Renault Using Wind Tunnel in United States?
Someone I know in Concorde, North Carolina just informed me that they had seen last week a whole lot of people wearing Renault F1 uniforms staying at a local hotel near the Windshear Wind Tunnel. This would seem to suggest that the Renault F1 team is using the wind tunnel to develop its Formula One car.
Wow! Is all I can say. If there is one thing that Formula 1 teams pride themselves on, it's not only their wind tunnels, but their made in Europe cars. (So that actually makes two things they pride themselves on, doesn't it?) The Concorde facility is probably about 10 times bigger than those of the teams in Europe, however, and it has a full-scale rolling road for the car development. Considering how important the aerodynamic development of an F1 car is - and the fact that Renault had problems last year with its tunnel calibration - I suppose it would be worth the money to send the chassis over from Enstone, England, to Concorde. Still, it's quite something to see an F1 team use a facility also used by Nascar and IndyCar for their car development. A sign of things to come?
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A sign of things to come? Yes, i think so.
We all know the pride in making F1 cars solely in europe, but this is now becoming an outdated notion. The US and even Asia now have some of the best technology, and facilities, and with F1 being a true global sport, this move is inevitable.
Perhaps we;ll see Ferrari over there next; they really seemed to struggle with the wind at Silverstone yesterday!
You’re absolutely right. F1 is definitely going global in a way never seen before. Even Ferrari! Of course, they’ve been hiring non-Italians for years. But I think despite the Italians at the top of the team that the trend is continuing. On the other hand, as you’ll have seen, they not only struggled again today with the wind – but also with the rain. Wow.