A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
yellow is pressure recovery around the gearbox case
Speaking of gearbox, there's an article about it (and rear suspension) and an illustration from Piola. Disclaimer - Not sure if he has a photo and did his usual detailed overlay or if this is an illustration based on other SF24 photos and SF23 gearbox.
It appears, to me, that the outer three routes of underfloor are relatively crude in just getting as much volume out the side of chassis to remove from flow underneath into venturi, consequently they're maybe less sensitive to shape, form etc.
The first "strake" next to the monocoque "hull" front end, would appear to hold much more intricacies in its overall effect, it's relative balanced volume against rear diffuser performance, also the parity of flow distribution to each side when presented to yaw approaches, then to differential negative pressure from one side in contrast to the other.
There's quite a bit of thinking and shift in these two strake noted above from each of the teams, clear importance of performance and understanding seems fundamental to overall effect, more so than some of the other elements.
I think that the most successful floors are using the outer strake to manage tyre wake (and keep it out of the underfloor); the outer pair of underfloor channels to create a longitudinal Venturi throat (thereby promoting a forward biased CoP at lower speeds - before the rear suspension has dropped under load). This allows for a rearward biased ‘main’ Venturi throat into the diffuser which moves the CoP rearwards as speed increases.
The front floor edge is being turned into a wing profile. The inside strake can be trimmed to suit the required aero map on a track specific basis.
Perspective - Understanding that sometimes the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.
I guess it has been mentioned before, but Ferrari has the tightest centerline of all of them (I believe). They first tried this back in 2019, but I guess they keep seeing gains in having wider sidepods as a compromise for the thinner airbox. Which coincidentally works out nicely for this regulation set since the "wide & downwashing" is kind of the way to go when it comes to sidepods.
It seems to be the "logical" way to go. But then you got RedBull using the centerline for Newey knows reasons. And it's not like they thinned the sidepods either. Compared to the previous iteration of cars, where tight bodywork was usually the way to go and it was seen as a measure of competitiveness, this is now no longer the case and the surface aero gains from bulky bodies outweigh the compromises.
But I guess Ferrari already proved this in 2022 with the bathtub sidepods.
I guess it has been mentioned before, but Ferrari has the tightest centerline of all of them (I believe). They first tried this back in 2019, but I guess they keep seeing gains in having wider sidepods as a compromise for the thinner airbox. Which coincidentally works out nicely for this regulation set since the "wide & downwashing" is kind of the way to go when it comes to sidepods.
It seems to be the "logical" way to go. But then you got RedBull using the centerline for Newey knows reasons. And it's not like they thinned the sidepods either. Compared to the previous iteration of cars, where tight bodywork was usually the way to go and it was seen as a measure of competitiveness, this is now no longer the case and the surface aero gains from bulky bodies outweigh the compromises.
But I guess Ferrari already proved this in 2022 with the bathtub sidepods.
Until this floor venturi regulations arrived, keeping away front wheel wake could be relegated to bargeboards, and shrink wrapping the body gave frontal area benefits (the reason I attribute to 2020 cars being the fastest ones over the past decade). Not the case anymore.