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.
I saw this picture and near the driver is that a vortex generator?? Do other teams use this device near the cockpit?
Simon: Nils? You can close in now. Nils?
John McClane: [on the guard's phone] Attention! Attention! Nils is dead! I repeat, Nils is dead, ----head. So's his pal, and those four guys from the East German All-Stars, your boys at the bank? They're gonna be a little late.
Simon: [on the phone] John... in the back of the truck you're driving, there's $13 billon dollars worth in gold bullion. I wonder would a deal be out of the question?
John McClane: [on the phone] Yeah, I got a deal for you. Come out from that rock you're hiding under, and I'll drive this truck up your ass.
In fact, the FIA impose regulations concerning the height of the "cockpit shoulders". Obviously, a high shoulder would hinder airflow, and therefore somewhat oblige to the rule with that thin element.
At Red Bull, the shoulder is as high as imposed but a similar element is put at the trailing end of the shoulder as the measurement by the FIA is obviously not the place where the RB2's shoulders are at their highest.
I thought they were talking about the triangular shaped aero piece. The thing like a shark fin a few centimeter on top of the J.Trulli inscription with the little italian flag.
But I think that's what Tomba described as a device used to meet rules concerning cockpit shoulder's height, so they're talking about the same thing, I guess...
The little fin on the side of the cockpit padding\opening is indeed to meet the letter of the regulations concerning the height of the padding.
The FIA template ("drawign2" on the FIA technical regulations relating to rules 13.1.1 & 15.3), which dimensions the padding in side elevation, the last 75mm of the template is flat to match the headrest padding, most teams are already sloping the padding downwards at this stage to make the cockpit more streamlined.
Every team runs one to some extent or another. As with anything that might be aerodynamically beneficial teams have tweaked this little piece of bodywork, McLaren used to have two offset fins, they appeared as one in side view but obviously provided Mac with some advantage over a single large fin.
