F1

Red Bull’s front wings ”aren’t flexing”

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  • #129230
    Hare
    Participant

    they feel the need to add rubbing strips down the edges :

    http://www.f1talks.pl/wp-content/gallery/gp_malezji_2011_piatek_sutton/d11mal786.jpg

    nice! :)

    #166677
    DavidS
    Participant

    Every time the flexi-wing is brought up, I imagine Adrian Newey cracking a wry smile.

    That no-one has figured out how it’s able to flex or prove that it is illegal is testament to the genius of Adrian Newey and his design team.

    #166678
    Prisoner Monkeys
    Participant

    As far as the FIA are concerned, Red Bull’s front wing is not flexing. Even if there is undeniable footage of the wing flexing, the wing itself is still passing each and every load test the FIA uses.

    #166679
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    The RBR wing isn’t flexing itself, obviously, because the FIA can’t see it, so it isn’t.

    It’s causing my blood pressure to flex though.

    #166680
    Meander
    Participant

    If it passes the tests, it’s within the rules, so it is legal. Don’t think for a second that not every team has a guy figuring out where and how the rules can be bent without breaking them.

    #166681
    JPQuesado
    Participant

    As Horner said this weekend, Red Bull is running a higher rear configuration and when the car breaks the front dives more than usual. So he practically revealed almost all the secret. Just the way they put the front wing flexing and it still passes the FIA load tests gets me scratching my head.

    #166682
    Hare
    Participant

    @Joao Pedro CQ all that and a bag of chips!! :)

    #166683
    Shakey
    Participant

    What makes my blood boil is David Couthards constant refusal to even acknowledge anything slightly negative towards Red Bull. Pitpass.com have picked up on it.

    http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=43334

    #166684
    Prisoner Monkeys
    Participant

    The RBR wing isn’t flexing itself, obviously, because the FIA can’t see it, so it isn’t.

    Of course they can see that it’s flexing in the footage – but they can’t prove it because the car passes the tests abd so they are powerless to do anything about it.

    #166685
    Movement
    Member

    It is the same idea as so many of the innovative design features that we have seen in cars over the last few years, or even decades…competitors will complain until they realise they have to try and accept that they need to beat it or get on with it!

    100kg is quite a large weight to apply to either both sides or each side separately…it passes so it is legal! simple!

    #166686
    Icthyes
    Participant

    Yeh, braking. Only rouble with that Mr Horner is they flex most when the car’s going at its fastest and go back to normal in the braking zone…

    #166689
    Asanator
    Participant

    Sorry Shakey66 but I agree wholeheartedly with Coulthard, I have no ties to Redbull and as a Ferrari fan am hopeful that we find what they have found but the car conforms to the regulations and passes all FIA tests so McLaren should stop whining about it and either find their own solution or put in a formal protest.

    As for the Pitpass article, the commentators were only talking about it in the Friday sessions because Hamilton and Button mentioned it AGAIN!

    #166690
    Red Andy
    Participant

    What makes my blood boil is David Couthards constant refusal to even acknowledge anything slightly negative towards Red Bull. Pitpass.com have picked up on it.

    To be fair to Coulthard, though, he is right. While Red Bull’s wings continue to pass the tests, other teams going on about them all the time is boring and pointless.

    The FIA can increase the load tests (they’ve done this at other times to catch teams out, such as with Ferrari’s flexing floors in 2007), but other than that there’s not a lot else they can do. Given that the tests have been refined several times over the last year, and the Red Bulls are still passing them, there seems to be little mileage in constantly complaining about it.

    #166693
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Of course they can see that it’s flexing in the footage – but they can’t prove it because the car passes the tests abd so they are powerless to do anything about it.

    Ask Toyota about that. Or Ferrari and BMW.

    I’m going to stop repeating myself after this:

    The rules are the rules and according to the rules, the RBR front wing is illegal because as everyone (including the FIA) can see, the thing is more flexible than The Incredibles’ Elastic Girl.

    The test is there as one of the means by which to help enforce the rules, or that’s how it should be. Somehow, Horner and co. have managed to convince the world (including apparently the FIA) that the test==the rules.

    The most annoying part about all of this is not that RBR are “getting away with it”, but the FIA’s blatant inconsistency. Did Ferrari, Toyota and BMW have too much money and so they could bear being taken down a peg as opposed to RBR’s “non-manufacturer” status? Seriously, what is different about this issue that they somehow suddenly can’t make the decision that it is illegal taking into consideration evidence other than the load-test?

    #166694
    Red Andy
    Participant

    Seriously, what is different about this issue that they somehow suddenly can’t make the decision that it is illegal taking into consideration evidence other than the load-test?

    It is not enough to say, “Aha, that part looks like it’s flexible. Disqualify that car!” It would be impossible to design a part that had zero flexibility relative to the rest of the car, so tolerances are introduced. To ensure fairness and consistency, all the cars have to be held to some objective standard, not the subjective eye of some scrutineer or other.

    The objective standards in this case are the deflection tests outlined in Article 3.17 of the Technical Regulations. If a part passes those tests, then it is legal, in practice if not in principle.

    The teams design the cars according to the standards laid out in the regulations, so the tolerances allowed in the rules are taken into account when parts are designed.

    What should happen is that the FIA takes into account evidence from other sources (pictures, videos etc.) and uses them to design the tests. Therefore anything that is obviously outside “the spirit” of the rules can be clamped down on. In fact, that’s exactly what’s been happening with the Red Bull wings – the FIA have suspected that the wings are flexing and increased the load tests in order to try and catch the team out. But for whatever reason, the Red Bull wings keep passing.

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