It wouldn't be speed activated at all, but activated by changes in air flow from cornering/going straight. Otherwise in the high speed corners the f-duct system would be in effect, and after all downforce is for the high speed corners so that wouldn't be what you want.
My understanding was that Mclaren have probably been running at a marginally higher downforce than their rivals in order to make the car easier to drive, and the fact that their F-Duct effectively removes downforce for straights which is a prime reason you'd want lower DF, keeps things kinda balance themselves out. So instead of having this uber straight line speed, they've taken advantage of it to improve other areas while keeping them competitive on the straights.
If thats all being done by blocking and unblocking air by moving the drivers knee on a vent, they effectively have an on/off switch, and something the other teams cant do without a chassis change.
McLaren have taken advantage of what it can do to improve other areas of the car, beyond what it can do at face value. Im pretty sure thats exactly what teams like Sauber and Ferrari have too. Their duct might have a negative effect in high-speed corners, however its possible they've set it up to counter-act this effect.
Mercedes could have something a little smarter, where air flows into one side at a higher rate than the other, thus causing less stalling, and yet going down the straight it would get the full amount.
McLaren can switch theirs on and off as and when they please. The rest of the grid have to make compromises which give the most benefit with the least issues as a byproduct.
If McLaren can increase downforce knowing they can lose it with the F-Duct, im sure Ferrari etc will do similar, add a degree and when it partially stalls on high-speed corners then it'll settle out, still being faster than a non-stalled wing down the straight, and having more DF in slow corners. Its about compromise, exactly what McLaren have been doing so far this season.
edit:
Its also interesting that McLaren dont have to compromise, they could use the F-Duct for its straight line speed, while not having any detromental effect on cornering. No other team can claim that right now, if some air is stalling the wing even 10% its a negative effect McLaren dont suffer from.
Downforce is for high speed cornering. For example take a look at any westhill setup or Kyoto GP Long setup and you'll see most of them will run a very high downforce level because of the extremely high speeds that 70% of the track is made from. This is exactly why you don't want the system activating through ANY corners, slow or fast.
@PaulC2K
I guess the McLaren version is different considering the chassis changes etc that other teams would have to make.
I think Rise is getting stuck on the fact that all these teams employing a stalled wing will be hit when taking high speed corners. Theres a fair few at Catalunya, so it wouldnt make sense.
But as Benji said earlier, and makes perfect sense to me, is that the vents on the cars are on both sides of the car, when its going in a straight line the air flow is 100% effective, however when its cornering the airflow on the outer vent will be very little, so the stalling effect could be say 60% effective and you could set the car up based on that fact.
Lets say a 100% stalled wing removes 2° downforce, they could theoreticly set the car up with 1 degree more on the car than a non-stalled wing would.
They'd be +1° on slow corners, 0° on high speed corners, -1° on straights.
But im fairly sure that the wings need a certain amount of airflow hitting the underside to see results too. So the effect could start at 100mph in a straight line, but with 2 side vents to get the same volume of air stalling the car might need to travel at 150mph before any stalling happens, and that could be minimal impact stalling still. Thats why your seeing side vents on the non-chassis based versions.
You also have to remember theres 1 way of looking at the stalled wing effect, but multiple ways of using that effect. At first it was seen as removing rear downforce making the car faster down straights making it much easier to overtake. However IMO its biggest use will be in allowing teams to run higher downforces and in McLarens case instantly shed that downforce when it suits them.
I highly doubt we'll ever see a team set their car up like an unstallable car, and then be able to unleash the stalled wing and gain 3mph down the straight.
Its doing things in unconventional ways which gains you tenths of seconds, and thats exactly what F1 engineers are paid to come up with.
I don't think you can partially stall a wing, especially not one so "small"... But I too am interested how the system is actuated - because everything else than driver-actuated surely has to be a moving aerodynamic part, no?
Watching the FP1 practice for spain, it seems like it actually is speed dependant on the passive system that the mercedes is using. which just doesnt make sense to me. I'm sure there is more to it than that.
im guessing that the yaw while cornering (i think i read somewhere that f1 tyres peak at around 8° slip angle) will roatate the car enough to obstruct flow to one side
must be pretty horrbile at turn in though
Theres a theory that the original 'stalling the wing' system didn't involve a driver controlled duct and worked in a similar way to how Ferrari's is now and the duct just improves the effect. The thought behind it is that at lower speed the Airbox and thus the engine sucks most of the air in before it reaches the duct thus the air entering the duct is slower. At higher speed the air starts to come in much quicker and the ratio that gets picked up by the airbox is less, giving the duct more air at a higher velocity.
The Mclaren may still have the same with a vent near the airbox, so they get that and the extra duct that the drivers can control. The drivers duct probably gives more of an effect at medium speeds on straights before up to higher speed, then the duct by the airbox would start to make more of an effect.
they were saying in china that it's possible the driver's knee bit maybe a red herring and the mclaren system doesn't actually depend on the cockpit vent being blocked at all, in fact what may be happening is at a certain speed the air flow / preasure / speed in the duct builds up to a point where the air naturally prefers to travel down the full lenght to the rear wing rather than pass through the cockpit vent and the only reason the vent is actually in the cockpit is so mclaren had some measure of deniability by calling it a driver cooling system.
what is for certain is by designing the car from the start to have an F duct mclaren will have more options regarding it's operation / efficency, if the other teams' systems prove to have an advantage then mclaren can copy them but it will be very hard for other teams to produce any form of efficient system that passes through the access holes in their chassis if they want to emulate mclaren's sytem
Because it's not the wind they are battling, it's just air resistance they are really battling. Aero is a huge advantage, the S1 Exige's rear wing at 100mph put the equivelent of 3 bags of cement on the rear, if you get rid of that down the stright, your going to be faster. F1 wings are alot more technical too, so god knows how much they push down at 200mph :\
Well they still have the 'barcodes' on the Helmets and team overalls so I think they took it from the car and replaced with something else just to make a point.
Yeah fair point. I think it probably is driver-operated at the moment but it could easily be automatic. Either way it will be outlawed by the end of the season so it doesn't really matter.
BTW kudos to Schumacher for coming back into the sport at 40 years old and still being up at the sharp end. It's a shame that he isn't winning races but he's still Michael Schumacher, he's just 40.
any of our german members (ok i could have phrased that better ) able to tell us how the german press are reporting the sudden reversal of fortunes for schumacher and rosberg since the car update? i'm wondering if it's not really being commented on and put down to one of theose weekends or if they feel the car's been altered to suit schumacher at rosberg's expense, if the later then how are they reacting to rosberg being compramised in this way?
I think Rosberg's misfortune's down to several things being just a little bit off (aka a bad weekend), rather than the changes causing a complete 180 for both drivers. Maybe there was something small in the car or tyres, and I think in one of the b'casts the Finnish commentators mentioned he'd gone "in the wrong direction with his setup"
There's been speculation that Schumacher's chassis was damaged in the first race and they couldn't exchange it before the break preceding the Spain GP. Thus a gain in performance was expected to some degree. But there was still a lot of luck involved. His laptimes didn't reflect his position, did they?
IIRC, he said himself that he wasn't happy with how the race went because he was quite a lot slower than the top cars and couldn't attack any car, only defend.
supposedly the new chassis was worth about .3 to half a second
also according to the rtl (the german (horrible) f1 boradcaster) the changes to the car were agreed upon by both drivers as both rosberg and schumacher had been complaining about the front end of the car
Is there any info yet on how Redbull got such a huge boost in performance in Spain? because they made atleast 7 tenths in that race which would have to be the biggest single upgrade done in years.
don't forget the upgrade McLaren built last year was even bigger~!
Red Bull is supremely quick in qualifying, while the McLaren is pretty bad at it but has decent race pace. The combined effect was that Red Bull was a country mile ahead in quali, but Lewis was closer in terms of speed during the race, sufficient enough to jump Vettel in the pits.
The law of diminishing returns and all that. Mclaren were miles off the pace at the start of 09 and then they introduced a fix to a fundamental aero problem gaining a significant chunk of time. However the further along the development cycle you go the harder it is to find time. Give Newey a few days and weeks he could find seconds in the Virgin car for example.
However, the gains RBR have made this year are almost unheard of. Considering the increased and tighter regulation for them to be so far ahead speaks volumes of their design team.
While McLaren are closer on race pace, I still feel RedBull aren't pushing as hard as they could. They are in car saving mode. Why put unnecessary life on your engine?
Also Vettel is hitting a bad patch atm. Hamilton is what he is, and in terms of pace give him any car and he will drag it to surprising positions. Just look at Button's dry weather pace and the Mclaren looks slower than the Mercs.
RBR are in another league right now, and even if other teams make gains (which I can't see happening) they still have enough in the bag
