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By 
Monday, May 28, 2012
Red Bull have been using the duct in
front of the rear tyres for a number of races. It seemed that at
Monaco one the teams may protest its use and force Red Bull to start
from the pits having to change the floor on both cars. Red Bull are not the only team to have
a similar element on their car. Both Sauber and Ferrari have their
own iterations.
The reason for such a floor cut out is to reduce
'tyre squirt' this is when the flow that ejects from the sidewall of
the tyre squirts into the path of the diffuser.
The slot/duct in front of the tyre redirects the airflow intended to hit the tyre head on minimizing the 'squirt' effect toward
the diffuser. Squirt wasn't so much of a problem when EBD was in use
as its impact on the diffuser flow wasn't enough to warrant the
requirement of flow adjustment.
Red Bulls duct is totally different to
Sauber and Ferraris iterations as they have a slot cut out of the
edge of the floor or in the case of Ferrari the slots meet with the edge of the floor which circumnavigates the rule about having holes
in the floor of the car. As always teams will always interpret the
rules very differently and Red Bull are interpreting two separate
rules here and joining them to form one.
Instead of defining their slot on the
outer edge of the floor (like Sauber/Ferrari, seen in the picture
below of Ferrari's 3 slots at the edge of the floor) Red Bull are
instead using the aero strake as a piece of bodywork thus the
aperture is still a slot and not a hole. Had they enclosed the duct
before reaching the strake it would be a hole. This has the advantage
of being able to inject airflow further inbound to straighten the
tyre squirt flow more than the Ferrari/Sauber solutions.
In the picture below I have highlighted
the sections in yellow that relate to the rules on the floor and in
Blue for the section of aero strake that is defined as bodywork. (The strake is now in White) The small red mark denotes the edge of the tyre as it does look at first like part of the duct.
As the two elements interact with one another both rules have to be deemed in play making this a slot and not a hole.
The other option that Red Bull may have adopted with this solution is that the strake, the curved element and part of the strake housing are all housed atop of the floor and the slot is in the floor below. I have tried to show this area below as it's marked out in the original photo
Amended 4.29PM 28/05/12 with new photo
As the two elements interact with one another both rules have to be deemed in play making this a slot and not a hole.
The other option that Red Bull may have adopted with this solution is that the strake, the curved element and part of the strake housing are all housed atop of the floor and the slot is in the floor below. I have tried to show this area below as it's marked out in the original photo
Amended 4.29PM 28/05/12 with new photo
Posts
I have looked at a few of pics the three teams that use this S Duct. Looked at what others have said, checked out the regs and even consulted a dictionary for impervious: not permitting penetration or passage; impenetrable. If this area is to be impervious then all three are non-compliant. FIA must sort this out. I bagsy a discarded Ferrari floor #wallfeature
ReplyDeleteIf you're bagsying the Ferrari floor then I'll have first dibs on an RB8 one ;) Personally I think it's legal and just a clever interpretation of the rules. However defining it as legal in a statement of fact by the FIA may lead to other area's in which this could be exploited too.
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