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2 May 2012

Yesterday marked the return of in season testing, unfortunately running was limited in the afternoon due to Mugello receiving extended rainfall.  It still gave us chance to see some of the updates the teams are working on.  The teams go out with a baseline spec car initially in order to get data to correlate the results with the new parts.

Ferrari

Ferrari are the team that most people have eyes on in Mugello, with them bringing parts to assess the faults of the F2012 and with an eye on a potential F2012B being used in Barcelona.  Ferrari decided to do all of it's morning running on a baseline setup and so when the rain came it stunted the chances of us seeing a big overhaul of upgrades.   You will note however they are using a piece of bodywork below the exhaust that now droops away encouraging the flow to move downward quicker (Mugello top, Bahrain Below)



McLaren

McLaren are another team that have concentrated yesterdays test time on a baseline setup, you can see from the amount of sensors on the nosecone in the picture below though they are interested in what's happening in and around the centre of the wing and the wing pylons.


Red Bull

Mark Webber hailed this test as a pivotal moment for RBR as it could help to decide the course of the championship moving into the European section of the season.  Again they were using the Sauber-esque ramp exhaust system for testing they used in Bahrain and seem to be concentrating their efforts on getting data from this area (as seen in the picture below)



Sauber

Revised Sauber Front Wing (Bahrain Spec Below) 


Sauber's exhaust solution has been hailed as one of the field leaders but that hasn't stopped them looking at the McLaren style exhaust which works better at encouraging flow from the downwash and from around the sidepod into the diffuser area via the Coanda effect.

Sauber Exhaust (Mugello Top, Bahrain Below)


Sidepod Top Flow Conditioners

Since the start of the season the C31 has been sporting some flow conditioners above the Sidepod entry's in order to help with the downwash effect.  They have brought a new variant to Mugello to test, in the top picture you can see the new style which bends down over the side of the sidepod where in the bottom picture the original conditioner extends all the way over to the outbound vertical flow conditioner


Williams

The Williams exhaust interpretation has evolved from the first races into an version that has an abruptly ending sidepod. In Mugello the team has reverted to testing a McLaren style outlet to encourage flow from above and the side

Williams FW34 Exhaust (Mugello Top, Bahrain Middle, Melboure bottom)

I love the picture above as it shows how the teams have to twist their exhausts forward before exiting rearward for these sidepod solutions.

Force India

Force India have been playing around with different front wings over the last few races having a few designs. One design has their cameras mounted on the very tip of the nose the other has them placed at the rear end of the nosecone in the suspension airflow area.  They were testing with the latter yesterday (top) although in Bahrain they were using the the other design (bottom)


Mercedes

A new variant of the front wing was tested (very minor alterations to the original) However notice on the trailing edge of the rear wing flaps they are using gurneys to load the top edges of the wing (Blue Rings) the additional section has been highlighted with a red ring.  (Mugello top, Bahrain below)


Lotus E20

I'm not even going to look into which version of Front Wing Lotus are using at Mugello as it seems they already had a never ending stream of them available.  They have however been looking into a more refined version of the exhaust position / enclosure (Mugello top, Bahrain below)


All pictures are copyright F1zoom.co.cc / Sutton Images
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