By Huw Alban
November 25 2005

When Midland first bought Jordan a year ago, they came in making grand claims of re-investment and development. Today, as if to answer the doubters out there, has come news that the Brackley wind tunnel is to be enlarged to accept a 50% scale model. In a development likely to cost many millions of pounds Midland are planning a major upgrade to the existing facility in Brackley. Media outlets everywhere are seeing this as the first sign that the team are serious about making a success of Formula One Motorsport.

In this week's Autosport magazine has appeared an article proclaiming that the team are planning to increase the wind tunnel size so that it can accomodate a 50% sized scale model. Currently, the facility can only handle a 40% model.

In addition the facility will be restructured so that it can run 24 hours a days rather than the current 18 hours, increasing the productivity of the investment.

The plans are due to kick off April/May time in 2006 and it is speculated that work will take approximately 1 month. Whilst the work is in progress, development will not stop as there is a further plan to rent another facility.

Midland's sporting director Adrian Burgess has been quoted as saying, "This is a big boost for the team," by Autosport.

A 10% gain in size doesn't sound much, but a knowledgeable source has revealed that moving to 50% is a huge gain in component scaling and manufacturing as well as the resultant data reprocessing, i.e. just times the figures by 2 to get 100%. This in turn produces yet further advances as the simpler the tunnel data is to work with mathematically the more time can be spent actually testing the components.

The biggest gain, reportedly, comes from tyre deflection. Bridgestone has spent three years developing a good 50% scale tyre that deflects air correctly. Midland can now use this development themselves on their 50% model car giving more accurate and meanful results, which should ultimately result in the car going faster !