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.
ClassicLivery wrote:Looking at the first picture @Badger posted it looks like the side of the diffuser is completely open? And they’re using the brakeduct (with extension) to create a barrier. Maybe a loophole to create a larger diffuser
The brake duct area in the back is rule mandated afaik. All cars will have that rear brake duct configuration.
My impression is that there is less outwash than before although still photos won't show the time resolved spray patterns, so it might be too early to conclude this.
Wow we've really gone back to square one with these cars designs (and im loving it).
The lack of wing(lets) and extra body work (i.e shoulders/waterslides/huge floor geometry/etc) is going to make these cars crazy on the straights along with the first time ever active aero on the front wing which has the ability to not only make the rest of the car's aero work in corners, but also stall it out on straights.
Are the Red Bulls sidepods looking to make the car as dragless as possible?
Funny enough I just mentioned a couple posts before that it'll be interesting to see what the front wing does to downstream aero and we get a perfect example there!
Thanks to the spray, I think what this shows is that:
- with the front wing elements up, the front of the floor is working directly with the low pressure behind the front wing and digging under the air being sucked up from the ground behind the wing, hence the spray from the barge boards as water from the ground is sucked up and interacting with the bodywork.
- with the front wing elements down, the floor is taking clean air from the front of the car in a more linear fashion with the low pressure area in front of it removed. Hence the spray lessening on the barge boards. Technically the floor splitter after the T tray is now where the high pressure area if and if the bodywork permits, the air around it would be streamlined into the diffuser hole where the next area of low pressure/resistance is.
Edit: Maybe the diffuser hole would actually stop working as the low pressure on the underside of the car would lessen, which is why the spray seems to spread outward more as someone else said
Last edited by GrizzleBoy on 28 Jan 2026, 00:38, edited 1 time in total.
