Malaysian GP tech blog

Given the high temperatures in Malaysia, on top of any performance upgrades every car has some bodywork changes simply due to the greater cooling demands at Sepang.

The long straights and big braking zones also mean that brake cooling is increased, with the brake ducts also aimed at venting the hot air away from the wheel because thermal tyre degradation is likely to be a factor this weekend.

Most teams' brake ducts enclose the disc and route it directly out of the wheel without passing over the inner rim. On the rear brakes, heat will also be directed out of the inner face of the wheel rim as reversing the flow in this way also keeps the heat from the brakes away from wheel.

McLAREN

McLaren targeted a 0.5s lap time gain for Malaysia. Some of this has come from revised aero and part from power unit development.

Most noticeable on the MP4-29 is the new nose. McLaren is one of the few teams to alter its nose design, following a similar route to the one taken by Toro Rosso pre-season.

Both teams had an anteater nose, with the wedge-shaped upper nose a relatively conservative and low design. For Sepang, McLaren has lifted the front of the upper nose and widened it at the same time.

This change will allow more airflow under the car. This can be picked up by the turning vanes and directed around to the back of the car. Overall this should create more downforce at the rear of the car.

To evaluate the new nose, McLaren ran the car with an aero sensor rake in free practice one.

Also new for Sepang is a floor-level cooling exit. This is only on the right-hand sidepod and will vent heat from the water radiators mounted there.

Since 2009, openings in the sidepod have been restricted, but the rules leave a space around 50mm above the floor (100mm above the reference plane) that is free for openings.

Lotus has also exploited this area and now McLaren has created a duct this neatly exits between the two floor flicks.

MERCEDES

Like McLaren, Mercedes has new parts for the W05, the key one being a new floor. This appears to be a completely new moulded floor, rather than small parts bonded onto an existing floor.

The key visible change is a tiny pair of two-element winglets on the middle of the trailing edge of the diffuser. These straddle the extension fitted during the Bahrain test.

Rules allow a free area 200mm wide over the middle of the diffuser.

This freedom allows more complex bodywork to fitted, which will help the airflow expansion inside the diffuser. In turn, this creates more downforce.

For the heat of Malaysia, Mercedes fitted its largest hot air outlet to the top body.

This canon-style exit is about as wide as the rules allow. It will vent air from the various radiators above the engine and inside the sidepods.

LOTUS

It was another weekend of interrupted running on the first day of practice sessions for Lotus.

Lotus has developed a nose with a wing in between the twin tusks, cleverly joining the aerofoil section to the rest of the nose with twisted vertical vanes.

These allow the nose assembly to meet the single open section rules. A similar solution was used by BAR back in 2003. It's likely the new set-up will be analysed closely by both the teams and FIA.

Lotus has also added new details to its front brake ducts. The top edge of the duct has three shark fins fitted.

These aren't related to brake cooling, but to the aerodynamic objective of the brake duct in directing airflow around the front tyres.

FERRARI

There were no major performance updates for Ferrari at Sepang, but the team did alter the cooling package.

Running the Melbourne-spec engine cover, the spine now has a long row of cooling vents fitted.

These will vent hot air building up around the turbocharger.

RED BULL

Again, there were no major updates for the RB10 as the team continues to recover from its initial problems in testing. But the car did complete a run in Friday afternoon practice with flo-vis painted to the bodywork.

While flo-vis applied to a rear wing is not an unusual procedure for teams to assess the cars aerodynamics in practice, having it applied to specific areas such the under nose turning vanes is more usually a sign that new parts are fitted.

So although we can't see visible changes, its likely Red Bull does have something new on the front of the car.