Force India’s revamped diffuser
The upgraded Force India also sports a new diffuser, which curves in the middle of its upper part and features several openings (see white arrows). Both ends of the device have also been redesigned (see yellow and red arrows), as well as the vanes placed on the inside of the rear wheels (see blue arrows).
Force India’s entire new package has been developed inside Toyota’s windtunnel in Cologne. This also means that it is no longer using its own facilities in Brackley, in accordance with this year’s sporting regulations. Indeed, these have been slightly tweaked with Appendix 8 stating the following: “Each Team may nominate only one wind tunnel for use in any one twelve month period. The first nomination must be made on or before 1 January 2015 and no re-nominations may be made for at least 12 months.” Part of the rationale behind moving to Germany actually lay in Force India noticing some correlation problems with its Brackley windtunnel.
The Silverstone-based squad is not the first F1 outfit to use Toyota’s state-of-the-art facilities: Ferrari did it too while its own “galleria del vento” was being updated and renovated in Maranello. The Cologne windtunnel enables teams to collect data on 60% model cars, though British aerodynamicists still use 50% models. With Force India having to move technical staff over to Germany and greater restrictions on windtunnel and CFD use, it was no surprise to see the team’s programme take seven months to bear first fruits.
