I think I have figured it out why the Red Bull is so much faster than the
McLaren. Noticed how much closer the front wing of Vettle's Red Bull is
closer to the track than Hamilton's McLaren. Vettle on the right and
Hamilton on the left.

The down force one gets from  a wing in ground effect is an exponential
function of the stagnation pressure point distance above the surface. The
down force to drag ratio is also improved I suspect. At the time I felt the
exponent was the cube or greater.

I noticed this back in the late 1960's on the Chaparral nose while measuring
down force as a function of speed and  mentioned it in my paper:

Aerodynamics & The Group Seven Racing Car by Paul Lamar Presented at the
AIAA Symposium on The Aerodynamics of Sports & Competition Automobiles
(Research I did while at Chaparral Cars.) April 20 1968

http://www.rotaryeng.net/AIAA-Paper.pdf

While both cars are stationary in the pits the legal distance is the same.
This can be achieved mechanically by using a internal spring in the front
compression strut. As soon as significant down force is applied that spring
bottoms out.

To make something more subtle coaxial components made from different
composite materials could be used to tailor the force verses the deflection
function of the front compression strut.
One component can be cured and pre stressed while the second component is
laid up enclosing the pre stressed component.
These components can be no more sophisticated than carbon and glass due to a
huge difference in the modules of elasticity.

Paul Lamar




Hi Paul,

you are right - at least it's one of the reasons. The other teams keep
complaining that the Red Bull front wing is not OK, but Red Bull keep
passing the tests. The rule says "a front wing must be no lower than 75mm
above the reference plane, which is the lowest point of the car". This is
checked statically with a 100kg load on one or both sides of the wing - the
wing must not move more than 20mm.
Ross Brawn of Mercedes GP now suggested that other teams (his own team
included) should accept the legality and copy the design instead, but as
Adrian Newey of Red Bull commented it won't be that easy, because it affects
the complete vehicle.

Poul Henrik Woelfle