Flexible wings 2011

[Danny_W]

Doesn't the wing have to be 85mm clear of the ground though at all times?
Surely they have enough pictorial evidence to prove it doesn't maintain the correct height at all times?

Again, that was enough to deem the michelins illegal.

[Ferraripilot]

Right, their method of policing the rule is terrible. Weight should be placed where wing flex would be shown most clearly, ie, the very endplates of the wing. Not only that, but the weight applied should simulate that of what top speed corners apply in terms of kg to the front wing ends.

[ecapox]

I think it is proven by the use of those tethers on the nose that Redbull and McLaren are testing the forces at work on the wing at certain speeds. By testing this, they can make a front wing that passes the FIA tests +/- a margin of error and at the same time create a wing that flexes at a given speed.

I cannot remember what the FIA test weights are but i'd go all in and say that they are nowhere close to the effects that the wing sees at high speed.

There are only 2 ways to completely get rid of flexing wings:

1. Create a standard bottom plane for the wing and uprights and allow teams to add upper elements. Make this bottom plane not deflect more than a mm with a 200kg weight.

2. Insert at the ends of the front wing a laser that measures the distance from the bottom of the wing to the ground and record the telemetry. This way at the end of the race they can easily look at the times where a wing within below a certain distance to the ground and then check other telemetry to verify that the car hadnt hit a curb or gone off track. If they go below a certain level and there is no "extra issue" then they get disqualified and are forced to fix the wing.


I think the issue at heart here is that the FIA tests are not catching the wing deflection. They can change the test or add more weight, but as long as they keep it how it is now, Redbull will continue to pass the tests and have their car deemed legal. And the onerous is on the FIA to enforce it's rules.

[juicesharp]

Why not include the McLaren as well, as posted on the McLaren thread. That also flexes! Charlie has officially stated that the Red Bull wing is fully legal.

You can include it. They are flexible too but on a different speed and their wing not so much flex as RB's wing is.

Hamilton said about RB's wings:

“Have you seen Vettel's front wing?” Hamilton asked the reporters from Germany's Bild newspaper, suggesting that a big reason for Red Bull's domination in Australia was the result of the flexibility in the RB7's front wing. “Either we close the loophole or everyone will copy it,” he added.

http://www.autoevolution.com/news/hamil ... 33432.html

So flexibility is obvious thing for him, I think that is clear for all, but not for the FIA.

[Holm86]

The neutral section of the Red Bull is also alot closer to the ground. Is this due to the nosecone itself flexing or has it something to do with rake??

[Lindz]

The neutral section of the Red Bull is also alot closer to the ground. Is this due to the nosecone itself flexing or has it something to do with rake??

I think it's mostly the rake, with perhaps some of this 'cone flex'.

[forty-two]

@Holm86

I would say probably a bit of rake and a bit of nose and/or strut and/or strut/wing interface flexing.

[vall]

WOW! The Ferrari WF hardly moves The seem to have followed the regulations latter by letter Last year their FW was flexing much more...

[malcolm]

I actually think that a mandated bottom plane, which teams could then add second, third elements on to, and their own endplate design would not be such a bad idea, but I wouldn't like direction that this would be taking the sport (i.e. toward a mandated chassis design).

Even simpler, why not a mandated spar? Make sure the spar is super-rigid, and then the teams can use their own profile over it.

Of course, some thought would have to go into making sure the element didn't flex around the spar...

[Giboska]

It makes me think why FIA doesn't want to slow Red Bull down? Everybody nows the wing is flexing, everybody sees it...FIA says ''car is in order''...very very frustrating. Given how long flexing was evident for more adequate test would have been developed by now.

No wonder F1 audience is dropping. I'm personally bored to see Vettel qualifying first and just drive car home...I want to see Vettel/Hamilton/Alonso race each other, that would spice things up, not Bernie's crazy F1 sprinkler system.

Speaking about Vettel, I'm not even sure how great he is as a driver? The car alone is miles ahead of competition, difficult to asses drivers skills/contribution to the overall result

Would love to see what Hamilton and Alonso could do if they had Red Bull in their hands?

Phew, let some steam out....

P.S. I have been following F1technical forum for a while and just wanted to say it's a great place and thank you all guys for your contributions. Exciting reading!!!

[forty-two]

^^^

Great first post, and welcome to the forum.

I'm not too sure that the F1 Audience is dropping. I heard for example that 8 million people watched the live race on the BBC here in the UK alone (last year was something like 2 million viewers).

But generally, I agree with your sentiments.

[Lindz]

^^^
So Hamilton won his championship in a crap car? And he's done what with a lesser one? F1 is not just the driver, but the entire team. I know how you feel... if I had my way Kimi would have been at least 3x WDC by now. Curses to 2003 and 2005 (and a few more!).

C'mon guys... this is showing your bias about this being related to who you like as a team/driver. Keep that for another thread, there are plenty of those.

Back to the wing/Red Bull car: The rules had chance to be re-written and the tests re-designed. Teams were bleating about the flexible wings last year and they didn't seem to mind trying their hand at designing some over the winter break.

Once the rules are agreed upon, you can't punish the team who does the best job designing around them. Not least after 1 race.

[forty-two]

^^^
So Hamilton won his championship in a crap car? And he's done what with a lesser one? F1 is not just the driver, but the entire team. I know how you feel... if I had my way Kimi would have been at least 3x WDC by now. Curses to 2003 and 2005 (and a few more!).

C'mon guys... this is showing your bias about this being related to who you like as a team/driver. Keep that for another thread, there are plenty of those.

Back to the wing/Red Bull car: The rules had chance to be re-written and the tests re-designed. Teams were bleating about the flexible wings last year and they didn't seem to mind trying their hand at designing some over the winter break.

Once the rules are agreed upon, you can't punish the team who does the best job designing around them. Not least after 1 race.

OK, perhaps I didn't make myself clear.
Personally, I do my level best to never show bias in my posts on here, as it really is not the place for it as you rightly pointed out. But I would like to see the likes of Hamilton, Alonso, Button, Kubica, hell I'd even be interested in seeing some of the rookies in an RB7 just to obtain an idea of how much more advanced (or not) the RB7 would look in those hands.

The FIA reserve the right to alter their tests or add new ones AT ANY TIME should they feel that any team is breaking the rule, so to be accurate, the FIA would be well within their rights to "punish" any team who is breaking the rule.

As I stated above, I do believe that Red Bull are breaking the rule, but they are passing the tests, which is quite a different thing to obeying the rule!

For example, in my primary school, we weren't allowed to run in the corridors, so everyone used to run until they approached a door to a classroom (which might contain a teacher!) walk for three yards, then run again. We were breaking the rule, but we weren't "failing the test" (where the "test" was the eagle eyed teachers who might be in any given classroom!).

Just because someone doesn't get snapped by the Gatso camera, doesn't mean he wasn't doing 120MPH since the previous Gatso! I could go on with other examples here if you wish but I think you get my point?

[fenix4life]

RB has violated the rule by showing the Fia what an exersize in futility their test is, in essence giving the finger to the purpose of the test and the rule. Must be infuriating to teams at the moment. Clip their wings.

Isn't that what every team is trying to do. Interpreting the rules around the edge.

If a rule says you need to drive max 120 but the check is being performed with a 5 correction that means you can drive without a problem 125 as the correction of 5 gives you 120 and that's ok with the rules.
THe Michelin tyres was just the same. They intepreted the rules such a way that they were in breach during the race but perfectly within the rules during the checks.
The Double Deck difuser of Brawn was also against the rules but declared legal.

I'm almost sure that every car is in breach with a specific rule if it's checked in every circumstance. ANd we shouldn't forget that F1 has always been searching for the edge around the restricitions

Red Bull did a clever job with working around the rules.

[Ferraripilot]

RB has violated the rule by showing the Fia what an exersize in futility their test is, in essence giving the finger to the purpose of the test and the rule. Must be infuriating to teams at the moment. Clip their wings.

Isn't that what every team is trying to do. Interpreting the rules around the edge.

If a rule says you need to drive max 120 but the check is being performed with a 5 correction that means you can drive without a problem 125 as the correction of 5 gives you 120 and that's ok with the rules.
THe Michelin tyres was just the same. They intepreted the rules such a way that they were in breach during the race but perfectly within the rules during the checks.
The Double Deck difuser of Brawn was also against the rules but declared legal.

I'm almost sure that every car is in breach with a specific rule if it's checked in every circumstance. ANd we shouldn't forget that F1 has always been searching for the edge around the restricitions

Red Bull did a clever job with working around the rules.

As I have stated prior, there is a difference between rhetorical interpretation of a rule and outright rule breaking due to the test being deficient for what it is designed to police.

Red Bull has not done a clever job working around the rules, they simply ignored the rule because they saw the test policing the rule to be exploitable. The rule is 100% clear, it's the test which requires changing.

The test essentially applies load inboard of the wing (100kg) when it should apply load and have deflection checked outboard at the endplates as this would yield what the wing is objectively up to at speed. A wind tunnel would be best but that's probably not in the cards.