| By Gary Anderson | |
| Technical Consultant |
The Williams FW40 is the first of the 2017 Formula 1 designs to break cover, and after all the talk of new regulations and the dramatic new look of grand prix cars, the initial impression is to ask if it really is a new car? Of course it is, and Williams has put a huge amount of work into this design, but the regulations are written around the same basic concept as they were last year so inevitably it's recognisable as being from the same family of cars. To the casual viewer, the cars will not look so different to what we're familiar with from 2016. There's no surprise Williams has basically taken the concept of last year's FW38 and updated it to comply with the regulation changes. The DNA of the rules has not changed, so I didn't expect to see a lot of difference and have said as much in the past. However, don't forget these are early renderings of a car that won't be completed until the last possible moment, so expect changes and more details to appear when we get to Barcelona in a little over a week. The wider tyres for 2017 make the car look more racey, and the lower rear wing is another obvious change, but actually you could have achieved much of the desired lap time gains for this year at a much smaller cost to the teams just by making the tyre change.
Will all the cars this year look like their predecessors? I hope not, because we all like variety, but it's likely they will have a striking resemblance to what we saw in 2016. If that is indeed the case then it suggests not enough thought was put into the writing of the new regulations before pencil was put to paper. That would be a shame because it will have cost every team a lot of money for no real gain. The key to maximising performance under the new regulations will be the underfloor area. How the teams go about making use of the extra grip of the wider Pirelli tyres that will make one car stand out from another. But we will have to wait until the track action gets going later this month to find out who has done the best job. With that in mind, let's have a look at the Williams-Mercedes FW40 in a little more detail. Front wing The angled front wing has more or less the same package of elements as before. It is just moved forward in the middle section to give better airflow to the leading edge of the underfloor. The main purpose of the external components remains to turn the airflow around the outside of the front tyre. As that is 25% wider this year, you have to work a little harder to do this.
The regulations demand that the front wing now sweeps rearward as it moves outwards towards the front tyres. This, in effect, moves the centre section forward and allows more space between it and the leading edge of the underfloor. Together with the FIA-defined central profile of the front wing, the objective of this is to improve the consistency of the downforce when following another car. Outboard of that centre section, the front wing is very similar to the 2016 version - almost certainly a 'launch-spec' for the purposes of producing the images Williams released on Friday - with its five-and-six element main downforce-producing devices and upper turning vanes helping to sweep the airflow around the front tyres. The front wing endplates again have turning vanes on the trailing edge to help reduce the blockage of the front tyre. You want to get as clean an airflow between the chassis and the inside of the front tyre as possible, and this is how you achieve it. Remember, everything you do with the airflow at the front of the car influences what happens behind it. Nose The regulations governing the nose height and the cross-section area have not changed from 2016, which is why there is no major difference to what we saw under the previous set of regulations. The centre section of the nose has to be further forward, and this is what dictates the length. I'm not a lover of the 'low' nose design and it's only a matter of time before we see one car go underneath the rear of another car - or another crash barrier, as Carlos Sainz Jr did at Sochi in 2015. Nose duct Just in front of the top wishbone's forward leg-mounting there is an exit duct. This is probably the outlet of what has been christened as an S-duct.
The inlet for this is on the underside of the nose, with the duct going through the nose and exiting on the top surface. This duct pulls airflow from under the nose, effectively improving the flow coming off the trailing edge of the centre section of the front wing. Therefore, it reduces the need for that airflow to find a way around the nose blockage. This airflow exits onto the top surface of the nose, which is an area that suffers from lift as the aiflow speeds up over its original surface. So by having the exit duct here, you will reduce that negative force. It's a win-win situation, reducing lift on top and better managing the airflow underneath. Bargeboards/aero around the cockpit The leading edge of the sidepods and the vertical turning vanes are there to control the wake coming off the trailing edge of the front tyre.
If this turbulent wake is not controlled, it will have a very detrimental effect on the downforce produced by the underfloor. The small vertical turning vanes on top of the sidepods reduce the amount of airflow that would normally spill into the cockpit opening. If you imagine that the cockpit opening is a big low-pressure hole, it tries to suck in as much air as possible. These vanes help to turn that airflow along and over the top of the sidepod's upper surface, improving the airflow to the rear of the car. Rear wing The lower and wider rear wing certainly looks a lot more racey, and closer to what F1 had before the 2009 aerodynamic regulation changes. But its fundamental function remains unchanged, including the presence of the questionable artificial overtaking device that is DRS. Floor/rear packaging I'd describe the rear of the car as 'blended' with all of the surfaces neatly converting together. This should maximise the performance of the cooling, the rear wing and the diffuser.
This is a key area for performance gains. In reality, the diffuser itself is the area of most change. From the images, it's difficult to see much detail but that is surely intentional as Williams will want to keep what it has done secret for as long as possible. The bodywork detail is very well 'blended', meaning that a lot of attention has been put into optimising the airflow to this area. The 'Coke bottle' area between the inner body surface and the inside of the rear tyre is now wider and this gives a larger floor area. Maximising the airflow in this area will help with the consistency of the diffuser. We will only see the detail when we get to the first test but downforce produced from the underfloor does not suffer from the same turbulence effects as downforce produced from wing surfaces so if Williams, or any other team, can get this area right the car could be a lot better in traffic.
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| By Gary Anderson | |
| Technical Consultant |
The Williams FW40 is the first of the 2017 Formula 1 designs to break cover, and after all the talk of new regulations and the dramatic new look of grand prix cars, the initial impression is to ask if it really is a new car? Of course it is, and Williams has put a huge amount of work into this design, but the regulations are written around the same basic concept as they were last year so inevitably it's recognisable as being from the same family of cars. To the casual viewer, the cars will not look so different to what we're familiar with from 2016. There's no surprise Williams has basically taken the concept of last year's FW38 and updated it to comply with the regulation changes. The DNA of the rules has not changed, so I didn't expect to see a lot of difference and have said as much in the past. However, don't forget these are early renderings of a car that won't be completed until the last possible moment, so expect changes and more details to appear when we get to Barcelona in a little over a week. The wider tyres for 2017 make the car look more racey, and the lower rear wing is another obvious change, but actually you could have achieved much of the desired lap time gains for this year at a much smaller cost to the teams just by making the tyre change.
Will all the cars this year look like their predecessors? I hope not, because we all like variety, but it's likely they will have a striking resemblance to what we saw in 2016. If that is indeed the case then it suggests not enough thought was put into the writing of the new regulations before pencil was put to paper. That would be a shame because it will have cost every team a lot of money for no real gain. The key to maximising performance under the new regulations will be the underfloor area. How the teams go about making use of the extra grip of the wider Pirelli tyres that will make one car stand out from another. But we will have to wait until the track action gets going later this month to find out who has done the best job. With that in mind, let's have a look at the Williams-Mercedes FW40 in a little more detail. Front wing The angled front wing has more or less the same package of elements as before. It is just moved forward in the middle section to give better airflow to the leading edge of the underfloor. The main purpose of the external components remains to turn the airflow around the outside of the front tyre. As that is 25% wider this year, you have to work a little harder to do this.
The regulations demand that the front wing now sweeps rearward as it moves outwards towards the front tyres. This, in effect, moves the centre section forward and allows more space between it and the leading edge of the underfloor. Together with the FIA-defined central profile of the front wing, the objective of this is to improve the consistency of the downforce when following another car. Outboard of that centre section, the front wing is very similar to the 2016 version - almost certainly a 'launch-spec' for the purposes of producing the images Williams released on Friday - with its five-and-six element main downforce-producing devices and upper turning vanes helping to sweep the airflow around the front tyres. The front wing endplates again have turning vanes on the trailing edge to help reduce the blockage of the front tyre. You want to get as clean an airflow between the chassis and the inside of the front tyre as possible, and this is how you achieve it. Remember, everything you do with the airflow at the front of the car influences what happens behind it. Nose The regulations governing the nose height and the cross-section area have not changed from 2016, which is why there is no major difference to what we saw under the previous set of regulations. The centre section of the nose has to be further forward, and this is what dictates the length. I'm not a lover of the 'low' nose design and it's only a matter of time before we see one car go underneath the rear of another car - or another crash barrier, as Carlos Sainz Jr did at Sochi in 2015. Nose duct Just in front of the top wishbone's forward leg-mounting there is an exit duct. This is probably the outlet of what has been christened as an S-duct.
The inlet for this is on the underside of the nose, with the duct going through the nose and exiting on the top surface. This duct pulls airflow from under the nose, effectively improving the flow coming off the trailing edge of the centre section of the front wing. Therefore, it reduces the need for that airflow to find a way around the nose blockage. This airflow exits onto the top surface of the nose, which is an area that suffers from lift as the aiflow speeds up over its original surface. So by having the exit duct here, you will reduce that negative force. It's a win-win situation, reducing lift on top and better managing the airflow underneath. Bargeboards/aero around the cockpit The leading edge of the sidepods and the vertical turning vanes are there to control the wake coming off the trailing edge of the front tyre.
If this turbulent wake is not controlled, it will have a very detrimental effect on the downforce produced by the underfloor. The small vertical turning vanes on top of the sidepods reduce the amount of airflow that would normally spill into the cockpit opening. If you imagine that the cockpit opening is a big low-pressure hole, it tries to suck in as much air as possible. These vanes help to turn that airflow along and over the top of the sidepod's upper surface, improving the airflow to the rear of the car. Rear wing The lower and wider rear wing certainly looks a lot more racey, and closer to what F1 had before the 2009 aerodynamic regulation changes. But its fundamental function remains unchanged, including the presence of the questionable artificial overtaking device that is DRS. Floor/rear packaging I'd describe the rear of the car as 'blended' with all of the surfaces neatly converting together. This should maximise the performance of the cooling, the rear wing and the diffuser.
This is a key area for performance gains. In reality, the diffuser itself is the area of most change. From the images, it's difficult to see much detail but that is surely intentional as Williams will want to keep what it has done secret for as long as possible. The bodywork detail is very well 'blended', meaning that a lot of attention has been put into optimising the airflow to this area. The 'Coke bottle' area between the inner body surface and the inside of the rear tyre is now wider and this gives a larger floor area. Maximising the airflow in this area will help with the consistency of the diffuser. We will only see the detail when we get to the first test but downforce produced from the underfloor does not suffer from the same turbulence effects as downforce produced from wing surfaces so if Williams, or any other team, can get this area right the car could be a lot better in traffic.
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