Understanding the much-hyped Blown Diffuser of 2011 Formula 1 cars in detail
Back in 2010, it was revealed that the main reason for Red Bull Racing team’s success was a device known as the Blown Diffuser.
It is the device which the team has used in order to adjust its car’s aerodynamics and to lessen the disturbance at the rear end of the car.
Firstly, this device along with another device which was introduced by McLaren known as the F-duct were introduced in the 2010 season after which the rest of the teams were bound to follow this technology in order to cope up with these two teams.
However, one has to wonder that how does this device work and why did the rest of the team’s follow this innovative new creation to cope up with Red Bull.
We can simply say that a diffuser is a device which diffuses something. In this case, when we say a Blown Diffuser, it is a term used in Formula 1 for the device which is more like a diffuser connected with the exhaust system of a car which is located
at the back end of the car.
However, it was believed that Red Bull Racing and most of the teams as a matter of fact, used it to enhance the rear downforce of the car in order to ease the burden on the driver and make the car more comfortable and stable for driving.
Since the teams use the exhaust system connected with the diffuser, some of the teams back in 2010 changed their exhaust systems as well as Ferrari placed its exhaust system on the higher end of its car rather than the usual lower end.
The double diffuser technology was banned for the 2011 Formula 1 season by the officials of the sport. However, since there was no regulation against the blown diffusers mentioned in the new rules, the team’s used this device in 2011 as well up until
now. But it seems that the officials have finally decided to ban this use of a diffuser as the teams have been actively using it to enhance the aerodynamics of the car which is the job of a Drag Reduction System device in 2011.
As a result, the teams will not be allowed to use this device starting from the 2011 British Grand Prix and the officials also stated that the use of this device nowadays is used to consume fuel and increase reliability of the engines of the cars.
Recently, the main objection by the officials of the sport arose because of the fact that the teams started to use ‘hot blowing’ through this device.
Hot blowing is in fact the practice in which the teams insert some fuel into the engine of the car along with a spark which increases the energy into the gas of the car which helps increasing the downforce of the car noticeably as well.
It is believed that this practice improves the cars’ performance by around 5 tenths of a second and according to some recent statements by Martin Whitmarsh, the banning of this device is going to affect Red Bull Racing the most during qualifying after
which, the rest of the teams including McLaren and Ferrari might catch up with their pace.
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