Gary Anderson on the new Haas front fender

Gary Anderson, former race car designer and now The Race reviewer, shared his insights on the new front fender unveiled by the Haas team in Monaco.

This weekend the Haas got a front fender reminiscent of the same feature on a Ferrari. When it comes to innovations like this, their developers stick to the old proven principle: balance is more important than the overall downforce generated by the car’s aerodynamic body kit.

You can greatly increase the efficiency of the rear wing, but the front of the car has to work with the rear to allow the rider to find the right balance.

A detailed comparison of the previous version of the wing with the one presented in Monaco makes it possible to understand the logic that guided the American team.

The Haas F1 decided to follow Ferrari’s lead and added five separators that support the rear wing plane while diverting the airflow outwards. The angle at which they are oriented to the direction of travel increases towards the sides of the machine to increase flow around the front tire. Initially, the intention was to test this design in Imola and it will be used in all upcoming phases of the season.

The edges of the new wing, adjacent to the end plates, also look different, but I think the difference here is mostly external.

It is interesting how all the teams work to find a balanced approach to the settings of the machines, whose aerodynamic kits are tuned for extra downforce. At most stages, the front wing and aerodynamic elements at the rear of the machine usually need to be optimized for medium to high pressure levels.

At the same time, the settings of the car’s aerodynamic body kit can be changed within fairly narrow limits in the process of finding the right balance. But when you need to get to a higher level of pressure, like in Monaco, or vice versa, to lower it as much as possible, like in Monza, then during the normal setup of the car on the track you will be on the plane of the front wing that is behind the rest of its elements.

The main focus should be on this: the additional elements of the front wing, which are necessary to achieve the required balance on the track in Monaco, must not lead to a decrease in pressure at the rear of the car. If this happens, any measures you take to compensate for these losses will only increase drag.