Renault have shown an impressive turn of development over the past three races, with various floor, bargeboard and front-wing configurations being trialled – and often gone on to race in Austria, Britain and again in Hungary.
The Enstone outfit are starting to operate like a proper front running team again and in Nico Hulkenburg they have a driver who can extract the maximum out of their current package.
A new diffuser in Hungary diverges away from their previous concept and actually borrows a lot of ideas from other teams to formulate something unique to the R.S.17.
Its rectangular profile maximises the box area available within the regulations, slotted at the outboard edges [1] to pull the air out from underneath as well as up (i.e. outwash).
Eight turning vanes of various sizes are on hand to aid this process, as are the two Gurney flaps [2] running the width of the diffuser.
The regulatory central ridge [3] has a much steeper angle, too, so four pairs of vortex generators [4] have been added, lining the bottom of the floor to prevent flow from detaching as it rises.
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