Williams FW31

[Michiba]

Suzuka - new brake duct with winglet

It is not just for brakes cooling, it serves as an aero-device now too. This wing with two vertical endplates increases downforce at front.



More info: http://www.f1news.cz/technika/33338-zme ... -zbrojeni/
More technical articles: http://www.f1news.cz/technika/

This might be a stupid question, but how does adding downforce on unsprung mass help the performance?

[ISLAMATRON]

Rear wings used to be mounted to the uprights, it actually works the same or better, that way the 3rd(heave) spring is not really necessary.

[mx_tifoso]

Didn't it flex with the vertical independent wheel travel? Or were the connections designed to allow that?

[timbo]

Didn't it flex with the vertical independent wheel travel? Or were the connections designed to allow that?

It did flexed and it crashed often. That's why it was banned.

[ESPImperium]

What could be the reason(s) for not introducing enough significant upgrades? Financial ? Or just lack of will power/proactivenes?

It wasnt finance, Patrick head said so many times this season. Resources, and brain power maybes about a 50/50 split either way, Eddie Jordan said at Abu that he feels that the Williams has one of the "poorer" resource bases in F1, basically meaning they dont have the computer power they would otherwise like to have. As for brainpower, i think that Williams need a stronger design team, and with the pull out of BMW and Toyota from the sport there is a few strong engineers and designers going arround now so this could solve their problem.

I feel that if they got a strong head designer and a stronger design team arround him with slightly better computing power, all whitch would require some serious or good/wise investment, i think that with their heritage and knowlege base they can become a race winning team again.

Also, they have the drivers that can win a race or two, Rubens is a proven winner and Hulkenberg is a future WDC.

[i70q7m7ghw]

Also, they have the drivers that can win a race or two, Rubens is a proven winner and Hulkenberg is a future WDC.

Agreed about Rubens. Complete trash about Hulkenberg, we won't know until he races. Nelson Piquet Jr. was also tipped as a future WDC, we all know how that ended up.

[Giblet]

Williams should join folding@home or something similar and get their supercomputer for free. Is that not feasible?

There is a lot of CPU power there, and I would gladly dedicate my 15ghz worth of cores idle time to any F1 team that wanted it. While I am at work they already are thinking about cancer, seti, and genetics.

Snow Leopard has open_cl, which with code that supports it allows your GPU and CPU to work together on the math, and mac people are nerdy about their folding.

[axle]

Also, they have the drivers that can win a race or two, Rubens is a proven winner and Hulkenberg is a future WDC.

Agreed about Rubens. Complete trash about Hulkenberg, we won't know until he races. Nelson Piquet Jr. was also tipped as a future WDC, we all know how that ended up.

Hulkenberg has at least done as well as Lewis leading upto now

[Giblet]

Cripes the guy is building his own car

How are you feeling about your new appointment?

I’m pretty excited to be racing for Williams. They’re real racers. I’ve been with the team as a test driver for two years now so I know everyone well. I’ve also been working in the factory itself this year with stints in composites, the wind tunnel and sub-assembly. I like the people and the atmosphere within the factory is really good. I’m now in a race seat and I’m really looking forward to next year.

[axle]

Cripes the guy is building his own car

How are you feeling about your new appointment?

I’m pretty excited to be racing for Williams. They’re real racers. I’ve been with the team as a test driver for two years now so I know everyone well. I’ve also been working in the factory itself this year with stints in composites, the wind tunnel and sub-assembly. I like the people and the atmosphere within the factory is really good. I’m now in a race seat and I’m really looking forward to next year.

maybe he's hedging his bets on which career path to go down!

[bazanaius]

This is seriously useful - a driver who actually knows how the car works must be really useful. There are a few promising drivers around who have technical backgrounds - Oliver Turvey comes to mind, who completed his bachelors in Engineering at Cambridge.

[ESPImperium]

Nico Rosberg has a engineering qualification or something as well. He has said it helps him more able to set the car up a little quicker than the norm, and able to comunicate with the engineers better as he talks in their language.

That with the master of setting up a car, Rubens, i think that the FW32 can potentially be a quick car, but only if the design team and resources are up to scratch, compaired to the rest of the teams.

Altho, Williams seem to have a better CFD platform than BMW Sauber and Renault (who arguably have the 2 best supercomputers in F1) going on the 2009 car and points. Altho that could have been better if they had Kimui and not Kazuki.

[kilcoo316]

This might be a stupid question, but how does adding downforce on unsprung mass help the performance?

That is the best place to add it!


Then you are pushing the wheels directly into the ground, and you do not have to worry about bottoming out the car.

Back in the day teams had two entire "chassis" - an unsprung one generating downforce, and a sprung one containing the car mechanicals... meant they could run loads of downforce on a lovely soft suspension for mechanical grip.

[kilcoo316]

Williams should join folding@home or something similar and get their supercomputer for free. Is that not feasible?

Nah.

CFD needs very fast and very frequent access to a large dataset.


Folding proteins can be done independently.


It fundamentally just wouldn't work.

[roost89]

For all those that have asked in the past:

Courtesy of Rubens on Twitter