As we know aero work on cars was in its infancy in the late 60's / early 70's, even in "formula cars", and a lot of the things tried then look strange and crude by today's standards.
We also know that the 1973 RSR's, especially the factory R cars of the Martini team, were rolling test beds for the whole season as the racing effort switched from the prototypes to the production based cars.
Looking at the development of these cars from the Tour de Corse in late 1972 to the use of R7 in a Cam Am race against the best of the can am prototype cars less than a year later is a fascinating exercise and shows a level of development both from and engineering and aero point of view that would be hard to match in any other similar period of time in any other racing class.
I thought it would be good to have a thread on the aero developments during that time, from the emergence of the ducktail at the TdC (although the Strahle car had versions of it at the Osterreichring 1000Kms in July 1972) through the "Mary Stuart" and wide tail development of April / May 1973 (necessitated by increasingly wide rear wheels top take advantage of power increases and the search for increased corner speed) to the various "long tail" configurations that started at the 1973 Osterreichring 1000Kms in June, only 12 months after the original Strahle car, and probably culminated with the "Moby Dick" cars some years later.
But it was not only the rear of the car that underwent the development changes. As we know all to well now any change to the rear must be matched with an appropriate change at the front of the car. The exercise in learning about that process can be also seen by following the configuration changes that occurred even within race meetings. These included trying different types of front spoilers to trying different mixes of front and rear spoilers and probably different combinations for different track types (known now as low or high downforce tracks).
To start off this thread I thought I would show the various combinations of front spoilers and brake cooling ducts used in one car (R5) in the ADAC 1000 Kilometres, at the Nürburgring on 27 May 1973.
(In this race the other team car (R7) was running an enhanced version of a wide body which it first ran at Spa a couple of weeks before but here seemed to be playing with front aero to balance out the impact of the wide rear end, at least compared to the Spa outing)
Nikolay sent me a picture of the car (66) that I had not seen before and that sparked my interest in doing this thread.
The first picture shows the car at the previous race, Spa with a "normal" front spoiler for an RSR.
The next shows it in practice at Nurburbring; car 66 (identified by the "straight" numbers on the front bonnet as the race version has them at an angle). The configuration is the same as Spa.
Then there is the picture Nikolay sent - with brake ducts hanging under the spoiler.
Following that is another practice shot with an extended spoiler hanging down to cover the brake ducts (similar to the extensions used in the le mans test earlier in the year and on the wid body sister car at the same race)
Finally there is the final version used - the race version with the smaller spoiler but with brake ducts cut into it rather than hanging underneath.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by HughH
