The FIA will carry out a test of a proposed solution to reduce spray from Formula 1 cars and improve the chances of racing in heavily wet conditions following the British Grand Prix. As Pirelli is …
Hi everyone! Thank you all for participating! Another media source has posted an article with some more information on this topic. The actual relevant bit starts about halfway through.
Hopefully the weather is conducive for a full functionality test and not just an installation and aero shakedown. Right now it's looking like next week will be a damp one there but we'll see. Maybe they can get Ecclestone out there with a hose.
The article claims that the teams have worked on this implementation, so I expect that the cars won't be hampered too much aerodynamically from the new parts. It also says that F1 worked on it as well, so I expect that it will be used for its intended purpose and not just as another aero component. Realistically, if this ultimately gets developed as a non-spec part then expect teams to have it do the minimum permitted amount of deflection and focus more on how they can benefit from manipulating aero around the tire.
What gives me pause, however, is that in articles about this proposed change from both last year and this year there is a reiterated notion that conditions arising that would necessitate the installation of the new components would be paired with a red flag. Hopefully they'll change their tune on that and have it be something to be done on the fly.
Actually it would be interesting if it was something that was directly related to the wet weather tyres.
So they come already attached to the wheels as a spec part and not permanently attached to the car.
I would argue that the set up of the car is affected anyway when putting on wets due to the increase of ride height and such. And with the corner speeds being slower it likely wouldn't cause that much of an issue.