Nooooooo ANOTHER UGLY f1

[TryHard]

For those that care...The whole reason for the bumps is the regs for the year. (Alternatively, watch the BBC video... good old Gary!)

Quite simply it boils down to aero, and the development direction (started by RedBull back in '09 when the wide front wings and neutral central section came in) of trying to have the nose as high as possible, so as to ram as much air under the car to make downforce via the underfloor.

Whats happened this year (as already mentioned), is that the FIA spec'd that the nose heights had to drop to help avoid the noses penetrating the cockpits in a side impact (the tips were higher than the cockpit sides!). What didn't happen though was alteration to the reg's to force teams to drop the front chassis bulkheads (the bit where the nose mounts) to suit...

With the need to drive as much air underneath as possible, the natural way would be to make the chassis as thin as possible in this area, however, the reg's state that the bulkheads have to meet certain dimensional requirements in terms of cross section (and you can't have a driver with 2D legs!), which basically places a limit on how high they can make the underside of the chassis.

So the way round that is to raise the chassis up as much as possible... which when you combine with the new nose rule, leaves the step!

McLaren seem to have gone a different way, but then they are also the only team employing a snow-plow under the nose to help drive the airflow, with the hope to also gain a from having a lower CoG and better suspension geometry on the front. Time will tell if thats a good route, but last years car was similar, so no reason not to think it won't work.

Everyone else with a clean nose underside seems to have gone as high and flat as they can, and raise the chassis as much as possible, leaving the pronounced step. Most of the nose's are pretty flat and thin, although there is more shaping underneath than appears, and bare in mind they have to pass the FIA crash tests before hitting the track for testing this year.

I just hope they wise up and lower the front bulkhead a bit next year... please!

Regards
Ed

[bodgit]

The link shows the cars released fo far. While they all seem to have the hump except mcclaren thefront wings designs are a thing of beauty on some cars. Cant help thinking that the lower front designed not to take a drivers head off in a side collision, on some cars its so thin it looks like it would slice into the cockpit like a hot knife through butter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/16872627

[TryHard]

The way the nose's composite structures are designed, they would crumple up well before any form of penetration...

Do agree on the front wing details though, the RB8's (unsurprisingly, it's Newey!) is the one that catches the eye, with the raised funnels in the centre either side of the neutral section...

[Chris56]

Although I don't like the step-nose design, I think the Lotus looks less offensive than the others, and that colour scheme is probably my favourite of all time (if only "John Player Specials" were allowed to advertise on F1 cars again!)

[Nightshade]

The stepped noses immediately make me think of Perry....

[bodgit]

This look a bit different. Is that an air intake at the front of the nose

[i4n]

Yep.

Teams have run them on and off for a few years to cool the driver down in the hot races (think that is what Brudel said last year). It adds a bit of drag so they don't ways run with it.