Williams is among the teams that were most hidden in the presentation phase. The launch event revolved around the standard FIA model, while a few hours later the Grove team had posted some images of the FW44 in action at Silverstone for the 100km of Filming Day on its channels. The few photographs available, however. did not allow to fully appreciate the British car, of which new details emerge in the three days of testing in Barcelona.
The 2022 machine park sees a vast differentiation in the grid, in particular on the front of the suspension schemes and the sidepods with fairing of the bellies. The sides of the Williams appear strongly inclined downwards, aiming to exploit the Coanda effect to divert the flows adhering to the surfaces below towards the rear end, increasing the air flow around the diffuser to the advantage of the extraction of the flows and the load generated by the underbody. It is an aerodynamic philosophy similar to that proposed by Red Bull, AlphaTauri and Alpine, whose bellies however have a much more progressive trend.
The real peculiarity of Williams in its 2022 guise, however, is the opening that can be seen in the upper part of the sidepods, behind the mouth of the side radiators in the external area. The “window” forms a vent on the side for the air collected by the air intake located on the side of the passenger compartment. A plausible hypothesis is that the opening is created as a cooling tool for the evacuation of the internal hot air, a scenario supported by the absence of additional grilles on the bodywork of the FW44. Looking at the car from the front, however, you can see how the hole remains in the upper side, which is why the flow in transit is collected directly from the front mouth, without passing through any radiator. The inside of the air intake therefore acts as a conveyor, accelerating the air so as to increase the energy of the flow that vents in the rear environment, regarding the function of which two different hypotheses can be formulated. The opening could in fact contribute to increasing the flow of air collected by the sidepods and which, remaining adherent to the surface, feeds the environment of the rear end surrounding the diffuser. The outward orientation of the outlet vent, however, suggests that the accelerated flow inside the air intake can be used instead to keep the turbulence coming from the front wheels away from the car body. If this were the case, Williams would have thus sought an aerodynamic device to divert the turbulent flow, where instead other teams have relied directly on the dimensions of the bodywork.
The openings in Williams sidepods will be the subject of great attention and insight into the upcoming season. While waiting for their exact function to be carried out, it is nevertheless pleasant to see how a team that in recent seasons has long occupied the last rows of the grid has begun the new technical cycle by immediately proposing something new.
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