Force India explains "unfortunate" VJM10 nose step
Force India has explained that the "unfortunate" steep drop on the nose of its 2017 Formula 1 car is the result of wanting to exploit a restrictive area of the rules.
The team's VJM10 broke cover at Silverstone on Wednesday, featuring an eye-catching nose design as well as a bigger shark fin than any of the other teams to have launched so far.
Technical director Andy Green said the nose step was a result of Force India's chosen suspension design, coupled with an area of the rules that limits what teams can do in that area of the car.
"We have tried to exploit an area of the front suspension regulations that improved the characteristics of it from a mechanical perspective," said Green.
"It does mean that because of the way the regulations are worded, we cannot merge it into the nose as we would like. There is an exclusion box that we have to respect, so unfortunately we end up with a little bit of a ‘forehead', as it is called."
Force India's car also launched with the most radical nose design so far, but Green said the fork-like solution was just an evolution of the nostril set-up it has used since the middle of 2015.
"It is the same concept," he added, confirming that by opening the nostrils up at the bottom it allows more air to get through to the underside of the chassis, and the car does not feature an S-duct.
"It is a different looking nostril as we had last year – the same philosophy. We just opened it up a little bit more."
Green also confirmed that the specification revealed by Force India on Wednesday is "exactly" how the car will look when it first leaves the pitlane at the start of pre-season testing at Barcelona on Monday.
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