Low downforce tracks and 2014

[raymondu999]

So in the past tracks like Canada, Spa, Monza have been "skinny wing" tracks. But is there really any point to doing that this year? With the downforce already reduced anyways, and with the cars so strong in straight lines anyway - would there be a point to reducing the wings further? Not much point to having little drag when you don't have the traction to give you a kick out of corners.

[Pierce89]

So in the past tracks like Canada, Spa, Monza have been "skinny wing" tracks. But is there really any point to doing that this year? With the downforce already reduced anyways, and with the cars so strong in straight lines anyway - would there be a point to reducing the wings further? Not much point to having little drag when you don't have the traction to give you a kick out of corners.

From what I've read and seen they've been running close to max df at every track simply because they have much less df to deploy in the first place. I think Canada had wings roughly similar to the ones before. Maybe,Canada had skinnier wings but not in the way we were used to seeing at Canada(previously teams would bring much skinnier wings to Canada).

[PlatinumZealot]

The down-force level depends on the corner speeds over the lap and how they influence the lap time.

[raymondu999]

The down-force level depends on the corner speeds over the lap and how they influence the lap time.

Goes without saying

[SiLo]

Pretty sure they will run skinny wings at Monza. I just wish there were more tracks like that.

The Austrian Grand Prix would be good for it, but it just needs to be about another 2 miles longer (making the track larger).

[JimClarkFan]

As with most thing it depends.

Depends on gearing, depends on whether or not you are lucky enough to have a Merc engine, and it depends on the max downforce of the car.

My bet is, that it will be business as normal. Skinny wings for most cars at low downforce tracks, especially for the Renault guys, but more wing generated downforce on the cars with higher powered engines simply because they can get away with more.

[kooleracer]

So in the past tracks like Canada, Spa, Monza have been "skinny wing" tracks. But is there really any point to doing that this year? With the downforce already reduced anyways, and with the cars so strong in straight lines anyway - would there be a point to reducing the wings further? Not much point to having little drag when you don't have the traction to give you a kick out of corners.

I think its car/powerunit dependent. The Mercedes W05 for example doesn't need a special low-downforce package it think. Because of the v-max advantage they already have, with the extra downforce the will on have a bigger advantage in the braking zones and higher corner speeds. We have seen Red Bull already move to a lower drag version of their FW during on the first few races to gain v-max. We have seen McLaren remove 1 of their butterfly suspension to increase v-max in Canada. The new generation cars are in their infancy, so every point of downforce will usually be put on the car. But I won't be surprised if we see Red Bull with and extra low downforce package in Monza to combat their v-max disadvantage, same for Ferrari. Mercedes run their Monaco spec monkey seat also in Canada, so you can be sure that they will also run it in Monza.