Boullier: Renault is studying its own interpretation of a controlled airflow rear wing

After this Chinese Grand Prix marked by a McLaren one-two, the last skeptics of the F-Duct system, devised by the engineers at Woking, should finally acknowledge the usefulness of this aerodynamic process. On the side of the French team Renault, the points scored by Kubica and also Petrov (5th and 7th respectively) are a real source of satisfaction.

It is true that the will of the new management team of the diamond-shaped team led by Eric Boullier, its director, relies on an aggressive development strategy. Indeed, at each GP, the “buzzing” single-seaters can count on new improvements. The pace of development is high, regardless of the distance separating the factory from the race location.

Where others wait for the arrival of European circuits to validate new packages, Renault wants to evolve its cars every weekend.

Eric Boullier and his team nevertheless remain attentive to the performances of the competition and their technical specificities. Thus, the team director acknowledges today that the Renault F1 Team is interested in McLaren’s F-Duct. For him, it’s impossible to copy this system; the goal is to draw inspiration from it to find a solution adapted to the R30. Boullier therefore prefers to talk about a rear wing with controlled airflow.

He declares: « We are looking for the right idea, for this we think about many, many different ideas. But we will not copy McLaren… We will not make a copy because it would be a waste of time, but we are looking for something with a similar concept. »

In this “F-Duct” war, McLaren is ahead; behind them, Sauber has already officially used this device on track. Ferrari, Mercedes GP, and Williams are still in the evaluation phase of the system. For Renault, it seems that introducing its own version of this process is the solution to stay in the leading pack.