Force India says T-wings unlikely to get more extreme
Force India thinks it unlikely that Formula 1 teams will go any more extreme than the triple-decker T-wings that have appeared at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
The design of T-wings has evolved quickly throughout 2017, with first single and then double wings appearing, before new oval solutions came in to play.
However, for the Monaco GP, Force India and Renault took things to a new level with a triple decker oval solution.
Asked by Motorsport.com whether he felt there was scope for even more aggressive solutions in the future, Force India's technical director Andy Green said he was doubtful.
For he reckoned having a triple layer was only suitable at circuits where drag was not important – as there was a straightline-speed penalty from the solution run in Monaco.
"For us, the triple decker is quite Monaco-specific," said Green. "Maybe we will have a variant of that in Singapore or possibly Hungary, but at the other tracks we will see a reduced version of it.
"Track efficiency dictates, really, what you can put on the car."
Green went on to explain that the use of the oval ends to the T-wing was to minimise aerodynamic losses that would come from having actual wing tips.
Rear end progress
The debut of the T-wing on the Force India car has come at a time when the team is chasing improvement to the rear end of its VJM10.
Although an update package introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix has improved matters, Green said the outfit was not yet fully on top of the situation.
"I think we are making progress," he said. "It is taking time, we can see that. We are chipping away at it, and everything we bring to the car, we learn from it, and we understand a new direction to go in.
"It is a multi-faceted problem, so we are coming at it from lots of angles. It takes a long time to come together, but we do know a lot more about it now than the race before, and the race before that. So we are definitely making progress, but we are nowhere near solving the problem."
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