That looks fantastic - but how are they able to get away without a protrusion, I thought these were a pre-requisite?
There are two schools of thought by the looks of it.
1) the front wing acts as part of the nose-cone. Apparently the FIA weren't happy with this philosophy, understandably, so they moved onto:
2) the shorter nose-cone, which obviously meets height requirements (which are clearly laid out in the technical regulations), but the crash test requirements are very specific:
- The leading 15cm must not exceed 10g deceleration
- While absorbing the first 60kJ there must be no more than 20g deceleration
That's quite a technical challenge, which, after the FIA rejected their initial plan, took them a while to adapt to get the nose they sought. I suspect the Jerez nose had a lot of the theory of the intended nose applied to it, which is perhaps what lead to it failing so easily on the first day (it's very, very rare for a wing to just fall off a car without contact).
While it seems a difficult task to pull off, if the benefits are that clear, other leading teams have either dismissed it or will be cooking up their own interpretation to suit their car at some point in the future. The nose itself has been known about for a couple of months, so the theory behind it must be well understood by the other teams already - it's just whether it's worthy of them following up against their own very different designs. While some teams are likely to adapt their current noses a little here and there (see McLaren in Bahrain), it's more likely we'll see a more common nose next season, if the current regulations are to stay exactly the same (which given the universal outcry against the appendages, seems unlikely).
