Quote:
Originally Posted by flatbutt
and the advantage of this non-compliance is what?
"In our review of the post-race infractions on the 11 and 18 cars at Pocono, it was discovered that a single piece of clear tape was positioned over each of the lower corners of the front fascia ahead of the left-front and right-front wheel openings on both those cars. The added pieces were 2 inches wide and 5 ½ inches long with a thickness of 0.012 inches and installed under the wrap."
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Just going off the above description my guess is ...
They used a strip of helicopter tape (super strong tape for leading edges of rotor blades) to seal a joint line between the front lower splitter and front bumper where the it meets the front edge of the wheel opening
The gap was probably identified during full scale wind tunnel testing or high resolution on track photos and caused by the aero loads opening up a panel joint due to not enough/incorrectly positioned fixings or stiff enough bodywork
The surface/sealing integrity of this area of the car is 'super' critical/sensitive to how the the front wheel/tyre wake flows down/under the rest of the car and/or the front aero loading on the car
'Change to the build process' is just a convenient excuse for a well thought out illegal performance advantage