Well, what have we here?
Ferrari have been rumored to be working on a radical new nose for their F1 car, and a few days ago, they let it out of the R & D dept. and onto the track at Spain.
To me, it seems pretty obvious what Ferrari is trying to accomplish with this new nose.
Essentially, if you have the duct in the nose situated just aft of the trailing edge of the front wing, it will perform two tasks:
1 - it will relieve air pressure from the top surface of the wing, where the trailing edge of the wing and the underside of the nose start to meet, and
2 - by passing air streaming off the wing itself out the vent, it will create a low pressure area just aft of the effective surface of the wing.
This low pressure area will act like a cliff at a waterfall, it will draw more and more into it, and exhaust it through the vent on the top of the nose.
The more lower pressure generated just aft of the front wing will help pull more air under the wing.
The more air that flows under the front wing, the more down force it will produce.
The nose vent, working in conjunction with the way air is drawn through, and expelled out the front brake fairings (the disc on the outside of each front wheel) as a whole serve to generate a low pressure area just aft of the trailing edge of the front wing.
Air flows from high pressure towards low, like water flowing down a hill.
What Ferrari have done is effectively increase the slope of that hill.
Very clever.
You may also enjoy:
