Bite-size tech: Williams removes airbox winglet
Williams has been a little out of sorts in the last few races, with the team from Grove even reverting to race one spec at the Hungarian GP, aside from a new floor on Bottas' car.
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Having said that, it dusted itself off for the German GP and ran most of the new parts again.
As the team assembles the car for practice tomorrow it would appear that all of the new parts will be used in Spa but one oddity is the loss of the winglet usually mounted astride the airbox, which the team has been using since last season.
It is believed that Williams, along with Ferrari, which uses a similar design, uses the airbox winglet to clean up flow that might otherwise be disturbed by the airbox and engine cover before it is used by the rear wing.
However, the loss of this winglet may well indicate that the new rear wing design, introduced in Baku (below) and being used in Belgium, may work more effectively without the airbox winglet, especially during transient conditions.
You may also note from the first image that Williams has opted to run with their maximum cooling solution alongside the cockpit, with not only the louvre panel atop the sidepod but also the vertical slots that extrude up the cockpit protection.
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