Bojan Vrbnjak
Mercedes was not the only one on Friday morning, the first day of testing in Bahrain, stunned rivals by revealing his the bottom of the car. Also the team Alpine she provided a surprise. Racing car A521, which they will manage this year Fernando Alonso in Esteban Ocon, drove from the team garage with oversized Airbox.
For the air vent Airbox narrows significantly less than its competitors or last year's predecessor RS20. Instead, it’s that part of the race car straight strong. There was a lot of that, too occupation, larger than expected at Alpine, for the reasons for this solution. “I'm a little surprised at how much so-called Bodyshaming we have,”He joked on Saturday Marcin budkowski, executive director of the French factory team. It's a surprise Poljak justified by not too unusual considerations for this unusual design. “It is a technical decision. We were of the opinion that this could be a good direction to narrow the side crates. This is really nothing new," so Budkowski.
This should mean: Alpine with narrower side crates it promises better airflow through the bodywork, i.e. aerodynamic advantage. "Because of this, we repackaged and re-installed some bulky items in the race car and set them up for air supply. This gives the race car a pretty spectacular and massive shape, yes. But it works for us," so Budkowski. By moving the parts up, however, it also moved up center of gravity of the car, as confirmed by the Pole. Engineers generally want to avoid this. Alpine however, it estimates that the aerodynamic gain is greater than this loss.
"Here, compromises are made as far as the center of gravity is concerned, but usually the aerodynamic performance and the position of the center of gravity itself prevail over the weight," so Budkowski. He gives the first impressions right, because he is Esteban Ocon the first day he finished in third place and the Frenchman drove away 129 rounds. Alonso however, he was tenth on Saturday and drove just a lap less than his teammate. However Sleep did not give in to the afternoon hunt for time.
