© F1i
FORCE INDIA IS STILL LOOKING FOR THE RIGHT CORRELATION
Even though Sergio Pérez finished on the podium in Baku, the VJM11 has been lacking in competitiveness since the beginning of the season.
The car generates a fluctuating aerodynamic load at the rear, which is not constant, and which destabilizes the car and complicates the correct exploitation of the tyres. The phenomenon is due to a poor correlation of the wind tunnel and the CFD with the reality (in other words, the behaviour of the model in wind tunnel does not correspond to the real-life functioning of the car).
After testing two vanes added to the flat bottom of Sergio Perez’s car in China, the team added a winglet at the same place for Baku. Its presence suggests a possible phenomenon of airflow separation in the coke-bottle area of the car (the assumption being that the winglet would generate a vortex to reenergize the flux at this place).
In addition, the team has reworked the base of the bargeboard, which now has three winglets instead of four.
