McLaren Testing Radical Front Wing

[Roamy]

not really that radical.

a.j. foyt ran a wing along the same idea in the USAC champ Cars in 1978!

that car must have been quite a "Pusher"

[Sleeper]

Whatever happened to the FIA proposal that total downforce be limited to a given number of Newtons? It was a brilliant idea, I thought, and the FIA had devised an elegant method of enforcement -- simply putting a scraper board under the car which only touched the track surface when the maximum permitted amount of weight was applied. Why was that proposal never adopted? It would have stopped the "downforce war" dead in its tracks.

I dont know what happened to that proposal (in fact, I completely forgot it until you mentioned it) but I think its a great idea. It wont stop the aerodynamic inovation and development but it might intensify it as the teams would be looking to create the smallest possible amount of drag for the same downforce, basically looking for an even more efficient car than now.

[wmcot]

Whatever happened to the FIA proposal that total downforce be limited to a given number of Newtons? It was a brilliant idea, I thought, and the FIA had devised an elegant method of enforcement -- simply putting a scraper board under the car which only touched the track surface when the maximum permitted amount of weight was applied. Why was that proposal never adopted? It would have stopped the "downforce war" dead in its tracks.

Even with the "scraper" it would be difficult to enforce because a car with softer suspension would "scrape" before a stiffer car would. Even lower tire presures would be a problem. I'm not sure you could get an accurate measure of downforce, only ground clearance and that's what the jabroc plank does now. To actually measure downforce at speed, you would need some high tech electronic sensors and a lot of telemetry data.

[Big Ben]

this is a ''lets hope it works'' idea like bmw sauber last year , and the side tower wings back in 1998..hopeless moves!!!

Well said. Now that's been all clarified let's move on! DimitraF1 decided it's not working. what can we add to that????

Now... seriously. I think that F1 should be innovative but they should ban everything that is meant to keep the cars behind at a certain distance. That's catenaccio and it should be banned form F1.

They can still be innovative.... if they have more liberty to design faster cars...