Its a comparison of the W02 vs W03. Not a great deal although the 03 is meant to have a smaller waisted rear end.
Top one is the new one. Stepped nose, lower sidepods. Interesting endplates on the front wing. Significantly longer wheelbase too. Hopefully Merc can close the gap to the big three.
Totally agree. however safety and performance is more important than looks and that is why we have ended up with ugly cars this season. Hopefully they change the regulations before next year so the cars look a little easier on the eyes.
It's actually a compromise between performance and the allowed nose height. Teams want the nose to be as high as possible to allow more air to flow underneath the nose, and ultimately in the diffusers and underbody floor. also, suspension setup requires different nose designs. the MP4-27 uses a push-rod design for their front suspension, which doesn't need to be as high as the pull-rod design. right now, the only team that i know of that do not have the stepped nose is McLaren. But the testing period is still in its infancy, plenty of time for teams to still change designs.
Of course but in this case safety doesn't make cars look like crap. It looks like they just want to make the cars to have less and less down force so that drivers would make more mistakes.
The maximum nose height was was dropped this year due to safety concerns that they were nearing the height of the side impact crash structure. It meant that in a perpendicular side on collision the nose of one car could penetrate in to the cockpit of the one it was t-boning. So the regulation was introduced for safety. The teams wanted to keep as much performance as possible which for most meant maximising the airflow under the car to the rear diffuser. So they jammed their nose and monocoques up against the maximum height allowed. this is what created the step nose design.
Some serious problems with Lotus appeared in first test day in Barcelona.... http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97616 "Lotus has pulled out of the Barcelona test with immediate effect as a result of the problems it encountered with its chassis this morning. The team has decided to abandon running in order to fully understand the problem with the chassis that manifested itself on chassis 2, which ran for the first time today. "
Lotus back at top in first day of final winter test session. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97765 other news: Marussia Failed crash tests http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97710 HRT may run it's new car in final winter test: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97738 Oh and Kimi is in next weeks Top gear: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2012/11/top-gear.html
looking forward to next week's top gear! :banana: and the start of the season on the following weeks! :banana:
Doesn't look too bad for Caterham. They're most likely in the middle back now (but probably slowest). HRT and Marussia are big fails, though. No KERS and no new cars in tests.
