Mercedes AMG Petronas leads the way with novel F-duct – Formula 1 news
Mercedes AMG Petronas leads the way with the novel F-duct design of the new car W03 for the forthcoming 2012 Formula 1 season starting at Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia this weekend while other teams seem to copy the innovative yet legal design of the
Brackley team.
F-ducts were seen for the first time couple of years back which were being operated by the drivers. McLaren introduced the system that by holding up the car’s rear wing used to increase its top pace on track. Afterwards, many other teams followed McLaren’s
design. Nevertheless, it was banned by the International Automobile Federation (FIA) for 2010.
Mercedes had a strong pre-season testing programme this year as compared to the last one in which they could hardly manage to test run the car before the first race.
Moreover, some of the teams thought that every kind of F-ducts was banned.
However, Mercedes had featured a more passive system on the new car’s rear wing which worked along with the Drag Reduction System (DRS) to increase the top speed.
Charlie Whiting, technical delegate of FIA, stated that he did not find anything wrong with the Mercedes’ system regardless of some questions from the its contenders.
“Some teams are questioning it on the basis that they thought F-ducts were banned, but F-ducts are not banned. At the end of 2010 everyone was using driver-operated F-ducts and the regulations were changed specifically to ban the use of driver movement to
induce aerodynamic performance in the car,” said Whiting.
In addition, Christian Horner, team principal of Red Bull Racing expressed that if such systems would prove out to be a huge performance differentiator in the season ahead, then the teams would surely be required to form their own systems after the first
Grand Prix at Melbourne.
“Inevitably if a team has found a route around then it's a route that other teams will have to follow and obviously there is cost involved in that. The question is probably better posed to the FIA than to us. We're not totally aware of what the other teams
are doing at the moment,” said Horner.
Tags: