Flexiwings 2025

[Cs98]

We will see, clearly the teams think its worth investing development time in, while knowing the FIA is watching this area. So brushing it off as something that hardly affects performance does not rhyme with that.

It does affect performance, but the difference between abusing the flex and having a "reasonable" amount of flex might be a tenth per lap. Not inconsequential, but hardly game-changing. No great car is great because of RW flex.

But just by looking at the footage it would seem we are getting back to levels of flex that the FIA have previously taken issue with.

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AMuS claims that Red Bull immediately went to FIA about RW flex during testing.

According to information from auto motor und sport, Red Bull had already approached the FIA ​​about the rear wings during the Formula 1 tests at the end of February. The team, led by drivers' world champion Max Verstappen, had McLaren, Ferrari, Alpine, and Haas in mind.

[SiLo]

AMuS claims that Red Bull immediately went to FIA about RW flex during testing.

According to information from auto motor und sport, Red Bull had already approached the FIA ​​about the rear wings during the Formula 1 tests at the end of February. The team, led by drivers' world champion Max Verstappen, had McLaren, Ferrari, Alpine, and Haas in mind.

And not Mercedes? Who appear to have the entire rear of the car flexing at this point.

[Anony Mous Engineerd]

And not Mercedes? Who appear to have the entire rear of the car flexing at this point.
[/quote]

ACtually, that would be brilliant. You could keep a wing ultra stiff, and let the flex occur in the chassis behind the rear sus pick up points.. You could probably get the lower diffuser to do interesting things too..

[Arcanum]

Alpine and Haas be like "What did we ever do to you? Leave us out of this!"

[Vettel165]

With having more speed on the straight, you can set up the car with more downforce.I think it could be worth a tenth or two…

[chrisc90]

With having more speed on the straight, you can set up the car with more downforce.I think it could be worth a tenth or two…

Not to mention that extra downforce will help through the corners and exit further protecting the tyres

[Vettel165]

With having more speed on the straight, you can set up the car with more downforce.I think it could be worth a tenth or two…

Not to mention that extra downforce will help through the corners and exit further protecting the tyres

Yeah in low-medium speed corners like s3 back in Australia. Mclaren had no deg at all. Strange.

[napoleon1981]

I believe the 3-4 tenth difference was exaggerated due to the tires falling of the cliff in the final sector. On harder tires the difference probably wouldnt have been as big. Anyway picking up a tenth or 2 changes the game considerably. Suddenly you have only 1-2 more tenths to make up if you are redbull and not 3-4. That is a lot more attainable on a short runway. Maybe the difference in the race is bigger, but if you can start to qualify in front the game also becomes easier.

[ispano6]

And not Mercedes? Who appear to have the entire rear of the car flexing at this point.

ACtually, that would be brilliant. You could keep a wing ultra stiff, and let the flex occur in the chassis behind the rear sus pick up points.. You could probably get the lower diffuser to do interesting things too..

Any flexing of the rear wing at any location will be obvious since the markers on the main plane and wing flap will move. The slot gap between the two is what they were trying to create with the flex, and now that gap has been minimized from 2mm to 0.5mm. Max now has the vantage point of a police man scoping out suspicious cars

[the EDGE]

Interesting piece by Sky on flexing wings, they are hypothesising that all teams must already be able to meet the new flex test otherwise they wouldn’t be able to race in china so the FIA would have delayed the new rule until the teams had chance to make new, complaint wings

They also have some great footage of the McLaren on a piece by The Race. If you look at it (5:21 onwards), to my eye, McLaren’s slot gap does not change, at all

What does happen IMO, is the whole car, not the wing, but the whole car squats. You can see this from the travel in the suspension, the whole cars drop in comparison to the wheel height

That looks like real clever stuff to me

The race clip

Sky clip

[SB15]

AMuS claims that Red Bull immediately went to FIA about RW flex during testing.

According to information from auto motor und sport, Red Bull had already approached the FIA ​​about the rear wings during the Formula 1 tests at the end of February. The team, led by drivers' world champion Max Verstappen, had McLaren, Ferrari, Alpine, and Haas in mind.

And not Mercedes? Who appear to have the entire rear of the car flexing at this point.

Which is not entirely the case because the whole rear of the car is squatting when it reaches high speed just like the Mclaren.

[SiLo]

The cars squatting at high speed is just a function of the increase in downforce, but the smart ones have systems that can drop the ride height further after constant and equal pressure across the axles.

[Vanja #66]

As is now tradition, @Auto_Racer_it has the latest scoop on the new Technical Directive regarding rear wing flexing. According to their sources, the TD contains wording that effectively mean:

A wing that passes static load tests is no longer necessarily compliant with the rules

Their article reiterates FIA is furious with some teams exploiting their static load tests and racing wings beyond the grey areas of regulations. Apparently, Rob Marshall is one of the people pushing to go over the limit of grey areas (and straight into illegal designs) and he was often not allowed to do so in Red Bull. One of such cases in the infamous illegal Spa/Baku 2024 McLaren wing - curiously never again used after it was banned, not even in Las Vegas.

Original (Italian) https://autoracer.it/it/mini-drs-e-la-n ... la-mclaren

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A wing that passes static load tests is no longer necessarily compliant with the rules

Issuing this statement means DSQ are on the table?