Red Bull RB10 Renault

[wuzak]

I think the suspension question was how they scrape the undertra during qualifying but not during the race with 150kg+ fuel on board.

[SiLo]

I think the suspension question was how they scrape the undertra during qualifying but not during the race with 150kg+ fuel on board.

Correct.

Guess it's time to trawl through the pages of pictures to find one of the disguised part.

Remind me of Ferrari circa~ 2000. With illegal barge boards and flexible rear wings.

[PlatinumZealot]

You wont be able to see the offending part that easily. It was cleverly devised for exactly this reason.

My thoughts on this matter... Finding a fro t wing part made of rubber at that, should be enough by itself to ring off alarm bells. Why in the world would you use rubber! Im a front wing unless you wanted some flexibilty. Felxibilty in more ways ths
One, too!

[scarbs]

I wonder if he'll tell them about the Quali parc ferme suspension trick too?

What suspension trick?

I might be wrong, but I think it's just a joke.

[Steven]

https://twitter.com/f1technical/status/ ... 0493445120 However, a piece of metal designed to flex and return to its original shape is exactly that, a spring

[radosav]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XOkdtRa ... ata_player[/youtube]
Scarbs explanation!

[scarbs]

I’ll explain what evidence I saw of the RBR front wing flex…

It is the front wing adjuster that allows the movement, The adjuster pod was pointed out above. In the scrutineering bay a hand pressed down with just finger pressure on the top of the adjuster, this was rigid as you’d except. Then shape of the pod was squeezed, its squashed like the bulb on a bicycle horn! Then the hand pressed down on the slotted section of flap just next to the adjuster, the wing deflected very easily. I mean this was not a hefty push with the palm of a hand, more like moving the lid on your laptop. As the wing deflected the bulb deformed too, both sprung back to their original shape as soon as the pressure released.

As you can see the adjuster pod is all black, but that’s because since China it’s been a part made from metal (alu..?) and something black. Before that it was one material and painted the same colour as the wing. I’ve got pictures of the pod and assumed at the time that as it was matt black that the material was carbon of some 3D resin to create the shape. It seems it is a rubber-like material.

Therefore its proven that
1) the pod is flexible, as its counted as bodywork, that alone is in contravention of 3.15.
2) the top of the adjuster is not rigidly connected to the flap below, what appears to be a fastener running from the hex headed top through the mount on the flap is clearly not. It was suggested a leaf spring was employed within the pod between the top of the adjuster and the flap, I haven’t seen the insides of the mechanism, but clearly some form of ‘sprung’ element allows a large degree of movement for very little force. It was suggested by those who have compared it directly to other teams wings, that the RBR flap is 4 times more flexible than its rivals.

[PlatinumZealot]

Good work, Scarbs.

[nacho]

What is peculair in this case, is that if it really is pushable with fingers, the gain can't be about front wing downforce/drag then?

[PhillipM]

What is peculair in this case, is that if it really is pushable with fingers, the gain can't be about front wing downforce/drag then?

Well, a couple of fingers pushing on a flap could easily be the same as a 10kg load. That's a fair bit of downforce for just the adjustable flap?

[Just_a_fan]

And this movement won't be just about shedding downforce from the front wing but also about altering the flow over the rest of the car. Altering the flow off the front wing will alter the flow around the front wheel (a big drag producer itself) and along the side of the car to the rear wing/rear wheel flip-up pieces etc.

I would think that altering front tyre flow would be a key issue.

[trinidefender]

And this movement won't be just about shedding downforce from the front wing but also about altering the flow over the rest of the car. Altering the flow off the front wing will alter the flow around the front wheel (a big drag producer itself) and along the side of the car to the rear wing/rear wheel flip-up pieces etc.

I would think that altering front tyre flow would be a key issue.

Point No. 1
To me it was always more about the wing bent for the "normal" running at higher speed and then when you slow down the wing angle increases to maximise low speed downforce. This way the car was designed to have its normal downforce setup at higher speed and have more of a low speed advantage. The thing is at low speed the downforce level is low therefore the car will have horrible turn in. Turn in is crucial for tight low speed corners such as hairpins and the like. Daniel demonstrated this when he made that massive overtake that was the talking point of the race a few races back, can't remember exactly which race. Now as the car gathers speed the front wing will settle into its normal position (deflected under aero load) that gives it its usual downforce level at the front for whatever speed it is running.

Point No.2
Something that I have seen few on this forum discuss is aerodynamic car balance compared to speed. As speed rises most drivers prefer that their aerodynamic centre of pressure (that is where on the car longitudinally the centre point of all the downforce rests) shifts rearwards. This allows a car to be responsive and have good tun in at low speeds while having more high speed stability which is crucial for stability under braking from high speed. Having a car that is unstable under braking means you are less sure which tyre will lock up first, when exactly it will lock up and can simply mess up your entry into a corner, probably one of the main reasons that overtakes are made these days. Having more front downforce at low speed due to the wings higher angle of attack moves the aerodynamic centre of pressure forward. As the front wing deflects, it produces less down force compared to the rear of the car, there by shifting the aerodynamic centre of pressure rearward allowing for more stability at high speed.

[bill shoe]

The RB trick flap could conceivably be a more complicated two-stage thing. Stage 1 is where the airflow pushes the upper flap down directly. This reduces the vertical height of the overall wing assembly (except for endplates) and logically makes it less rigid. Stage 2 is where the overall wing assembly flexes down as a result of that reduced overall stiffness (flexes in a frown shape as seen from front of car).

Optimization of this design would require making the static stiffness of the wing (during FIA load tests) very dependent on the flap's contribution to overall wing stiffness. Then when the flap flattens out at speed the wing can become very flexy indeed. Other teams were mumbling about RB's wing having 4 times the allowed flexing, and I suspect it this must have been a two-stage situation, not just a simple matter of the flap flattening out at speed.

Horner's response in the press release strikes me as hilarious. RB must have a file cabinet full of pre-written press releases to issue in response to the FIA disqualifying them for various specific bits of trickery. Or at least I would have them pre-written if I was running that team.

[crbassassin]

What is peculair in this case, is that if it really is pushable with fingers, the gain can't be about front wing downforce/drag then?

Aerodynamic pressure acts on the entire surface of the wing in question, not just a point load like that from the flexibility test.

[djos]

Horner's response in the press release strikes me as hilarious. RB must have a file cabinet full of pre-written press releases to issue in response to the FIA disqualifying them for various specific bits of trickery. Or at least I would have them pre-written if I was running that team.

This sort of thing is hardly unique to RedBull, e.g. Ferrari used to be the absolute masters of illegal aero parts. Wings that dropped exposing sliding pins, t-trays with sprung hinged sections and so on.