Formula One: Renault Ready to Use F-Duct at Spa, Belgian GP
Finally, Renault gets it done too! The team is ready to introduce their version of the f-duct system at Spa during the Belgian Grand Prix. The team hopes to see some good results from the advancements they are coming up with, as they proclaim that "better late than never".
The technical director of the team, James Allison confirmed that the French manufacturer is the last team of the season that would be coming with the f-duct installation to the car.
The team is to use the system for the first time at the race, soon after the three-week summer break. The next race is scheduled to be held at Spa, Belgium on Sunday, 29th of August.
"We should have that available in Spa," Allison announced on the Renault official website.
While elaborating the decision of the team regarding the introduction he said, "Clearly, we've seen team after team bring it and noticed the step up in their fortunes once they've got it working, but we've also seen it isn't necessarily as easy as falling out of bed to make it work, so we'll have our work cut out in Spa to make sure that we get it working from the off."
The teams have been seen coming up with the f-duct system right from the start of the year. The Red Bull was the first one to come up with it and seeing their form and pace all the teams had been keen to set up the same system in their cars as well. Ferrari, McLaren, Force India (in one of their cars) etc had also introduced the systems that are either similar to the Red Bull’s or teams came up with their own versions of the system. However, none had been able to beat Red Bull when it comes to speed, though Ferrari has also showed great pace on the track, but still it is not as quick as the RB6.
As Renault talked to the media for the demonstration of their system, Allison insisted that they deliberately took time to introduce it, for they were pretty satisfied with some of the conventional updates to their car.
He further added that it was exciting to see how McLaren had their system installed and were able to beat the Red Bull in a number of races but again it was not an easy to have it put in and get it to work properly. He stated, "It was also very clear that it wouldn't be trivial to emulate it. I think it took most teams three or four races before they had their first versions of it, and some teams longer still.”
Among the significantly major teams, Renault is the last one to put it on their car which they have mentioned time and again to be their deliberate policy.
"Whether right or wrong, I knew we had a lot of good stuff coming through (in the development process) of a more conventional nature, and knew that that was going to tie up a lot of our design capacity and manufacturing capacity, but was very confident that I could get a lot of performance on the car that way.”
He said that the team wanted to move step by step by improving the basics first and then moving towards other things though in the background. The basic work for the duct started, yet he said that they were in no hurry.
Although, the initial plans of the team was to have it ready around two races before, but that did not materialize and they had to postpone it till now.
However, he was proud to have it ready now and said that the entire team is looking forward to having some great races at the end of the season.
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