Renault R31

[Blackout]

Are these FW flexing ?

http://i79.servimg.com/u/f79/14/79/55/26/038wri10.jpg

the new FW taht appeared in Barcelona is similar to the second FW: its two upper wings are separated in their inner extremities:

http://i79.servimg.com/u/f79/14/79/55/26/038wri11.jpg

And this is its endplate: (the upper version)

http://i79.servimg.com/u/f79/14/79/55/26/dfw10.jpg

[mith]

I'd say, new wing regarding middle and upper flaps is something between those two from R30.

[Blackout]

Exactly. Unfortunately, photos of that new FW are rare.

[Onch]

I take it the 'real' new FW will appear at the last test or first race though?
Given the importance of this the teams have certainly invested a vast amount of time in developing it?

And if Team Lotus have managed it I do not see why other better funded teams could not do it.

[tjaeger]

I wonder if the exhaust feature is really going to be 'THE' feature that will make the race this year. Are they not loosing too much focus and other optimization and putting all their money to make the car work around that feature.
How much time per lap can this feature bring with it?

[shelly]

Just blindly guessing, but if it works (with a big if) in my opinion it could be worth more than 10 points of downforce.

[raymondu999]

Well the exhaust thing by definition doesn't provide constant downforce. It wouldn't be a constant laptime benefit (not even making cars faster by x percent) at each track. And btw, points of downforce (as has been discussed previously at these forums) are arbitrary units.

[shelly]

Points of downforce are much less arbitrary than you think

[raymondu999]

I know, but it's arbitrary to each team. There is no universal "point" of downforce. It's just a team-decided unit so that they have a good, arbitrary unit to measure their downforce.

[shelly]

I think most teams follow the same convention, in which 1 point is one hundredth of Scx

[PNSD]

So, its similar to the drag point convention used for wind tunnel experimentation?

Where 1 drag count = 0.0001 Cd.

[tjaeger]

Sounds like a whole lot of design trouble, reliability, heat shields, still unknown results (maybe in theory), but practicable?
This should make jump through quite some worries and design all around it, that could have been used to fine tune, tire wear, degradation, suspension geometry..?
If they make the jump to the top I guess it was worth it, if not I wonder if the more conservative approach taken by Ferrari and RB, optimizing the rest of the car pays of more.

Guess we are due to find out after 2nd or 3rd race...

[raymondu999]

I think most teams follow the same convention, in which 1 point is one hundredth of Scx

Let's take this discussion to the other thread here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8250&start=0

That way we can keep this R31 thread sanitary of off-topic discussion

[tjaeger]

Is the R31 exhaust actually blowing under the floor or rather along the side. Looking at some of the pics I wonder how much of it indeed would get 'sucked' under, rather than being accelerated around the side?

[volarchico]

Is the R31 exhaust actually blowing under the floor or rather along the side. Looking at some of the pics I wonder how much of it indeed would get 'sucked' under, rather than being accelerated around the side?

Lot's of discussion, etc here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9450