Williams believes the F-duct will be advantageous
Sam Michael, the technical director for team Williams was quite shocked to hear that some Formula 1 teams are considering removing their F-ducts for this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
Most of the teams will complete back-to-back comparisons during Friday’s practice sessions and decide whether to use the F-duct for the Italian Grand Prix or not.
The thought of leaving behind this system off is that the difference in drag between a stalled wing while running the F-duct and the low-downforce wing used at Monza is normally so small that the car will not be able to gain much by running it. The teams could have a lower centre of gravity by removing the extra weight added by the F-duct at the top of the engine cover.
However, speaking at the last race at Spa Francorchamps, Michael was surprised that some teams were considering of not running an F-duct at Monza.
“I don't really understand that. I do not know where that story came from to be honest. I think someone was just playing around”, he told reporters.
Michael claims that using an F-duct at the Monza is a "no-brainer" as it is quite dumb to drop the F-duct keeping in mind the fast nature of Monza.
“On the Monza wing that we've got, it [an F-duct] is a massive drag difference. Therefore, I do not know why you would not do it. It is a stalled wing, so if the wing stalls then it stalls. I think everyone will run it”, he added.
It was understandable at Hungary and Monaco when most of the teams removed their F-ducts, as both of the tracks do not contain long straights. McLaren dropped the F-duct for those races only because they did not have an alternative engine cover and wing ready to race.
Williams currently has Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg driving for the team. Rubens recently celebrated his 300th race start at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Rubens Barrichello is one of the most consistent and experienced drivers in the history of Formula 1. He has the record of most race starts, that is 300. The Brazilian has scored a total of 11 wins, 68 podiums along with 14 pole position to score a total of 637 points in his career. Barrichello’s first team was Jordan back in 1993. Rubens was only able to score 2 points with the team to secure the 18th place in the drivers’ standings. The Brazilian’s best performance with the team was in 1994 when he scored 19 points and ended up in 6th place in the drivers’ standings with the help of 2 podiums and a pole position.
Rubens joined Stewart after that before leaving the team in 1999 to join Ferrari. His best performance with Stewart was in 1999 when he scored 3 podiums and a pole position scoring 21 points to secure the 7th place. Rubens move to Ferrari was a huge breakthrough for him as Ferrari was the one of the best teams at that time however, many critics believed that he would have been better without Ferrari since he used to work as a “sidekick” for Michael Schumacher when he could have done so much better. He was able to score 9 wins out of his 11 wins during this period and score 54 podiums along with 11 pole positions.
Barrichello joined Honda in 2005 after a 5 year journey with Ferrari but had a disappointing time with the team as he had only 1 podium standing. Rubens joined Brawn GP in 2009 and again had to work as a wing man for his teammate Jenson Button. The Brazilian is currently in team Williams in 11th place with 30 points. This has been quite a disappointing season for him but hopes to rise once again. The 38 year old is not even considering of retiring anytime soon and believes that he still has what it takes to be a champion.
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