Flexible wings 2011

[Just_a_fan]

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.

If it looks like becoming a run away season for Vettel I'd expect to see the FIA suddenly change the tests. If they do so, I'd also expect to see Bernie behind pulling the strings. Bernie can't afford for the season to be boring or to finish early. If the title races are over by e.g. 2/3 of the way through the season then the worldwide TV audience figures will certainly dip and with it advertising revenues etc.

Maybe Todt will be better at resisting Bernie, but I look back at the mass damper ban as an example of a mid season rule change designed solely to keep the championship alive for longer.

[adam2007]

can they get the rear wing to flex aswel a lot more?

[red300zx99]

I don't like RBR, but they are breaking no rules as they pass the test.

[Holm86]

If a man kills a guy and it cant be proven. It dosent mean he didnt break the rules!

[penguin]

Sorry if someone has already posted something like this, but I created this GIF and figured I'd share:

[LegendaryM]

i think ive thought a way to flex the front wing without fancy carbon fibre lay ups. ill post it on my f1 car thread tommorow, im off to bed now

[Dragonfly]

On the photo above there's no external reference. And it seems that the whole front is "nodding".

[ianwit]

Someone asked about the testing procedure. This picture was taken a week ago (courtesy Sutton Images) in Aus and it looks like the teams have to provide two wings for testing.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

@Dragonfly

I think you can tell from ther suspension, and also the part of the nose nearest the camera that the remain static while the furthest reach of nose is flexing be it a centimeter or 2.

Flex wing and flex nose. Ban it outright or everyone will have it and we have more Button/Vettel Spa incidents due to the DRS slipstream.

[forty-two]

Someone asked about the testing procedure. This picture was taken a week ago (courtesy Sutton Images) in Aus and it looks like the teams have to provide two wings for testing.

Great picture ianwit, thanks for posting

One for each car?

This is the first picture I have actually seen of such a test being carried out.

What strikes me is that if the wing is tested in isolation, i.e. not attached to the chassis, there is scope for a flexible anchorage fitted to the car. In other words, the wing might not flex, but if it's attached via rubber bushes mounted to the front of the car, the wing and nose as a whole may be able to move relative to the chassis, which is precisely what we seem to be seeing in the gif posted above, and this was also seen last year on the RB6.

Throw in a bit of rotational flex in the pillars themselves, and a bit more in the attachment point between nose and pillar, and also pillar and wing, and I think you'd achieve what we've all seen on the Red Bull.

[horse]

What strikes me is that if the wing is tested in isolation, i.e. not attached to the chassis, there is scope for a flexible anchorage fitted to the car. In other words, the wing might not flex, but if it's attached via rubber bushes mounted to the front of the car, the wing and nose as a whole may be able to move relative to the chassis, which is precisely what we seem to be seeing in the gif posted above, and this was also seen last year on the RB6.

It could flex from the joints, but don't you split the bodywork if it does that? Wouldn't we see a crack appearing at the join to the nose cone?

[forty-two]

What strikes me is that if the wing is tested in isolation, i.e. not attached to the chassis, there is scope for a flexible anchorage fitted to the car. In other words, the wing might not flex, but if it's attached via rubber bushes mounted to the front of the car, the wing and nose as a whole may be able to move relative to the chassis, which is precisely what we seem to be seeing in the gif posted above, and this was also seen last year on the RB6.

It could flex from the joints, but don't you split the bodywork if it does that? Wouldn't we see a crack appearing at the join to the nose cone?

I can think of at least a couple of ways of avoiding that being visible. The simplest of which would be to have a design where a thin skin protruding from the nose overlaps the bodywork of the front of the tub, but who is to say that the outer body of the front 9 inches of the tub isn't somewhat pliable?

[tok-tokkie]

Sorry if someone has already posted something like this, but I created this GIF and figured I'd share:

This shows it so dramatically. The upper suspension & Mercedes logo are perfectly aligned between the 2 pictures. The camera droops significantly. So does the wing.

Trouble is clever Photoshopping was required to make the GIF so one can't be sure it was not also used on the camera & front wing.

[bhall]

It looks like they are testing each specification of wing that Ferrari brought to Australia, which makes sense.

Given the test being run in isolation of the rest of the car, would applying a frontal load in concert with the downward load possibly root out bendy wings which are only bendy at speed?

[forty-two]

Sorry if someone has already posted something like this, but I created this GIF and figured I'd share:

This shows it so dramatically. The upper suspension & Mercedes logo are perfectly aligned between the 2 pictures. The camera droops significantly. So does the wing.

Trouble is clever Photoshopping was required to make the GIF so one can't be sure it was not also used on the camera & front wing.

Sorry, Mercedes logo? This is a Red Bull Renault nose isn't it?

The lighting adds a bit of confusion to this image, and more importantly the choice of colour on the car itself (as did McLaren with the orange on their RW last year), and the curved corners add to this. But I have little doubt of this animation's validity. I've seen this behaviour on the RB6 and RB7 from video on the TV, albeit from a stream of frames rather than two chosen to illustrate the point.