British Grand Prix technical review

With the world championship fight still wide open, and little separating the leading teams in terms of competitive form, it is no surprise to see that the rate of development in F1 continues to be pretty aggressive.

Events at the British Grand Prix exposed the raw pulse of that technological push for all to see as well, when a new front wing at Red Bull Racing caused one of the biggest controversies of the season so far.

That front wing

There is no doubt that the big talking point of the British Grand Prix weekend was the media storm surrounding the new front wing at Red Bull Racing - or more specifically the decision by the team to hand it to Sebastian Vettel shortly before qualifying.

I'Ve spoken many times about the importance of the front wing on car design, and at Silverstone, Red Bull Racing introduced some nicely detailed tweaks to it.

We saw earlier in the year that Force India made use of the camera mountings on the nose to help improve the airflow to the underfloor and assist the downforce of the front wing - and I said at the time that other teams would likely copy the concept. That is exactly what Red Bull Racing have done.

The profile of the central section of the front wing and its position are defined in the FIA regulations. This restricted area effectively costs the teams downforce because there is a large percentage of the wing that does not produce downforce.

The area where the cameras have been mounted is a no go area as far as anything that constitutes body work is concerned but the cameras are not classified as bodywork and as such can be mounted anywhere.

Red Bull Racing effectively made the cameras into a slotted-flap extension section working the central section of the wing harder, this area will now produce front downforce.

It was not just the camera area that Red Bull Racing changed though, because there were some tweaks made to the endplate too.

The team introduced a double slot gap on the endplate to bleed some of the airflow from the outside of the endplate to the inner surface. You can see that the front wing end plate, when viewed from above, curves outward very abruptly to get the air around that front wheel. This curvature combined with the angle of attack of the front wing elements creates a three dimensional airflow expansion. And there is a chance that the airflow will separate on the underside of the wing surface or the inner side of the endplate. Or both.

By allowing some airflow to bleed through these slots you minimise the chance of such separation - and hopefully get better quality airflow to the rest of the car.

When airflow separates it is because it is overworked and the wake from any separated flow is not neat and tidy. When this happens you will lose downforce from the actual component, and because of the turbulent wake you will also lose downforce further downstream. So this new front wing may well have provided a bit more downforce but, more importantly, would have helped tidy up the air over the rest of the car making the overall effect much more consistent.

If you imagine a dolphin swimming through the sea, you can picture it has a very neat water wake flowing behind it - and it is exactly that kind of tidy airflow that teams are seeking.

The endplate slot gaps are all part of good 3D wing-flap management -and we'e talked already this year about how Renault has got itself into a very sophisticated state in this area.

As far as the controversy over whether or not Red Bull Racing was right to hand the wing to Vettel before qualifying, I have my own views on the situation.

From a technical viewpoint, I believe teams should always arrive at a race meetings with its strategies in place. And, if there are limited supplies of a new component, like a front wing, I would have a policy that it would only ever go to one driver. I would even give the spare to him.

At teams I've worked for in the past, we would divide the races between our two drivers pre-season for the first half of the year. So, for example, you would decide that at Mark Webber's home race he would be the man with priority, while at Germany it would be Vettel. Then you share out all the other races.

That way decisions over the priority of parts are made before you are confronted with any trouble.

Reading about the events after the weekend, it appears that Webber knew little about the thought process behind the decision until moments before qualifying - which caused a lot of the trouble.

If the pre-agreed strategy was in place before the weekend, and the team felt that it was critical the new item ran, then there would have been no such controversy and the team could have spent Sunday night celebrating another good win, rather than fire-fighting a public row.

Exhaust blown-diffusers

Aside from the Red Bull front wing issue, the main technical interest at Silverstone was on blown diffusers - with McLaren and Williams introducing new designs, and Mercedes GP and Ferrari running updated versions of their concepts.

Williams new and old rear body lay-outs © autosport.com

While Williams had few problems with its diffuser, McLaren was forced to drop the design after the first day of practice - having struggled to deal with the heat issues that come from running the exhausts so low down.

There were some suggestions that although the new diffuser design was several tenths per lap quicker, the floor began to warp through the heat after a few laps, which upset the car's downforce and balance. Having watched the McLaren up close at Silverstone however, I think the team may have bigger issues to deal with than some simple heat insulation.

This year's McLaren has always been a car that is very critical with its ride-height and we've noticed on several occasions that the team has struggled on bumpy tracks.

Having seen the car through the Brooklands complex at Silverstone which is not really very bumpy, I noticed something strange with the way it moves after the bumps. It appears the car is porpoising from front to rear - and this points to there being a problem with either the front wing or the diffuser, or even both.

Because of this pitch sensitivity the team has to run the car stiffer than the drivers would ideally like. I suspect that the issue is related to how its double diffuser works, in an effort to maximise the overall downforce of the car they are working this component very hard and when you do this it is very easy to suffer airflow separation at low ride height so in effect it isn't operating as effectively as it should or could.

McLaren, by putting the blown diffuser on, is effectively trying to make an overworked underfloor work even more. That is resulting in inconsistent handling - which drivers never like.

I even have my suspicions that Red Bull Racing produces less peak downforce than McLaren, but a much higher average downforce and that is where the drivers get there confidence from. That could well be the key difference between the two teams.

Extracting performance from a blown diffuser

One of the theories going around the paddock at Silverstone was that one of the secrets to Red Bull Racing's strong qualifying pace was the way the team uses its blown diffuser.

One suggestion is that the outfit puts its engine into a special mode for qualifying whereby it is permanently pumping gases through the exhaust so its drivers get the downforce benefits for a whole lap rather than just when he is hard on the accelerator.

Putting something like that into action is fairly straightforward - and in modern F1 cars you often have a choice of what to do to the engine when the driver lifts the accelerator pedal. You could either shut the throttle off, cut the fuel or cut the ignition.

If you wanted the engine to retain some instant response - like say when you are going through a quick corner like Copse where there is only a slight lift - then you would simply reduce the spark. That would help keep the fuel in there so the engine recovers immediately when it is next needed.

For many years now, teams have thus preferred to cut the spark or the fuel, which helps let the engine pump air through itself and means there is less risk of the rear wheels locking up at the wrong moment under braking .

It is therefore not too difficult to see this extra air being pumped out for the blown diffuser to help create the extra downforce.

For it to work effectively, you would need a diffuser that requires the help an exhaust pipe pushing through large volumes of airflow. That may not be so easy when considering the situation that McLaren is facing.

McLaren's new front wing

As well as introducing its new blown diffuser at Silverstone, McLaren also fitted a new front wing - which remained on the cars for the whole weekend.

The main aim of the front wing in the area ahead of the front tyres is to try and disperse all the air around the big mass of Bridgestone rubber at the front two corners.

Because of how the airflow around the car works on the inside of the tyres, there is a low pressure area, and the tendency of the airflow is therefore to go inside the tyre rather than outside it. For the overall car's performance, however, this is not ideal, as you don't want this turbulent air to be flying about uncontrollably on this area of the car.

That is why the teams use the endplates to try and turn the air outside of the tyres, where it is not as disruptive for the rest of the car.

McLaren has introduced some endplate slots, similar to Red Bull Racing, to help feed the two flap areas in the corners where they are more susceptible to the airflow.

There is also a new central fin section, which is probably situated just inside the edge of the tyres. This is aimed at scavenging the high energy airflow off the wing and keeping it controlled into a focused area around the contact patch of the front tyre - rather than let it randomly hit whichever part of the car it likes.

The focus of the air will also help control it when the front wheels are turning. You can imagine, for example, that if the car is turning left, then the right-hand wheel will start diverting more air inside the car -
whereas this fin can help keep the air heading for a more defined area.

It's all about controlling airflow, which is a common theme running throughout all the car developments.