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Williams took the FW34 to Jerez whilst the team continued to refine their 2013 design, they did however chose to run a vanity panel on the FW34 whilst putting the 2013 Pirelli’s through their paces.
The first thing that becomes apparent to me is the similarity of the nose and pylon ethos that Williams have adopted, although they have fallen short of adding the juts at the tops of the pylons. The nose itself resembles the horseshoe shape that Red Bull have been using for some time now with a more bulbous frontal area accompanied by two longitudinal strakes along the side of the nosecone making the nose a singular section. The team are utilising a vanity panel in order to keep the height their arrangement requires for airflow under the nose.
The Front Wing is new for 2013 with this being an area the team paid particular attention to throughout 2012. Having run around 8-9 different variants in 2013 you’ll understand if I’m skeptical this one will make it to Melbourne, however we can see it is a change in philosophy with the outer curvatures used on the mainplane to generate elongated vortices reduced to 1. The trend of separating the top flap at the inner section has been baulked by Williams in favour of splitting the lower flap, the idea behind this is vortex generation and so Williams are obviously looking to do this at a lower point. They continue using multi tiered cascades for higher efficiency with a smaller cascade on the inner side.
The Pylons are lengthy items that stretch back toward the L Shaped Turning Vanes, these turning vanes are set at an acute angle splaying outwards as they stretch back under the car.
Front suspension is taken care of by push rods whilst the team move away from scoopless front brake ducts and step into another controversial arena. The team are using the air captured by the brake ducts and letting it escape at the outer face of the axle, Red Bull were doing something similar last season but were told to remove it. This will have an effect on the wake produced by the front wheels but must be carefully managed as otherwise it’s effect could be detrimental further downstream.
The Sidepod design and Inlets remain laregly unchanged from the FW34 whilst the team launched the car with a Semi-Coanda style exhaust and just like Mercedes have utilised the space between the channel and engine cover to place Shark Gills. These Shark Gills not only dispense airflow from the radiator but will also like the exhaust alongside it help with attaching the downwash. Their exhaust was to stir controversy straight away as the team, like Caterham have placed a blade at the tail end of the exhaust channel. The Williams Blade sits right on the top edge of the channel and is split into 2 unlike Caterham’s that was inset into the channel. This has led to Charlie Whiting speaking out on the subject deeming such aerodynamic appendages illegal. I’m quite sure Williams and Caterham alike will be asking for clarification on the subject as, as I’ve already alluded to in the Caterham CT-03 analysis the Blade is within the rules as they are written in 5.8.4
At the rear of the car the team continue to use their miniscule gearbox, whilst the team haven’t enclosed their halfshafts inside the lower wishbone they have placed the lower wisbone directly in front of the halfshaft. Williams utilised a swan neck mounting from the top of the gearbox to their Monkey Seat for 2012 but during the first day at Barcelona today we can see they have reverted to a more conventional design mounted to the Beam Wing. The seat did feature a perforation making for a more efficient wing, whilst also making cutouts to it’s endplates to reduce it’s drag like we have seen teams do for years with endplate louvres.
The team didn’t present their car with these but during the test in Barcelona today they placed Leading Edge Slats above the Sidepod Inlet, these little appendages have adorned both Sauber and McLaren cars in the past and help to further enhance the downwash over the Sidepod toward the Exhaust.
So the use they are made of brake ducts is to be deemed illegal?
2013 tech regs and those before them say:
3.15 Aerodynamic influence :
With the exception of the driver adjustable bodywork described in Article 3.18 (in addition to minimal parts solely associated with its actuation) and the ducts described in Article 11.4, any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance :
– Must comply with the rules relating to bodywork.
– Must be rigidly secured to the entirely sprung part of the car (rigidly secured means not having any degree of freedom).
– Must remain immobile in relation to the sprung part of the car.
Now 11.4 deals with brake ducts which by 3.18 above are exempted, however the section goes on to include the paragraph:
– The ducts may not rotate with the wheels nor may they, or any of their mountings, protrude axially beyond the outer face of the wheel fastener.
So any system which includes the air exiting through a rotating wheel must be banned since the wheel itself would then form part of the duct.
Though of course McL did have drilled nuts on the front which were of course fixed to the stub axle so not moving and thus technically ok. Unless the axle was live)
“So any system which includes the air exiting through a rotating wheel must be banned …….” ?????
Oh come on. Are you saying hot air from the brakes can’t exit through the wheel? That’s been going on for forever. I guess all the cars should have solid wheels then, otherwise some air is going to go through them.
Ahhh, this is where Williams have been clever as the air isn’t exiting through the wheel but the axle itself
Once again the exhaust has been challenged, this time by Charlie in respect of both Caterham and Williams. However the reason he has given is not in the tech regs, but apparently in “clarification sheets given to the teams”
It seem quite clear to me that it is possible to comply with the exhaust exit regs if one starts with a wide and deep enough trough. Again as I mentioned the other day a simple template would enable an easy test, frankly I am amazed that Charlie does not have one strapped to his leg. However of course the regs do not yet apply so we have to wait and see.
One has to compare the width of Williams slot in the exhaust to that of Red Bull floor last year. (However it is not necessary to have the slot in the exhaust, as there is no definition of the trough, only of the cone of clearance emanating from the rear face of the exhaust pipe)
So yr Honour, any chance of getting hold of these advisory sheets that supplement (make a mockery of) the regs?
Technical Directives aren’t available in an open forum unfortunately and are simply given to the teams. I’m trying to track a copy down though 😉
Hi Matt
It is my contention that there is a deliberate mistake in the exhaust regs as written, the last para of 5.8.4 says:
Furthermore, there must be a view from above, the side, or any intermediate angle perpendicular to the car centre line, from which the truncated cone is not obscured by any bodywork lying more than 50mm forward of the rear wheel centre line.
I maintain the “or” should in fact read “and” , thus a continuous view from the whole top quadrant down to a plane parallel with the ref plane level with the centre of the final pipe opening.
At some time in the future, in order make it yet more difficult to use coander the final 100mm might, in addition, be required to show a protrusion of 100mm above/external to the bodywork. This can be measured in the same way as is used by the DOT to determine external protrusion on road cars, eg for antenna bases, repeater lights etc (something I spent some time on in my former job)
(You roll a 100mm dia ball up to contact the protrusion and note the ball centre at the point of first contact, then the ball is rolled over the object until the point of last contact, the centres are then joined and the ball again traversed until the point of greatest deviation at right angles to the line constructed. It means the surface of the body or roof can be any shape, but the protrusion is always defined in a proper manner.