M-Sport restarts in 2024 with completely different ambitions compared to last year. Having lost Ott Tanak and Pierre-Louis Loubet not confirmed, the team based in Cumbria has chosen a different way to take part in the WRC, that is to rely on drivers who are all in all young and with little experience.
This, however, did not prevent the team from putting its hands on the Ford Puma Rally1 Hybrid which we will see in action at the Rallye Monte-Carlo, the prologue of the 2024 season, which will take place from 25 to 28 January.
In the video published in the last few hours on its pages of the main social networks, M-Sport showed the first contact of Gregoire Munster, the new starting driver together with Adrien Fourmaux, with the car with which he will race throughout the season.
In the few seconds of video it was possible to notice an interesting innovation regarding the aerodynamic aspect of the Puma Rally1 Hybrid, namely the rear wing. Elements that have changed since the last version seen at the 2023 Rally Japan are the two added vertical bulkheads that connect to the main profile.
The solution had already been tested a few months ago, but in all likelihood it was approved at the beginning of this year to be mounted on the Pumas that will race in the 2024 season.
The addition of these two bulkheads is not something to be underestimated. Their presence indicates the team's desire to improve the car's behavior in certain situations. Let's see which ones.
First of all, these two bulkheads have the function of helping the car to have greater stability in yaw (rotation of the vehicle around its vertical barycentric axis caused by a maneuver in a moving vehicle). The bulkheads must guarantee greater lateral stability, acting as a sort of sail for the boats.
That's not all, because these bulkheads also have a second very interesting function when it comes to aerodynamics. The intention of those who use this system is to separate and regulate the turbulences arriving from the roof and rear window of the car, optimizing the flows on the rear part of the vehicle.
Subaru was the first to propose the solution in 2003
Such a solution had already been studied and used in a more extreme way by Subaru. In 2003, on the Subaru Impreza WRC2003, a rear wing appeared with 4 vertical bulkheads (plus two external) which had the task of improving the car's yaw behavior and cleaning up the flows deriving from the central part of the car.
In that season, Solberg won the first and only world title of his WRC career and for Subaru too it was the last world championship before retiring, which took place 5 years later.
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