V-Max. It is a term the average person is not familiar with, but in essence it means top speed. In Formula 1 V-Max is king at Monza and to an extent Spa-Francorchamps, on these super fast circuits the teams try to shed as much aerodynamic drag as possible off their cars whilst not sacrificing too much downforce. This tends to lead to some specific low drag aerodynamic setups, with very small wings and often smaller cooling ducts.

Formula 1 wings are designed to push the car into the track, acting in the opposite way to an aircraft wing, but there is a side effect, drag. The large wings used at Monaco, badly limit the cars top speed, as we saw in 2010 when HRT ran at Monza with its Monaco wing setup, the cars were hugely slower down the straights than rivals Lotus and Virgin who had fitted lower drag packages for the Italian track.

This could have a substantial effect on one of the new for 2011 elements – the drag reduction system or DRS. With a large rear wing DRS is very effective because as explained above, the larger the wing the higher the drag. But at Monza where cars run very low drag wings the DRS even with its double deployment zone should be less relevant. “The DRS zones are revealed about a week before the race, but the wing design is finalised in July” explains Sauber Technical Director James Key. “We don’t know how effective DRS will be, I think it will be will be around half the normal amount.”

Top 10 Drag reducing concepts
Over the years teams have done a lot of things to reduce drag and increase top speed. Some of them are what you might expect others are a little more off the wall, in no particular order here are some of our favourites!

10. Tyrrell wheel swap
Back in the 1990′s Formula 1 had two super high speed circuits, Monza and the old Hockenheimring in Germany. The latter was essentially made up of huge straights and a few chicanes running through a forest. To get the best out of its underpowered Yamaha engined 024 chassis the team decided to run front wheels and tyres on the rear end. This approach reduced the frontal area of the car and thus cut drag. The cars practiced with the setup, but tyre supplier Goodyear told the FIA that the rubber was not suited to putting the power down and the concept was banned.

The 024 at Hockenheim with its normal wheel setup, this picture shows how much the frontal area was reduced by.

9. Force India VJM02
In 2009 Force India’s car was not a front runner, so almost everyone was stunned when at the Belgian Grand Prix it set pole position and challenged for the race win, only beaten by a KERS equipped Ferrari. Then at Monza the car once again ran strongly qualifying second on the grid. But after that the cars form tailed off. What few had noticed was that all year the Force India had been by far the fastest car through the speed traps, suggesting that it was designed to be exceptionally low drag. The cars concept was finally revealed in an issue of Racecar Engineering a few weeks later (see below). 

8. Small elements
The most commonly used tactic is to simply run smaller wings to cut drag. The cars in some cases having almost no rear wing at all. The picture below is the wing Ferrari used at Monza in 2009.

Now compare it to the wing used on the same car at other races (below). This approach has fallen out of fashion somewhat with the arrival of F-Ducts and DRS.

7. Tyrrell solid wishbone
With the front wheels at the rear concept being outlawed at the German Grand Prix, Tyrrell went and found another way of reducing drag on its 024. At the 1996 Italian Grand Prix it ran a solid front wishbone, this also cut drag and like the wheel solution the FIA banned it, on the grounds of being a moveable aerodynamic device. Spoilsports.

6. Run a sportscar
Back in the days when Formula 1 was a rather more open form or racing, tracks like the AVUS, Reims and the full Monza circuit saw prolonged high speeds. So teams went much further in their attempts to cut drag. They ran sportscars (well nearly)!

The streamlined Silver Arrows of the 1930′s and 1950′s are famous but others like Alfonso De Portago were at it too seen below with his modified Lancia-Ferrari D50 at the 1956 French Grand Prix. This approach is banned today (see a trend yet?)

5. No rear wing at all
The fastest Formula 1 car of all time is the  BAR-Honda 067 “Lakester” of 2005. It achieved 257mph on an airport runway in the USA. It did not feature a rear wing at all, as there was nothing in the Formula 1 rule book that said it had to – however they did say that the car must have endplates so the Lakester ran with just a tail fin (or rudder depending on the trim) and thus met the regulations.

4. Rim blankings
For many years teams in all categories have experimented with wheel covers in an attempt to reduce drag. Rim blankings have a huge aero influence and were widespread in  F1 up until the end 0f 2009 when they were outlawed (funny that). They can still be used in other series, but be prepared for an argument, when Racecar Engineering attempted to run them on the AHS Formula Vee’s the series scrutineers banned them on the grounds that they were bodywork outside of the inner edge of the front wheels, so we argued that they were part of the wheel and that wheel design was free. The scrutineer agreed but then promptly banned all of the AHS wheels without the blankings (effectively ruling five or so cars out of the race on the spot!) as we clearly needed to reinforce them. The blankings were removed and the cars all raced on conventional wheels…

3. F-Duct
The F-duct was an innovation for 2010, and was first developed by McLaren, who used it from the start of the season. The system appeared on the RB6 for the first time at the Turkish Grand Prix in May. Adrian Newey explains the system’s origins: “Really it was experimentation. The F-duct technology actually stems from the Cold War in the 1950s, when the Americans were worried the Russians would develop ways of jamming the electronics on their fighter aircraft, and so they developed, effectively, a pneumatic version of electronics. So an F-duct is actually a transistor, but using air rather than electricity.”

2. F3 tricks! 
At the 2009 Norisring round of the Formula 3 Euroseries the ART team cars appeared with no upper rear wing element. To the consternation of rival teams, they complained that the ART Dallara’s had not fitted the mandatory rear wing endplates, but the French team pointed out that it was not the endplates which were mandatory but the championship stickers attatched to them, and as these were fitted to the car it was legal. The stickers were folded over the top of the endplates and down the inside. A great piece of inventive thinking!

1. Sidepod wing mirrors 
In 2005 Ferrari turned up at a race with the cars wing mirrors mounted on the outer edge of the side pod, it meant that they were essentially useless for seeing behind you, but the drivers claimed that they were fine. The design was widely copied and appeared on the Lola F3 cars super speedway body kit, and pretty much every F1 car since 2005. However in mid 2010 the outboard mirrors were banned in F1, what took them so long!?