F1 News
Ferrari give insight on wing situation: Here is why it makes a difference
While there has been much talk about flexi-wings in the world of F1, Ferrari have brought a front wing change themselves to the Singapore Grand Prix. The team's senior performance engineer, Jock Clear talked about the what makes this body part especially important in the current set of regulations in the Asian country.
"It's not an upgrade and it's not specific for this circuit, to a certain extent it is, but basically it's just moving the energy a little bit inboard. So if you look at it closely you'll see that the inboard is a bit more aggressive and the outboard is a bit less aggressive, so you've moved that dynamic a bit. It allows us to actually crank on a bit more," Clear began to explain what changed on Ferrari's front wing leading up to last weekend.
"We're running at a front power basically [in Singapore], so it's just a little bit more powerful at the top end. Slightly more efficient, marginally, it's the fact that it's a little bit more powerful at the top end that gives us a bit more scope," he added.
The importance of the front wing
There has been much talk about flexi-wings in the world of Formula One recently. While McLaren have been told to make changes to their rear wing after the Azerbaijan GP to remove what the media referred to as a 'mini DRS', after some investigation the British team and Mercedes could keep their updates to their front wings.
"I think the front wing will always be very powerful, because it's the leading edge of the car. There's a segment on the TV, one version of this, that unfortunately you hear drivers complaining all the time about having to follow in the wake of cars because it really affects their downforce. Well the rear wing spends its whole life following the front wing and it's always complaining about the fact that it's in the wake of the front wing and it's really messing up its downforce. So the rear wing has a difficult life," Clear added.
"And of course, the rear wing and the floor produce most of your downforce and they are in the wake of the front wing every lap of the race. Or you hope. There are occasions when it swaps around, but that's not my fault," the Briton laughed.
"The front wing is always going to be powerful in that it sets the regime for the wind going backwards. And that's, again, part of what you see with this front wing today [in Singapore] is, it's just a little bit of an upgrade because it's cleaning things up, it's moving some air around. And we see that as a benefit also downstream in for the rear wing," he concluded about the matter.
However, the performance engineer remained rather silent about McLaren's changes to their rear wing. "Honestly, I haven't looked at it closely. I'm not an aerodynamicist. I looked at the things on Twitter. And everybody at the factory is looking at it. Everybody has obviously got some thoughts on it. I don’t have a strong opinion on it," the Ferrari member concluded.
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