Tech
F1 Tech | Inside the changes of Red Bull's new front wing
After presenting a car that looked very similar to the RB20, the Milton Keynes-based team introduced the first upgrades on the car during the third and last day of testing, with a new front wing. Technical director Pierre Wachè announced a day before to expect small changes on the Friday, but the new front wing seems more than slight one. Let’s try to have a look at it.
Despite the fact that new RB21 looked very well balanced during the first two days of testing, the Austrian team introduced a new front wing today, mainly to solve Verstappen’s issues with understeer, that was already seen during the second half of last season.
The new wing is characterised by a completely new nose: having the look at the image below, the old front wing had the nose connected directly to the main plane, to guarantee a firmer support to the wing structure itself (green arrow). Moreover, this design is aimed at channeling all the airflow underneath the wing and towards the Venturi channels behind. The new design, instead, is characterised by a nose connected to the second element and with a much rounder and less "pointed" shape, which characterised the previous version. This shape allows air to flow through the slot between the mainplane and the second element, improving the local downforce generated by the front wing in this area.
For what concerns the shape of the nose structure, it also changed: as highlighted by the pink arrow and line, the new version is way larger in its terminal portion as it gets closer to the second element. This shape inevitably affects the way air is pushed laterally to the suspension brackets.
Last but not least, also the mainplane has a new shape: while in the previous version was a little rounder, on the new version, it has a fairly linear and flat trend in the central portion, with a smaller connection angle towards the lateral portions (arrow and blue line). The wing profile also has a longer chord, meaning that the downforce generated in this portion is higher in the new version.
This “little” change on the front of the RB21 may solve Verstappen’s problems with front grip, even though the defending worl champion didn’t seem particularly comfortable in the car this morning, having some excursions mainly caused by understeering problems in high speed corners.
Want more Formula 1? Then follow GPblog on our various social media channels!