The Ferrari F 2008 struggle the first Formula 1 car with an S-shaft. We look at the development over the years!
(Motorsport-Total.com) – Formula 1 teams never forget anything. When good ideas are banned due to a rule change, the designers spend a lot of time figuring out how to regain the lost advantage. This is exactly the story behind the S-shaft in Formula 1. The idea, which was fairly radical at the time, had its origin in the year 2008 at Ferrari.
Changes to the rules have meanwhile led to a ban, but in the meantime the S-shaft has returned and has become normal. The Ferrari F 2008 struggle at the Spanish Grand Prix 2008 the first car with the innovation at that time. A quick look back shows, however, that Ferrari planned to use the S-bay from the start.
The chassis had a notch from the beginning. At the beginning this was only covered by a plate. The new nose, the heart of this development, later had an inlet on the underside and an outlet on the top, which in line with the incision on the chassis plug and also created a second outlet.
The purpose of the S-shaft is the air flow below the nose, which leads to the bargeboards, the front edge of the underbody and leads the side boxes to clean up. By creating an inlet under the nose at the point where turbulence occurs, you can fix this repute. The air is collected and directed to a less sensitive area.
As with any complex solution, the aerodynamic advantages of the S-shaft must outweigh the disadvantages so that it is worth using. In this concrete topple you have to consider the set aside and the weight, because it is a structure that must also pass a crash test.
For the season 2009 the rules were changed radically. This had a direct impact on the downforce that the cars generated. In addition, the new rules prevented the use of Ferrari's S-shaft method. It was prescribed that there should be no holes in the cross-section of the nose.
Further rule adjustments in this area followed later when Mercedes introduced a double DRS machine. It was then determined that each opening that was more than 150 Millimeters in front of the front tires, could only be used for cooling the driver in the cockpit.
Nevertheless, there was still enough scope so that the teams could try to regain the advantage of the S-shaft. The first crew to bring the concept back clean. Despite the limitation of the new 150 rule and the fact It was worth the effort that the slope struggled quite violently.
Since then the idea has been refined more and more. Each crew takes a different approach. But everyone aims to achieve the advantage that Ferrari has in the year 2008 first discovered.
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