Illegally flexing rear wings

Here are our CFD links and discussions about aerodynamics, suspension, driver safety and tyres. Please stick to F1 on this forum.
User avatar
jezzwa
0
Joined: 02 Jan 2006, 14:04
Location: Adelaide, South Australia

Illegally flexing rear wings

Post

Has anyone heard anything detailed about Ferrari's "illegal" rear wing, or are Ferrari just making good interpretation of the rules :?: :?:

Note by Tomba: Any off topic posts WILL be removed.
Check here for Ferrari's moving front wing: viewtopic.php?t=2184
Vote 1 for GPs back in Adelaide

User avatar
joseff
11
Joined: 24 Sep 2002, 11:53

Post

I think it's just sensationalist journalism... FIA checked the cars on Saturday morning and found the cars totally kosher.

I hope this means this year won't be a total Renault walkover.

Me? No, not a Ferrari fan. Williams all the way!

User avatar
m3_lover
0
Joined: 26 Jan 2006, 07:29
Location: St.Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Post

A cloud has moved above Ferrari's return to form in Bahrain, with reports that F1 rivals - including Renault - are questioning the legality of the new '248 F1' car's rear wing.

It is suggested that the Maranello based team's wing can 'flex' at high speed, and that while it may pass the specific FIA tests, it is designed to flex only in areas that are not tested by the stewards.

FIA inspectors were spotted and photographed inside the scarlet garage on Saturday, and are understood to have given the wing the all-clear.
Simon: Nils? You can close in now. Nils?
John McClane: [on the guard's phone] Attention! Attention! Nils is dead! I repeat, Nils is dead, ----head. So's his pal, and those four guys from the East German All-Stars, your boys at the bank? They're gonna be a little late.
Simon: [on the phone] John... in the back of the truck you're driving, there's $13 billon dollars worth in gold bullion. I wonder would a deal be out of the question?
John McClane: [on the phone] Yeah, I got a deal for you. Come out from that rock you're hiding under, and I'll drive this truck up your ass.

Mikey_s
Mikey_s
8
Joined: 21 Dec 2005, 11:06

Post

This issue highlights a continuing issue which I have commented on in other threads... it would appear that the wing passes the requisite tests, but Pat Symonds is not happy. So,... the wing is legal, but the Ferrari engineers have found a way to tweak the performance so that the wing bends when it is used as intended....

So much for trying to nail every last tiny detail down in the rules... As for the comments from Pat Symonds, if it's legal then get one of your own...

By the way, do es any one have any pics which demonstrate the phenomenon?
Mike

zac510
zac510
22
Joined: 24 Jan 2006, 12:58

Post

Hopefully they put a rear facing camera on the car at Sepang :)

If the FIA rules are defined for safety reasons and the Ferrari wing is inside this rule, then there should be no argument. It is simply a high performing wing that the other teams don't have!

peroa
peroa
0
Joined: 30 Jan 2006, 11:14
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Post

auto motor und sport reports that the besides the wing there is also complaint about the carbonrings on the outer side of the rims.

Now listen to this: the stewards declared this rings as part of the braking system! :?: :-s
Easy on the Appletini!

manchild
manchild
12
Joined: 03 Jun 2005, 10:54

Post

peroa wrote:auto motor und sport reports that the besides the wing there is also complaint about the carbonrings on the outer side of the rims.

Now listen to this: the stewards declared this rings as part of the braking system! :?: :-s
So it was their BBS on that pic? If those are their wheels than carbon ring must work in combination with those wide brake drums.

So, they are back on old path - "cheat while FIA stewards are our guys". :roll:

Anyone who can read and has normal vision can tell that those rings are illegal.
Formula One cars must have four, uncovered wheels, all made of the same metallic material. Front wheels must be between 305 and 355mm wide, the rears between 365 and 380mm.

With tyres fitted the wheels must be no more than 660mm in diameter (670mm with wet-weather tyres). Measurements are taken with tyres inflated to 1.4 bar.

FIA Regulations in detail

ARTICLE 12: WHEELS AND TYRES
12.1 Location:
Wheels must be external to the bodywork in plan view, with the rear aerodynamic device removed.
12.2 Number of wheels:
The number of wheels is fixed at four.
12.3 Wheel material:
[img]All%20wheels%20must%20be%20made%20from%20an%20homogeneous%20metallic%20material[/img].
12.4 Wheel dimensions:
12.4.1 Complete wheel width must lie between 305 and 355mm when fitted to the front of the car and between 365 and 380mm when fitted to the rear.
12.4.2 Complete wheel diameter must not exceed 660mm when fitted with dry-weather tyres or 670mm when fitted with wet-weather tyres.
12.4.3 Complete wheel width and diameter will be measured horizontally at axle height, with the wheel held in a vertical position and when fitted with new tyres inflated to 1.4 bar.
12.4.4 Wheel bead diameter must lie between 328 and 332mm.

User avatar
Sawtooth-spike
0
Joined: 28 Jan 2005, 15:33
Location: Cambridge

Post

i would like to ask a question, in recent history a number of teams have had race ban and point taken away for having ilegal part on there car. I would just like to know when was the last time ferrari were pulled up on ilegal parts?

Surely if the past is anything to go by, If Flexing wings are not allowed for safety reasons, and ferrari have found a way of making there wing legal for there test but still allow a fair amount of flex, then the fia in the name of safety (Max) should change the test?
I believe in the chain of command, Its the chain I use to beat you till you do what i want!!!

User avatar
Scuderia_Russ
0
Joined: 17 Jan 2004, 22:24
Location: Motorsport Valley, England.

Post

peroa wrote:Now listen to this: the stewards declared this rings as part of the braking system! :?: :-s
Have you got any links to this because I can't find the ring story anywhere.
manchild wrote:So, they are back on old path - "cheat while FIA stewards are our guys".
Wow there big fella, hold yer horses. This is total speculation.
kkobayash wrote:i bet if it was honda (or even mclaren, renault ... etc etc. for that matter) they would have already been banned for two races
Now this is just silly. Why would the scrutineers say Ferrari could run with them and tell another team they can't?! Scarbs... help us out mate.

Mikey_s
Mikey_s
8
Joined: 21 Dec 2005, 11:06

Post

Ferrari have been challenged on bargeboards (2003 I think) and allegations that the floor of the 2004 car was flexing - in both cases no further action was taken - If memory serves me right the bargeboard issue was argued that it was due to manufacturing tolerances, and argument that (even as a Ferrari fan) I find difficult to accept in a game where fractions of a millimetre are crucial.

Nevertheless, I do not hold with the view that Ferrari are allowed to get away with cheating when the other teams are not. As has been mentioned numerous times in the past, the windows for innovation are kept tightly shut by overly restrictive rules and regulations - if Ferrari have found a way to develop a wing which passes the tests, but works better - and if the FIA scrutineers have passed it then the other teams should follow suit and stop bellyaching. If it really is dangerous (which I doubt) then the FIA will just have to introduce another rule.... In any case, some of the nose camera shots during the race clearly show the trailing edge of the front wing flexes tremendously - is that illegal (if it passes scrutineering?) - coz they all do it.
Mike

User avatar
Scuderia_Russ
0
Joined: 17 Jan 2004, 22:24
Location: Motorsport Valley, England.

Post

Mikey_s wrote:Ferrari have been challenged on bargeboards (2003 I think) and allegations that the floor of the 2004 car was flexing - in both cases no further action was taken - If memory serves me right the bargeboard issue was argued that it was due to manufacturing tolerances, and argument that (even as a Ferrari fan) I find difficult to accept in a game where fractions of a millimetre are crucial.
The bardgeboard issue was because their shape meant the scrutineers were unable to measure their compliance with a straight edge. Basically because of the complicated shape, the bardgeboards compliance with the rules was unable to be verified.

mcdenife
mcdenife
1
Joined: 05 Nov 2004, 13:21
Location: Timbuck2

Post

The bardgeboard issue was because their shape meant the scrutineers were unable to measure their compliance with a straight edge.
IIRC, Ferrari initially admitted they were illegal which meant the car was not impounded and the part was not taken to be scrutinized. They then withdrew their admission. The scrutineer could not therefore say whether they had the actual bargeboards from cars that raced in malaysia or not.
Max later said it was Mclaren's fault ferrari got away with it as they should have provided evidence, can you believe that?
Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regards to matters requiring thought. The less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them; while on the other hand, to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgement upon anything new. - Galileo..

The noblest of dogs is the hot dog. It feeds the hand that bites it.

djones
djones
20
Joined: 17 Mar 2005, 15:01

Post

manchild - get a life, your always complaining about Ferrari.

If Ferrari, or any team for that matter can design something to pass the tests yet still provide a desired effect then fair play to them!!

Do you not think other teams do similar things all the time??

Designers designing things to get around the rules (and tests) is all part of F1, it always has been and always will be.

User avatar
Sawtooth-spike
0
Joined: 28 Jan 2005, 15:33
Location: Cambridge

Post

i think the issue is,

Its seems that Ferrari, tend to get away with things a little more. Now that might be to do with them boxing clever, if so then fair play, but it can look a little sus. I Really dont know, its hard to prove ether way.

Designers design to the maximum of the rules, simple as. i do feel the stewards should be held to account more, its seems sometimes the rules punishments are not consistant and sometime the rules are not applyed the same, Eg. BAR racing 3 races with an illegal fuel tack, and only being called on it when they got points. Surely they should of be done for it one race one.

there is no point in having a Ferrari fans V everybody else war on this forum.
I believe in the chain of command, Its the chain I use to beat you till you do what i want!!!

manchild
manchild
12
Joined: 03 Jun 2005, 10:54

Post

djones wrote:manchild - get a life, your always complaining about Ferrari.

If Ferrari, or any team for that matter can design something to pass the tests yet still provide a desired effect then fair play to them!!

Do you not think other teams do similar things all the time??

Designers designing things to get around the rules (and tests) is all part of F1, it always has been and always will be.
I don’t need to get a life but Ferrari needs to stop cheating! If other teams were cheating they’d get caught too. Or perhaps you think that we shouldn’t point the finger on cheater?

Have you ever heard any other forum member, journalist, reporter or anyone else complaining about illegal moves of any other team since 1996 as near as much as about Ferrari (or Schuey ’94-’95)?

No one is making that up; people are only recognizing frequent cheating as pattern of Ferrari’s policy. Think a bit why other teams are very rarely or never mentioned and keep in mind that 2 out of 23 members of FIA WMC are from Ferrari with no other WMC member being from any other F1 team.

*I won't be going into war here but I wonder why some Ferrari fans defend cheating as the way of getting victory? Being fan is one thing but supporting individuals in team who are cheating and bringing Ferrari bad reputation isn't logical to me. True Ferrari fans should be the first one to point out such people and put pressure on Scuderia to sack them instead of glorifying them.*

This is text taken from one site dealing only with 1997-2000
"Why Ferrari are Bigger than the Law"

Many people forget just how important the Ferrari team and all its spin-offs are to Formula one. The world of Formula One is worth billions of dollars, and the Ferrari team is worth almost the same as this Formula One itself. This begs the question - where do Ferrari stand when it comes to going by the rule book and all things related to it. The answer to this question is that Ferrari stand in a very strong position - purely because of their own value, as well as their 'golden' value to the sport itself.
The day before the 1997 title decider between Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve at Jerez in 1997, the FIA gave this official statement:

“In the race tomorrow, we will not accept any unsportsman-like behaviour on the track whatsoever. Any activity of this nature will be dealt with by the most severe of measures…”

So, what happens in the race? Schumacher tries to knock Villeneuve off the track to win the title and get away with it again just like he did in 1994 against Hill. However, he just so happened to hit the toughest part of Villeneuve’s car – the sidepod! Ha, ha – unlucky. Anyway, after Schumacher’s demise from the rest of the race, what was his punishment for trying to cheat again? He had all his points taken away. Oh no – what a terrible punishment! If Villeneuve would have knocked him off, I am sure the punishment would have been much harder.

Additionally, Schumacher also got a ‘Community Service’ type punishment, which involved teaching youngsters how to drive cars apparently. Anyway, the international media as a whole chose to avoid reporting this and completely side-stepped pressing the FIA into conceding why Schumacher was given such a lenient punishment. I, myself, was only aware of Schumacher receiving this lenient ‘driving’ punishment in November 1998 – 12 months after he got it! This proves that the media tried their very hardest to overlook this pathetic punishment, and this is just another example of the FIA – Bernie Ecclestone and Max Moseley – bending over backwards for Schumacher & Ferrari.

In Malaysia at the 1999 Grand Prix at Sepang, the Ferrari team recorded a 1-2 result - the best result that a team can ever get in Formula One. After the race, it came to the attention of the race stuards that both Ferrari cars had irregular and "illegal" barge-boards fitted (plates on both sides of the car that are related to the radiator inlets). The problem was that there was an extended part at the bottom of each barge-board that was not in concurrence with the rules for the barge-boards.

Should the Ferrari team have been banned from the race, Mika Hakkinen would have been promoted to first position - therefore he would have been crowned World Champion there and then. However, Ferrari appealed against this banning to the FIA (the sport's governing body) as soon as they heard of the disqualification. Incidentally, appealing is often considered by the FIA as 'asking for trouble', and teams have been warned of even deeper trouble should they appeal against any banning and end up unsuccessful. But Ferrari, of course, were not at all warned in this way about their appeal.

Moving on, Ferrari were granted a trial several days after they were banned, and during this time, the FIA would have certainly been weighing-up the consequences of Ferrari being successful and unsuccessful. They would have swiftly come up with the opinion that should Ferrari fail in their appeal - and Hakkinen subsequently be crowned champion there and then - then the sport would potentially lose billions of dollars of merchandise money should Ferrari win the Drivers' championship and the Constructors' Championship at the final race in Japan.

Solution? Simple. Contradict both the stuards 'banning' of the barge-boards and let Ferrari get away scot-free in the trial. So what happened? Exactly this!

If anyone is in any doubt about what is said above, then they should have looked at the arrogant smile on Eddie Irvine's face when walking away free from the court room - it was written all over his face that they got away with it - not to mention Bernie Ecclestones and Max Moseley's faces in the British broadsheet newspapers the day after the trial.

An extremely important thing remains to be said. After the controversy of Ferrari's 'illegal' barge-boards came another revelation - but it came several weeks after the race. This revelation - which you may still be unaware of due to the international media deliberately avoiding it - is as shocking as the first. During the same Grand Prix, Ferrari were accused of using a form of Traction Control by an anonymous source in the F1 paddock (traction control is a software program which limits wheel-spin when the cars exit slow corners in order to increase exit speed). The anonymity of this individual should not detract from the believability of what he said because he is spot on. If you have access to a copy of the 1999 Malaysian GP, then watch the rear-wheels of Michael Schumacher's car when he exits the slower corners on the track - especially the first and last corners. If you look closely, you can see his wheels and car rear-end exit in an ultra smooth manner. Also, if you look at Hakkinen who was right behind him, you will notice how differently and slowly he exits the same corners compared to how Schumacher does.
There was also a website similar to mine that included footage of Schumacher exiting the slower corners. Unfortunatley, the site has moved base and I have lost track of it.

I have yet another revelation on this subject. Max Moseley, the head of the FIA - the sport's governing body - was quoted on the motorsport page of BBC teletext (pg.360) as saying the following:

"I am aware of an un-named team using traction control in 1999, and I will have a quiet word with them."

This is the purest evidence you will ever get of Ferrari getting away with illegalities. Not only does this quote prove that Ferrari actually used traction control, it proves that Moseley is prepared to indirectly voice his partiality towards them, and, most importantly, the simple fact that he is prepared to "have a quiet word with them" instead of banning them from the race and punishing them for an infringement (banning them would have made McLaren the 1999 Constructors' Championships!).
So, in giving that quote, he is basically saying that Ferrari got away with an illegality and that he and the FIA are going to do nothing about it. So, you can rest assured that Ferrari are extremely unlikely to ever get banned on ANY illegality ever again in the near and probably distant future.

This is serious stuff people.

If only the mass media would tell the motorsport world the truth and bring Ferrari and the FIA to justice!

In contrast to Ferrari, McLaren – Ferrari’s chief rivals – have unsurprisingly had a much rougher time than Ferrari when it comes to ‘infringements’. Due to the fact that McLaren are Ferrari’s main threat, Ecclestone, Moseley and his ‘FIA’ make life much more difficult for the English team rather than for the cheating Italian team.

Take Brazil 2000, for example. David Coulthard finished in a strong second place, but after the race, his car was deemed illegal by the FIA due to a ‘supposed’ front-wing irregularity. The race stuards and the FIA said that Coulthard’s front wing was 5mm shy of the required dimensions. However, what had really happened was that his front-wing had been slightly damaged during the race, and because it was damaged, it was dragging on the ground throughout almost the whole race. If his car had genuinely been in an illegal condition, then that would have warranted the disqualification – but the stuards/FIA deliberately avoided what really happened in order to help Ferrari as much as they possibly could and maximise their chances of winning both championships purely for money-making purposes.

There is an important addition to this area of discussion. In Austria 2000, McLaren were again in trouble for a ‘missing’ engine seal on Mika Hakkinen’s race-winning car. Formula 1 cars’ engines are fitted with two seals that prevent any illegal ‘tampering’ of the engine during or before a race. Hakkinen’s car had one of these seals – which was perfectly intact – but was without the other one. As yet, my sources still don’t know why this was missing, but the fact that there was ONE seal is an indication of McLaren’s intent to keep the car within the rules before the race. But, the stuards/FIA chose yet again to completely ingnore McLaren’s side of the story, and decided to rob them of 10 more crucial constructors’ points. Notice how they kept the focus on jeopardise McLaren’s constructors’ championship hopes rather than Hakkinen’s championship challenge (probably because Ferrari looked more like winning the Drivers’ Championship than they did the Constructors’ Championship at that point!)

So, through these two disqualifications, the stuards, Ecclestone and Moseley have made an all out systematic assault on the McLaren team – which ultimately cost them 16 constructors’ points (basically the Constructors’ Championship!) and 6 drivers’ points. Ferrari certainly had yet another huge helping hand throughout the year 2000 World Championship.