Ferrari has caused a stir on the opening morning of the final pre-season test in Bahrain on Wednesday after revealing an intriguing new wing behind its exhaust.
With the squad having focused its early running so far on the "spec-A" version of its SF-26 that it launched with, the Italian outfit has begun rolling out some tweaks that are likely to form part of its Australian Grand Prix package.
One of these that has grabbed attention is a new flick-up that sits right behind the exhaust.
It has the appearance of a mini but crude beam wing, which was a common feature of the previous generation of cars.
The small wing falls into an area of the rear tail where bodywork is in theory heavily restricted, but likely makes clever use of allowances in various regulations surrounding the rear wing pylons to ensure that it complies with the rules.
The new aerodynamic element is likely aimed at delivering two key benefits for car performance.
It could help make use of diverting exhaust gases to help with the way they interact with the rear wing air flow.
Furthermore, it could be acting as an extension of the diffuser airflow, aimed to help improve performance here and deliver greater downforce.
One of the key design considerations for this year was the banning of beam wings at the rear, which had become common with the previous generation of cars.
Gary Anderson's verdict
We are seeing some of the ‘small’ developments on the cars come into play at this second test.
For Ferrari it has increased the size of the small vanes that increase the height of the trailing edge of the central part of the diffuser.
You can see the differences between what they ran last week and what they are currently running this week, it’s only a small increase but it will connect the airflow from the beam wing and improve the airflow around the rear crash structure, which in turn will improve the airflow in that central boat area of the diffuser.
I’m not sure what harm it will do to the exhaust flow, as it’s fairly close to where the regulations define the position of that outlet has to be (red arrow).
Its position is defined in the regulations as 390mm to 400mm, so a 10mm tolerance relative to the centre line of the rear axle and a minimum height of 350mm to reduce the potential for using the exhaust flow to generate higher flow rate air flow over any aerodynamic components.
However, I’m sure many will say this is the start of a blown beam wing - diffuser solution, that could be, and it will be interesting to see what the FIA think of it.
