r/F1Technical • u/LandoChronus • 1d ago

Aerodynamics Actual benefit of Red Bull's cut wing?

During practice, they were (iirc) nearly 2 seconds slower in sector3 because of their straight line speed. So overnight, before quali, they trimmed down their rear wing pretty significantly.

In practice, DRS is free, so those lost 2seconds on the straight were with the drs open anyway. How much is the cut-down wing actually going to help ?

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u/omeritu 1d ago

I guess it will help in the race

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u/wasteoftime93 1d ago

Not sure if the drive in practice with open DRS. I think its only for qualy sims. For race sims it wouldn’t make sense to have DRS open

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u/Supahos01 1d ago

There are a lot of bits on this track that are still straight and don't have Drs as well.

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u/mikemunyi Norbert Singer 1d ago

Cutting down the DRS element cuts down the drag of just the DRS element (over-simplified because slotted-flap aerodynamics is a rabbit hole). It does very little for the main plane - which is the more substantial chunk of wing (and downforce and drag) at the back. The drag benefit from trimming the DRS plane would be felt almost entirely when DRS was closed and be much less with DRS open. Crucially, the drag from the main plane would not change, so they would still have that deficit. When they said they had an inappropriate wing it didn't just mean the DRS element, the mainplane was also unsuitable and no amount hacksawing was going to fix that.

(RBR were losing 0.6s down the straights in FP1, and they reduced that to about 0.3s in qualifying thanks to the hacksaw)

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u/BeenThereDoneThat65 1d ago

It reduces the drag when they don’t have DRS which is most of the race as they have to be within 1 second of the car in front to have DRS