New Williams F1 chassis debuts..

[MattM20]

lol, thats one fugly f1 car.

Why are the rears glowin but not the fronts?

Brake bias....


But the car looks very odd. Im sure what they have done was an improvement [why would they have done it otherwise] Looks like a "Manta-ray"

yeah theyre probably testing the rear brakes or something becuase i believe you can adjust the brake bias on the steering wheel. i must say though after 24hrs of digesting the new FW26 i love it!

[Stu]

looks don't win races :roll:

Well, maybe they don't. But aerodynamics do, and by the looks of that boxy bodywork, perhaps they will not win races.

Are you fucking kidding me? The design is revolutionary. They are certainly ahead of the game. There hasn't been that big of change to a car in years. The designers are not stupid -- they are not just fucking around.

"Ferrari proved in 2002 that the tight rearend layout with the compact "coke-bottle" sidepods was the state-of-the-art in chassis design. Additionally, the "3D" design of the rear wings like the ones found on the Renault R23 and the McLaren MP4/17D have seemed obviously better based on all the technical reviews and press i've followed. The FW26 retains the bulkier sidepods with a still wide rear end. It does have the shark-fin style engine cover like the McLaren, but the rear wing seems behind. Perhaps they didn't have a different wing ready for launch.. maybe we'll see changes later in the season, thats perfectly normal. I'm sure its fast, but I think Ferrari and McLaren are on the right track...

We'll see.. BMW is testing this week. McLaren has already broken 2 lap records with the /19 in pre-season testing."

Quote by Alex McHenry.



I know the designers are not stupid. I know that they spent months on testing and designs and wind tunnel exercises.

[Alex Mc]

The reasoning for the design we're seeing on the FW26 nose-cone is kinda complex, but i'll try to explain. When Sauber introduced "twin-keel" front suspension in 2000 they moved the lower control arm pick-up points away from the spine of the nose-cone, thereby creating a larger volume of area behind the center of the front wing. The reason they did this was due to rule change where front wing height was increased, but the center was allowed to stay low. Being lower to the ground the center was able to make more downforce, so aero engineers concentrated on extracting the most possible downforce from the center of the wing. The twin-keel design allowed them to take this even further.

Since Williams utilizes the twin-keel from layout (in exchange for stiffness) what Williams (not BMW) has done with the new FW26 nosecone is to move the focus of that downforce even more into the center and capitalize immensely on this area. This could also mean that there will be more dirty flow to the sidepods, but thats kinda tough to say without seeing and reading more.. McLaren has done the opposite. They do run twin-keel (only Ferrari doesn't of the top-4) as well, and have made their new MP4/19 nose extremely narrow and focused the flow on the outer sides of the wing as opposed to the center. Which way is better? I dunno, we'll see.

As far as no major developments as of recent? I think the coke-bottled sidepods of the F2002 and the 3D wings of last year have been a big step, but the FW26 has failed to incorporate these technologies unlike the new McLaren. The FW26 does appear to have a very clean rear gearbox area though.. and their sidepod winglets integrated into the bodywork (thereby eliminating the vertical mount) looks clean and should clean up rear wing flow.

We'll find out in Australia! Can't wait to see the new Ferrari.. should be exciting.[/url]