Ferrari brought a new rear wing with new endplates in Singapore which was tested in FP1 and FP2 but not used for the rest of the weekend. The new rear wing is a high downforce wing due to the high downforce nature of the Marina Bay track.
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| Old Rear Wing |
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| New Rear Wing |
The new rear wing is quite different from the old one.
Starting off, the new one feature a new reshaped leading edge for the main plane:
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| Old |
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| New |
In addition, there is a new slightly longer upper flap targeting more downforce, with the extremities of the upper flap being slightly shorter.
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| Old |
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| New |
The gurney flap on the new on is slightly bigger and has a different shape due to the V-cutouts. The V-cutouts try to reduce drag and condition the airflow when the car turns into a corner for more stable downforce.
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| Old |
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| New |
Furthermore the slots that were placed between the rear wing and the endplates were removed int he new version. Those slots prevented stalling of the flow nest to the endplate to the expense of marginally less downforce. The Marina Bay track requires almost maximum downforce so it would be an advantage.
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| Old |
Probably the most important upgrade on the new wing were the new gills. The newer version feature more and reshaped gills. More gills are required because of the higher AoA (Angle of Attack). The new gills are more efficient in leaking air outside the endplate and reducing the otherwise string drug inducing vortex created when the 3 airflows meet at the trailing edge of the wing.
It is believed that the new rear wing itself worked but Ferrari were made the unfortunate mistake to bring only one version of their endplates with the new vertical gills placed below the endplates attached that help with the extraction of air from the diffuser. That is probably what didn't work and they had to revert to the old version that was raced in Hungary.
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| Old |
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| New |
The new version featured 8 vertical gills instead of 5. the first 3 gills are attached to the diffuser and the rest are in front of it. with these vertical gills come very complex vortices, which reminds us of the wind-tunnel correlation problems Ferrari had during the course of the 2011 season and the beginning of the 2012 season. The correlation issue might not be completely resolved as lately some updates they've brought didn't work. An example is the new front wing the tested in Great Britain, Germany and Hungary but was never raced because it wasn't behaving as they expected from their CFD and wind-tunnel testing.
All of the drawing are a property of technicalf1explained.blogspot.com
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