back in
2014, which is a relatively simple winglet that occupies an
area in the regulations that allows for the placement of the
ride height sensor.
The bat-wing, named so because of its uncanny similarity
to the winged mammal, works in harmony with and as an
extension of the turning vanes that lie ahead of it. The use of
this device means that the turning vanes can then be given a
more difficult role too, which saw the W05’s vanes increased
from three elements to four later in that opening season of
these regulations.
Furthermore, it allowed the designers to consider placing
these vanes further forward, something Mercedes achieved
by adding small tabs at the bottom of the chassis.
It took a while for the others to catch on but Red Bull came
up with its own interpretation in Austria, using a ‘gull-wing’.
The team’s design saw a pair of winglets mounted at the
rear of the new turning vanes (main inset) that connected
them with the ride height sensor (upper inset and highlighted
in green), in order to perform a similar role to Mercedes’s
bat-wing.
Ferrari adopted its own version of the ‘bat-wing’ much later,
waiting until Austin in 2015, whilst making the effort to revise
its turning vanes too, moving them further down the chassis
and mou nting the lead element to the underside of the nose,
bringing them into a more forward position akin to the
Mercedes solution.
As testing came and went at the start of the 2016 season
it became clear that Mercedes was still forging on with its
concept, but rather than continue with its ‘bat-wing’ a revised
nose layout for Ferrari saw the team abandon it and run a less
complex set of turning vanes under the nose once more.
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