Mercedes' DRS F-Duct System

So all the buzz around the paddock over the last couple of weeks has mainly centered around one thing, Mercedes GP's DRS System. Lotus f1 and Red Bull Racing decided that there were some illegalities surrounding the system and I shall explain why they would think that.

What it does.


The concept behind it is very simple and an extension to a system which the team has run in previous seasons. The whole idea is based around stalling the front wing in order to reduce drag and gain greater straight line speed. This is similar to the F-duct principle pioneered by Mclaren in the 2010-2011 season which used a duct on the nose of the car to channel air to slots that blew the air on to the rear wing when a hole was covered by the driver's knee.

The f-duct on the MP4-25

This was beneficial due to it creating less drag on the wing and thus increasing straight line speed. This was made illegal for the 2011-2012 season onwards and was deemed a driver controlled aerodynamic device. 

The Mercedes system is similar in principle but aims to stall the front wing rather than the rear wing as the old F-duct systems did. It is designed around the DRS (Drag Reduction System) rear wing. The DRS is what the FIA brought in to replace the F-duct system and aid overtaking for the 2011-2012 season. It effectively lifts up the top element of the car's rear wing in order to minimise the main drag creating component and increase straight line speed. The Mercedes car uses the DRS system to expose holes in the rear wing end fences that feed ducting inside the end fence and rear beam wing that channels air through the body work and to slots in the front wing which stalls it for a speed boost of roughly 4-5 km/h.

How it Does it

The DRS System normally uses a pod mounted on the central section of the rear wing's upper element that encases a hinge mechanism and the hydraulic actuators to flip the wing up and open the slot gap as shown below on the mp4-27's wing.

The central 'pod' houses the DRS mechanism

The Mercedes wing however, houses the DRS mechanism in the end fence of the wing making it one complete span left to right. 

The Mercedes rear wing

The crucial part is in the end fences however and is pretty hard to spot so I have taken a photo from here and photo-shopped it so that you can see the crucial detail.

As you can see, once the flap is opened a hole in the end fence is revealed that allows air to enter the end fence itself. This is the first clue as to how the system works and what it does. There have been theories that the slot is to stall the rear wing, but with the DRS system already active when the hole is exposed, a lot of the drag has been lost from the wing already.

A further piece of detail comes from another rear end shot from a different angle.

In the area where I have brightened the picture you can clearly see two tubes leading out from where the beam wing joins the rear crash structure that houses the rain light. This is evidence of ducting leading to or from the rear end of the car and through the main body work. As I believe this ducting is for the stalling of the front wing rather than the rear, I believe that the picture below is the correct airflow of the system at the rear. 

Why do it?

There are 2 main benefits to this system. The first and obvious benefit is that it gains them straight line speed whilst the DRS is active. This increases qualifying performance and also aids in overtaking manoeuvres during the race.

The second benefit is, I believe, more tangible for the drivers. When the DRS is active, the rear wing not only loses drag but also reduces its downforce creation ability. This then presents a slight setup issue as the centre of downforce shifts forward and the car becomes, in a sense, nose heavy. This upsets the balance of the car as the teams will set up the car for optimal performance with the DRS closed as thats how it will work for the majority of the race. Stalling the front wing in tandem with the DRS at the rear helps to reclaim the balance by reducing the front downforce and moving the centre of downforce back towards the rear of the car. This makes the car less 'nervous' and 'twitchy' whilst the DRS is active and inspires greater driver confidence allowing a much greater showing when putting in a flying lap in qualifying where DRS is available whenever the driver chooses to use it.

Why the big fuss?

All the fuss is mainly because only 1 team has found the loophole surrounding the DRS and exploited it. All teams want to be at the front of the pack and if a team who was behind you last year has a system on their car which gives them an advantage you dont have, you have one of 3 options. Option 1, complain and try and get it banned. Option 2, copy it as best you can and just get on with it. Or option 3, a mixture of both to cover your bases.

This is a very simplistic view of it, but its what it boils down to!

The teams trying to get the system banned are citing the same rule that got F-ducts banned in the first place, that its a driver influenced aerodynamic device. However, if this rule was to be taken by the letter then the DRS system itself would be banned!

The clever interpretation on Mercedes' behalf comes from the use of primary and secondary purposes of the system and that the hole in the end fence is always partially open even with the DRS shut. Mercedes' argument is that it constitutes part of the DRS system as it is only a secondary function of the DRS system rather than a system in its own right. Charlie Whiting agrees and so the system is declared legal.

Day 3 of F1 Testing

Well the third day didn't start well for Force India. Their newly promoted test driver Jules Bianchi wrecked their only VJM05 on an installation lap and to rebuild the damage they had to have a part shipped from Silverstone. Nico Hulkenburg was not impressed as they missed an entire day's worth of running.

Anyway, for the cars that did run it was pretty much a follow on from yesterday, nothing really dramatic or exciting happened really. Fernando Alonso lost out on a few hours running with a hydraulic problem on the new Ferrari but did manage to turn in some long runs in the afternoon session.

The pace setter of the 2012 cars on the first day of the driver switch was once again the Lotus E20, but with Romain Grosjean at the helm instead of the ice man. The E20 completed 117 laps, one shy of the overall session leader Nico Roseberg, with a fastest time of 1:18.419. Vettel and Hamilton occupied the next two places with Vettel setting a time of 1:19.297 in the RB8 and Hamilton less than 2tenths behind in the MP4/27 with a 1:19.464.

The 2011 Mercedes once again topped the time sheets with a 1:17.6 from Nico Rosberg as they continue to evaluate the 2012 P-Zeros from Pirelli.

Just a note about the times from day 2, If you are wondering where the sudden pace has come from for Mclaren, Jenson Button must've been doing aero testing as when you look at the average lap times from the session he is nearly 1 and a half seconds adrift of the RB8 of Mark Webber with Webber averaging a 1:22 dead and Jenson averaging out at a 1:23.49.

Day two of Testing

Nothing much to report from the second day of testing in Jerez. Its all very much speculation in the paddock at the moment with nobody sure exactly what fuel loads and test runs people are running you can't really get that much out of the results at the end of the day.

A little tid bit of information for you though, in the first test of the 2011 season the fastest time over the 4 days was set by Rubens Barrichello with a 1:19.8 for Williams. Michael Schumacher set the fastest time in yesterday's session with a 1:18.5 in his 2011 spec Mercedes and fastest of the 2012 spec cars was the RB8 in the hands of Mark Webber with a 1:19.1 already 7tenths quicker than the top time from last year. The Ferrari and Mclaren are still down in the 1:20s with the Maranello squad insisting on twitter they don't have their eye on the stop watch but more on their telemetry screens.

Today sees the driver change with Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel getting their first go in the 2012 cars. Although this sounds tantalising, something tells me that nothing much will happen on track between them as they get used to their new machines and run through the test programmes set for them by the team.

Jenson Button at the helm of the MP4/27 in the second day of testing at Jerez

The circus is back in town.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm a massive Formula 1 fan and have been for as long as I can remember! This year's formula 1 season promises to be one of the most exciting yet with an unprecedented 6 world champions competing on the grid, 4 of whom have won multiple championships. The 6th world champion is of course the return of the 2007 champ Kimi Raikkonen, coming back to the sport for the Lotus (formerly Renault) team after a 2 year foray in to rallying.

Much of the pre-season media coverage has been about the Ice Man's return, questioning whether he still has the hunger and desire to win. My question would be did he have it in the first place? After the 2007 season he struggled to recapture his form as the Ferrari also struggled to match the pace of the MP4-23 of Lewis Hamilton in 2008 and the Brawn BGP001 of Jenson Button in 2009. Anyone remember the famous ice cream incident in Malaysia? He also turned down the offer of race seats from other teams such as Toyota (before it left the sport) because he wanted a race winning seat and a higher salary than they were prepared to offer. But now that he is back, the media seem to be singing his praises.

A diagram explaining the nose regs from
 http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/2012/0/929.html

These last few weeks have seen a lot of Action on Planet F1, with high profile car launches and the official opening of pre-Season testing. Looking at the cars, there is a common and rather clumsy theme to the approach the teams have adopted for the change in regulation regarding the height of the nose of the car. The official rules specify a maximum height for the front bulkhead of the chassis of 625mm above the plank, a maximum height for the nose of 550mm above the plank and a distance of 150mm in which to transition between the two. This has led to the rather ugly and ungainly 'platypus nose' most of the teams are sporting this year, with one notable exception. Mclaren have pursued their design tradition of low noses in the design of the MP4/27 and therefore do not need to have the stepped nose as their nose and chassis design already is low enough. I have read in another blog that the Mclaren bulkhead could be as much as 50mm lower than much of the other teams. This is a completely different aerodynamic philosophy to the other teams, with the others opting for the higher bulkhead to try and force more air underneath the car feeding the diffuser.

The Mclaren MP4/27 from mclaren.com

The Woking squad have had a different philosophy regarding the front end aerodynamics of their cars in the last few years and time will tell whether or not the low nose will work out for them.

Another interesting turn of events was the release of the Red Bull Racing RB8. The defending champions probably had the most to lose from the aerodynamic regulation changes between 2011 and 2012. The regulations see the ban of exhaust blown diffusers, a concept which Red Bull pioneered in 2009 with the RB6 and designed the RB7 around. Adrian Newey probably had the most effective rear end packaging of any of the teams in the 2011 season with only the Mclaren coming anywhere close to consistently challenging the cars from Milton Keynes. Losing this has taken away a massive amount of rear downforce for all the teams that utilised this concept but RBR probably had the most to lose from this as they had been investing so much time in the development of it over the 2 seasons.

In the official launch pictures of the RB8, it appeared to have a regular stepped nose design following the trend set by all the other teams. However, looking a little closer and seeing it when it rolled out in Jerez yesterday morning they have made a few design tweaks to that area.

The Mysterious slot gap

 The highlighted area shows a slot gap in the nose hump. No one knows precisely what this gap is for other than the designers who put it there, the official line from RBR and Adrian Newey is that it is for cooling the driver and some other ancillaries as well as aesthetics. Take that however you like, but I'm guessing this slot will more function than just a simple air vent to keep the drivers cool.

That's it for now, Day 2 of official testing today so I will report back with any news!

ciao!