Force India’s delayed 2018-specification front wing is unlikely to appear until next month’s French Grand Prix.
The team ran one example of the wing in practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix. However it decided against racing it until it had corrected a fundamental problem relating to its car’s aerodynamic correlation.
Technical director Andrew Green said in Monaco the wing is now ready to be introduced. “We did a lot of testing of it in Barcelona, that proved to us it was at a high enough level now that we want it on the car.”“It was a good step forward, we could be confident then that with the updates we’re bringing at Paul Ricard, we should take another reasonable step.”
The team has two examples of the wing at present but Green says it wants a stock of four or five before committing to using them in a race.
“It’s ready to race [but] we don’t have enough of them,” he said. “We may have this discussion again [on Friday], we don’t want to risk the wings we have until we get some more come through which, at the latest, should be Ricard. Possibly Canada.”
Each wing takes hundreds of hours’ work to produce. Green said the cost of producing new parts had delayed their progress with the VJM11.
“I think part of the issue was not having the car we actually wanted at the beginning of the year,” he said.
“Sergio Perez talks about compromises as far as set-up is concerned, we have compromises as far as manufacturing is concerned as well. There were parts we really wanted on the car which we couldn’t have, so we had to wait.”
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Phylyp (@phylyp)
25th May 2018, 8:41
Maybe we should just hook up the energy store to a big stonking fan for downforce. It’ll solve the wet racing problem as well. And cut back on the expensive aero modeling and manufacturing.
#CrazyThoughtsForAFriday
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
25th May 2018, 10:23
@phylyp: Only Retro Crazy! Revive the Brabham BT46! Just add the Todt Thong and a Merc V6 and go suck up the track!
kpcart
25th May 2018, 11:49
I remember in 2008, all those weird little aero bits were removed from f1 cars, and we had clean looking cars, how has all these aero things sneaked back in? The front wings look way too complicated and expensive with all the elements they have. The barge board area does too now. To the point that the cars are getting uglier, and more money is being wasted for little gains, and every team has to follow suit.
Raveen
25th May 2018, 18:31
Reports say force India has been bought by rich energy, so bye bye force India
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
25th May 2018, 23:35
If true, could the new F1 era become the Battle of Energy Drink brands?
Raveendhana
26th May 2018, 3:30
Redbull is big when compared to rich energy, I doubt that rich energy are in here for the long haul and whether they have deep pockets.