Front wing flex and FIA

[Pyrone89]

As Turbo asked to keep the front wing flex saga out of the rear wing topic, this topic can be used to discuss the front wing flex

[Sieper]

If it is a question of principal there shouldn’t be any. There clearly is. But maybe it is not only principles at play. Maybe it is more team principles who are playing. Flexing their political muscles as well as their wings.

[DChemTech]

Well, let's see if the whole wing-saga now comes bouncing back at Mercedes, or whether the FIA was just bending over backwards to maximize Hamilton's odds of landing an unprecedented 8-title streak (even if that last title might then be tarnished by all the mudslinging on the sidelines, which would be a shame for a driver of his stature, that has achieved so much by being a clean and capable driver, in contrast to some other 7 time WDCs...)

But it's unfortunate all this bollocks is happening. This season is set out to be fine one on track, but off track, it's just a shitshow of unnecessary, undesirable mid-season rule changes. Those should not have happened for the rear wings or front wings. If the FIA wants stiffer wings, they need to sort out their regulations before the start of a season.

[101FlyingDutchman]

Well, let's see if the whole wing-saga now comes bouncing back at Mercedes, or whether the FIA was just bending over backwards to maximize Hamilton's odds of landing an unprecedented 8-title streak (even if that last title might then be tarnished by all the mudslinging on the sidelines, which would be a shame for a driver of his stature, that has achieved so much by being a clean and capable driver, in contrast to some other 7 time WDCs...)

But it's unfortunate all this bollocks is happening. This season is set out to be fine one on track, but off track, it's just a shitshow of unnecessary, undesirable mid-season rule changes. Those should not have happened for the rear wings or front wings. If the FIA wants stiffer wings, they need to sort out their regulations before the start of a season.

Amen mate. Totally and utterly agree

[darkpino]

Did I miss any news? Still only being looked at by the FIA right?

[WaikeCU]

One should ask. Does the FW flex only on the Merc? Or they (Red Bull) feels it flexes more than normal on the Merc?

Considering how lenient the FIA calls are to Merc, imagine FIA enforce regulation that limits the amount of flex more than expected, causing basically almost all teams to strengthen the FW’s :p

[Hoffman900]

I think the only way to fix this, which next year’s wing does, is to full encapsulate all the slats?

It seems to me excessive flex is going to always be inherent in how these are designed.

[FW17]

You cannot have different standards of flex measurement for front and rear, where is the consistency?

[JordanMugen]

I think the only way to fix this, which next year’s wing does, is to full encapsulate all the slats?

It seems to me excessive flex is going to always be inherent in how these are designed.

At the moment, the upper front wing supports are very feeble. Specifying, for example, the supports be made out of titanium alloy plate with thickness not less than 10 mm and height not less than 30mm should do quite a lot to reduce front wing flex...



Something akin to the front wing slot separator of this BMW perhaps, but fashioned from steel or titanium alloy metallic materials for extra heft? "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."

But it's unfortunate all this bollocks is happening. This season is set out to be fine one on track, but off track, it's just a shitshow of unnecessary, undesirable mid-season rule changes. Those should not have happened for the rear wings or front wings. If the FIA wants stiffer wings, they need to sort out their regulations before the start of a season.

Don't you find the flexible bodywork to be a genuine concern?

The rules require rigid bodywork yet techniques like those mentioned above (10mm thick wing endplates and gap separators for front and rear wing, very thick sharkfins, very thick mirror supports etc) are not employed by teams, almost as if the teams are not attempting in good faith to produce rigid and immobile bodywork to the best of their ability...

To the contrary, one worries (instead) that teams are producing bodywork only as rigid as necessary and no more, even though the rule expressly requires rigid and immobile sprung bodywork! Be it mirrors, sharkfins, front wing, rear wing, bargeboards -- everything should have no effort spared to be as rigid as possible.

It is a little wonder a 3 mm thick mirror support flexes noticeably, so why is the mirror support not made 10mm or 20mm thick in good faith of attempting to comply with the regulation!? One worries F1 teams are only interested in performance and lightness, as opposed to rigidly sticking to the rules (pardon the pun).

Given good faith does not work, then perhaps heavy handed regulations mandating extremely robust slot gap separators, and severe load tests for parts like mirrors and sharkfins, may be required?

As Mercedes GP have noted, flexible bodywork is a very serious issue and it would be a shame for all 10 teams to be running "illegal" cars without their best efforts at rigid and immobile sprung bodywork as opposed to bodywork made only as rigid as necessary...

[DChemTech]

Don't you find the flexible bodywork to be a genuine concern?

The rules require rigid bodywork yet techniques like those mentioned above (10mm thick wing endplates and gap separators for front and rear wing, very thick sharkfins, very thick mirror supports etc) are not employed by teams, almost as if the teams are not attempting in good faith to produce rigid and immobile bodywork to the best of their ability...

To the contrary, one worries (instead) that teams are producing bodywork only as rigid as necessary and no more, even though the rule expressly requires rigid and immobile sprung bodywork! Be it mirrors, sharkfins, front wing, rear wing, bargeboards -- everything should have no effort spared to be as rigid as possible.

It is a little wonder a 3 mm thick mirror support flexes noticeably, so why is the mirror support not made 10mm or 20mm thick in good faith of attempting to comply with the regulation!? One worries F1 teams are only interested in performance and lightness, as opposed to rigidly sticking to the rules (pardon the pun).

Given good faith does not work, then perhaps heavy handed regulations mandating extremely robust slot gap separators, and severe load tests for parts like mirrors and sharkfins, may be required?

As Mercedes GP have noted, flexible bodywork is a very serious issue and it would be a shame for all 10 teams to be running "illegal" cars without their best efforts at rigid and immobile sprung bodywork as opposed to bodywork made only as rigid as necessary...

I find the regulations (changes) of the FIA to be a genuine concern.
All bodywork flexes, so regulation 3.8 says nothing. It's up to the FIA to state how much flexing they tolerate, which is the point of 3.9. They did so very poorly, and now start punishing teams that were fully abiding to the regulations they did specify in 3.9, because they qualitatively judge them as 'still flexing too much'. Well, newsflash, engineers cannot design based on qualitative statements. They need quantitative regulations.

A statement like "they should make wings as rigid as possible" makes no sense, because that implies they should start making wings out of concrete or diamond or so, and even those are not literally inflexible. FIA needs to specify quantitative tolerances, so that engineers know what they have to be designing for, either providing maximum deflections under any load that may be encountered (under non-breaking conditions), or clear guidelines on how to extrapolate the test conditions to real-track conditions. IMO, there's 0 blame on the teams here, at least as long as they did not deliberately construct spring systems that start yielding once the testing loads have been exceeded. But I've seen no evidence of that.

And of course good faith won't work. If you make some object 20mm thick out of good faith, and your competitor makes it 10mm in equally good faith, and the FIA deems that sufficient to comply with their qualitative regulations, then your competitor has an advantage, and in my view, an unfair one. FIA should be clear about what they want at the start of the season, and not leave that up to guesswork or telepathy.