Has there been changes to the Williams nose? - (Hckheim)

[Splatz the Cow]

While the car was buzzing about I was sure the nose looked slightly different.

1. Is it a livery change causing maybe an optical illusionary change?

2. The radii of the upper edges of the nose section appear smaller, giving what looks like a sharper edge, particularly the area adjacent to the front wheels.

3. The front nose profile appears to arc downward more from the front wheels forward.

Changes 2. and 3. I believe, would increase downforce slightly particularly for front turn in with the sharper edges.

4. The front nose cross-sectional width appears marginally reduced, which would give to a reduced frontal area - lower drag - increased acceleration and top speed.

Grab your replays and some pics and have a look. Sorry I don't know how to link.

Montoya was a minimum of a second a lap faster almost every lap, the turn in was phenominal, and closing speed to the corners very high.
That car is really stuck to the groung like nothing else out there, and like I said, it was so much faster....
they've defintely done something to get that car sorted.



(MODS: feel free to merge this if you feel it overlaps some other current Williams thread.

[spearce]

Maybe they should introduce an 18,000 rpm limit, to reduce the BMW power advantage ? Or did they do this during the race anyway?

[Splatz the Cow]

Perhaps those contract renewls between Williams and BMW, helped find a few extra horsepower as well?

[Glen]

Originally posted by spearce
Maybe they should introduce an 18,000 rpm limit, to reduce the BMW power advantage ? Or did they do this during the race anyway?

I think the engine is only a small part of it - evidenced by the story about the car being limited from lap 15 onwards, and also by the car's superb speed at circuits where bhp doesn't count as much.

Don't know about the nose - the FW25 nose has always been quite tall and square, with a pronounced droop. They did have yet another configuration of engine cover though. Williams have shown the field the way with car development this year, and now they are reaping the rewards. Toyota and Renault also seem to have made frequent changes - remarkable in Renault's case because they only have twenty car-testing days per season, so they must have fabulous simulations and wind tunnel.