F-duct or no F-duct?\u00a0 That is the question on qualifying day at the Italian grand prix.<\/p>\n
It has emerged that McLaren is running a split strategy for Saturday’s final practice session, with Lewis Hamilton not using the downforce-stalling device while Jenson Button keeps the bigger wings and F-duct.<\/p>\n
Force India, however, has definitely decided not to run the system this weekend, while Williams, Mercedes and Red Bull are using the F-duct at Monza.<\/p>\n
“We’re going with the F-duct,” confirmed Red Bull’s Helmut Marko to Auto Motor und Sport.<\/p>\n
It is a particular dilemma at the Italian circuit, because while the bigger wings produce much more downforce and grip in the corners, the low-drag ‘tea-tray’-style wings are quicker on the straights.<\/p>\n
Renault is weighing up the options, particularly because the higher downforce of the F-duct configuration is kinder to the brakes and the tyres over a race distance.<\/p>\n
But footage from Robert Kubica’s car on Friday showed him driving essentially one-handed through the Parabolica.<\/p>\n
“No problem,” said the Pole.\u00a0 “It was not so much fun in Eau Rouge (at Spa two weeks ago).”<\/p>\n
As for the likely pole sitter and winner this weekend, the situation is less clear.<\/p>\n
Said McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh: “Before the weekend there was speculation about us being strong and Red Bull weak.\u00a0 I never thought that would be the case.”<\/p>\n
Ferrari’s Alonso agreed: “The Red Bull is showing it works well at any type of circuit, but I think McLaren are very strong, both for pole position and to win the race.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" F-duct or no F-duct?\u00a0 That is the question on qualifying day at the Italian grand prix. It has emerged that McLaren is running a split strategy for Saturday’s final practice session, with Lewis Hamilton not using the downforce-stalling device while Jenson Button keeps the bigger wings and F-duct. Force India, however, has definitely decided not …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[1175,5262,5340,2137,384],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8322,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321\/revisions\/8322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}