So M-Sport developed all their aero in a wind-tunnel and fitted it to the car in one go, but Citroen had to do theirs on the car and test each part a piece at a time ?
I read that M-Sport have been praised for their aero-work
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You don't work in any sort of technical development, right?
I think it's a case where we've seen two completely different development curves. Citroen did all those early tests with a focus on testing parts, engines, suspension, internals etc. So aero wasn't an immediate priority. I'm not an expert but I also think there's been a degree of waiting to see what the other manufacturers would do. To my untrained eye once the Toyota came out everyone's rear wing/aero changed etc. VW, Hyundai and Toyota have also evolved visually each time we saw them.
Because Ford's new car (not counting the mule) debuted what, three and a half months, after #Test1 they didn't have the luxury of developing in stages.
Doesn't one car is better than the other. You just work to the timeline you have.
Is it possible (by rules) that aerodynamic would be race specific or even stage specific... I think that team would homologate a super downforce version and remove certain parts to make it work for certain situation? Or homologate different bumpers and wings?
Can we expect cars to be a little more sideways in mid and slow corners because aerodinamic will stabilizate rear at high speed, so rear suspension setup can be little more flickable?
I was thinking the same thing, Citroen may be advantaged by the early testing of the "basic" parts. It reminds me of the 'negative' example of Seat who had a badly balanced base that they tried to compensate with tricks in the active diffs. So Citroen may have a good approach in trying to get a good base before they add more advanced aero elements.
Also over the season it's possible the aero will converge as they copy each other's design, provided this is allowed by the rules. Ford initially came out with more advanced aero but I guess the rest are now putting the final elements on the cars. Especially the front diveplanes beneath the headlights I think give a good amount of downforce and the lack of those elements is probably why we saw a lot of the cars initially jumping with the nose high in the air. Citroen's early tests in Finland come to mind.
There is no drama here, VW were testing 17' car for more than year, but only 2-3 months ago changed/developed completely the aero design.
From these photos one can see that the splitter also fills the radiator with snow. Together with the higher power it may be a serious issue especially for the first starter.
Maybe they'll have this 0-car in Monte. :D
http://www.mtmtech.cz/editor/filesto...11-2011051.jpg