Crown

John H:

Finally.. MS agrees with the general consensus here....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8878400.stm

 

He is not sorry, its public image damage control... but still its good to hear it at least 

RED BULL “FLEXI” FRONT WING, JUDGE FOR YOURSELF...

(28 July 2010)

This is a JA on F1 exclusive in collaboration with F1 photographer Darren Heath – it is the photograph of the controversial Red Bull front wing, which was seen by a couple of teams over the weekend. Rival engineers believe that the wing is flexing more than the rules allow and giving Red Bull a downforce advantage.

Photo: Darren Heath

There was a lot of discussion about this wing in Germany. Darren got a hunch at Silverstone, but couldn’t get the right angle on the cars. He researched it and then in Hockenheim he was able to get lower and set up a shot with other cars for comparison. You can see the Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren wings below.

Engineers estimate from this photo that the deflection on the Red Bull wing is 24mm, which is pretty impressive. The tests the FIA carry out in scrutineering allow a maximum of 10mm deflection at the endplates when a force of 500 Newtons is applied, which is around 50kg of downforce.

McLaren for comparison (Darren Heath)

However in high speed corners, like Copse or Abbey at Silverstone, the wing will be generating more like 200 kg of downforce. So perhaps the test isn’t stringent enough.

So what is the advantage of having this flexing characteristic? Well running the end plates closer to the ground gives extra downforce and this is particularly useful in high speed corners to balance out the extra downforce you get from the blown diffuser when the throttle is on and exhaust gases are passing through the diffuser. With this device the Red Bull car has well balanced downforce front to rear and so is a stable car through high speed corners.

Ferrari for comparison (Darren Heath)

Also teams have found that this year’s narrower front tyres are rather weak in high speed corners, leading many cars to understeer. This ruse of Red Bull’s also helps offset that.

It seems to help more when the car is on the edge in qualifying than when it is loaded up with 160kg of fuel for the race and this is one of the reasons why Red Bull has enjoyed the speed advantage on Saturdays. However Ferrari has a similar thing going on with its front wing and this along with the optimisation of the blown diffuser they first introduced three races ago, is the reason why Ferrari are right on Red Bull’s pace. The cars are now performing in quite a similar way.

The wing has passed all the deflection tests and has been declared legal by the FIA scrutineers, but there were grumblings from other teams and even suggestions that the car might be protested after the race, but this did not happen.

McLaren wing for comparison (Darren Heath)

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh said, “We would like to understand it, because if you can do what they are doing legally then we would like to do it. If you can get your endplates down by the ground they can get more efficiency. And if they are doing that in a clever and legitimate way then we need to do it in that clever and legitimate way.”

So it looks like the legal “flexi wing” is the latest innovation from this highly creative team, which others will set out to copy.

Another angle (Darren Heath)

Mercedes wing for comparison (Darren Heath)

F1-Flexi-Wing-Analysis_James-Allen

FIA to ramp up wing tests for Belgium...

(1 August 2010)

The FIA has moved to try to bring an end to Formula 1's flexible front wing row by telling teams it will ramp up the deflection tests from the next race in Belgium, AUTOSPORT has learned.

In the wake of complaints from a number of teams about possible flexing of the front wings of the Red Bull Racing and Ferrari cars at high speed, even though nothing has been found to be wrong with the two machines, the FIA wrote to teams after the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday telling them it was going to attempt to clear up the matter.

AUTOSPORT understands that from the next event at Spa-Francorchamps, the FIA has activated Article 3.17.8 of F1's technical regulations, which allows it to increase load deflection tests at any point to prevent teams being able to run flexible wings.

Article 3.17.8 states: "In order to ensure that the requirements of Article 3.15 are respected, the FIA reserves the right to introduce further load/deflection tests on any part of the bodywork which appears to be (or is suspected of), moving whilst the car is in motion."

At the moment the endplates on the front wing are allowed to flex by a maximum of 10mm when a load of 50 kilogrammes (500 Newtons) is applied to them.

The FIA has told teams now that it reserves the right to increase that test up to 100 kilogrammes - and it will only allow a linear increase of deflection up to 20mm.

The linear increase is designed to ensure that teams are not using clever material design to ensure that their cars pass the deflection test to stay within the regulations but then flex much more at higher loads.

It is also understood that the FIA is to clamp down on teams using clever fixings and joints on the underfloor of the car – amid suspicions that this is one area that teams could also be exploiting the regulations.

Mercedes GP team principal Ross Brawn, who had sought clarification from the FIA about the flexible wing regulations, confirmed on Sunday night that he expected the tests to change for Spa.

"I understand that there may be some changes in the way the tests are done, but obviously the cars involved pass the current tests," he said prior to the document from the FIA being sent out. "And the argument is that if they pass the current test, then the tests are not correct.

"You can clearly see on the track that there is quite a dramatic difference between the cars, which is part of the game – I've been there myself so what normally happens is that the FIA improve the tests and I think that is what is going to happen.

"I think the FIA recognises that the disparity between the cars on the track does not reflect the situation where there are tests intended to keep all the wings at a similar stiffness and similar performance."

Brawn added that he hoped the new tests would help clear up the matter – and prevent his team joining a number of rival outfits in being forced to develop expensive flexible wing technology.

"That is our dilemma at the moment. It is our dilemma, McLaren's dilemma. I don't know how they do it yet, but if we devoted enough resource to it then I am sure we could end up in the same situation. But we would rather not do it.

"So we want to see some clarity because it would be very relevant for next year. And if that is considered the accepted approach, then we will want to tackle it for next year."

Red Bull Racing has been unruffled by the row over its front wings, but Hungarian GP winner Mark Webber said on Sunday that he had started to get annoyed that rivals were complaining about the great job his team had done.

"Our guys have broken their balls to design a car in the spirit of the regulations, and every time we are tested by the FIA, we pass," he said.

"The car has always been passed by the FIA, so when people don't like (what they see on) the stopwatch, they have to justify their own positions in some other teams sometimes, and when there's pressure on people to perform and they're getting destroyed, that's how it is."

He added: "We're more than happy with what we have on the car and we're sleeping well at night, the guys, when they have inspections from the FIA that we're doing enough."

F1-Technology_FIA-Wing-Tests_Autosport-article

Red Bull RB6 - front wing controversy

Although TV footage has shown the Red Bull front wing appear to almost touch the track surface at speed, the rules demand that when static it has to stay 75mm above the ground. Even so the car has passed all the necessary scrutineering checks, including a rigorous one on Saturday in Hungary with 200 kilogrammes applied to the RB6's underbody and the plank.

F1-Technical-News

FIA set to clamp down on ‘flexible wings’ by Belgian GP...

(1 August 2010)

The FIA is to clamp down on so-called ‘flexible wings’ – or at least attempt to clear the air on their use – by introducing more stringent load tests by the next race in Belgium.

The teams are being informed tonight at the governing body is making use of a rule which allows it to change the load tests in the course of the season, should it be deemed necessary. In essence teams are being told ‘this is what the tests will be like at the next race, be prepared’…

The FIA is to use Article 3.17.8 of the F1 Technical Regulations, which reads as follows:

“In order to ensure that the requirements of Article 3.15 are respected, the FIA reserves the right to introduce further load/deflection tests on any part of the bodywork which appears to be (or is suspected of), moving whilst the car is in motion.”

Article 3.15 covers movable bodywork as follows:

“With the exception of the cover described in Article 6.5.2 (when used in the pit lane), the driver adjustable bodywork described in Article 3.18 and the ducts described in Article 11.4, any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance:

“Must comply with the rules relating to bodywork must be rigidly secured to the entirely sprung part of the car (rigidly secured means not having any degree of freedom):

“Must remain immobile in relation to the sprung part of the car:

“Any device or construction that is designed to bridge the gap between the sprung part of the car and the ground is prohibited under all circumstances.

“No part having an aerodynamic influence and no part of the bodywork, with the exception of the skid block in 3.13 above, may under any circumstances be located below the reference plane.”

FIA-to-clamp-down-on-Flexible-Wings_Adam-Cooper-article

WHY NEW FIA FLEXI TEST WON’T CLIP RED BULL’S WINGS...

(3 August 2010, by James Allen)

The FIA has responded to lobbying from McLaren and Mercedes in particular and has decided to beef up the tests they carry out on the flexing of front wings. 

On the face of it this will oblige Red Bull and Ferrari to stop their wings from flexing as much as they do now and this will cost them lap time. But let’s look more closely at this and establish how much we think this will slow the cars down relative to the opposition.

The FIA is allowed to change the test as it sees fit thanks to a rule which says: “In order to ensure that the requirements of Article 3.15 are respected, the FIA reserves the right to introduce further load/deflection tests on any part of the bodywork which appears to be (or is suspected of), moving whilst the car is in motion.”

Current rules allow the tips of the wing to flex by 10mm when a load of 50kg, which is 500 Newtons, is applied to them. But rival teams estimate that Red Bull’s wing is flexing by up to 25mm at high speed and on board TV footage at the weekend in Budapest clearly showed the wing rising up at the end of the straight when the driver braked.

The FIA has indicated that it is likely to double up the test load, with up to 100 kilogrammes onto the wing – and it will only allow a linear increase of deflection up to 20mm, which would appear to rule out the current Red Bull wing.

Now, the key to this is what the FIA technical delegate, Jo Bauer, is physically going to do in Spa to test the wings. And in all likelihood the answer is that he and his boss Charlie Whiting won’t tell the teams what the test will consist of before Spa scrutineering, they’ll have to guess and beef up their wings accordingly.

The Darren Heath photo which sparked this issue...

But this also matters because the linear flexing might only be a part of what the Red Bull nose is doing. There is a theory among engineers, based on looking at the whole front wing when its loaded up, that there is some kind of spring loaded device in the crash structure to deflect the whole wing down, over and above what the wing tips do.

This theory was given some added impetus when Sebastian Vettel’s wing snapped in practice at Silverstone.

This theory goes beyond grabbing a bit of extra downforce from wing endplates being close to the ground, it brings a gain of lowering the front of the car, which is very attractive under the 2010 rules.

So it will depend on how Bauer tests the wing as to how much it slows down the Red Bull car. How will Red Bull respond? They will look again at the rule and will have to think through whether the new test will be on the wing itself or the wing relative to the chassis, in which case they may have to do more.

With a two week compulsory shutdown, Red Bull will struggle to make anything up for Spa, so although they are likely stiffen the current wing when time allows, a short term fix might be to go back a step or two on the front wing.

But the new FIA test loading extra weight on the wing isn’t necessarily going to catch the whole of what Red Bull’s wing is doing.

Most teams, when they think up some brilliant new device, run it past the FIA’s Charlie Whiting first to get a view on whether it’s legal. It’s the way the FIA like things to be done and the Brawn double diffuser and the McLaren F Duct are examples of that.

But Red Bull Designer Adrian Newey doesn’t tend to work that way and neither did Rory Byrne on the winning Ferraris of the early 2000s. Newey puts things on the car and then waits to see if they get picked up. Whiting tends to like to keep things out of the public domain and so when he and Bauer pick something up, he marks a team’s cards that he doesn’t want to see it again at the next race. In this way Newey’s cars can have a few wins under their belt before something is spotted and has to come off.

There is a belief among engineers that some of the “all nighters” the Red Bull mechanics have done this year have not been simply due to adding last minute parts flown out from England, but because Bauer and Whiting have knocked them back on some new device. The modification to the slot on the blown diffuser, spotted by McLaren’s Paddy Lowe, is a case in point, but there are likely to have been others.

But even if he does go conservative, which is not in Newey’s nature, rival teams are kidding themselves if they believe that any new flexi wing test will bring the Red Bull within striking range.

Frank Dernie, the veteran aerodynamicist observed to me this week that “The difference in performance between the Ferrari and the McLaren, is probably mostly down to the front wing. But the difference between the Red Bull and the Ferrari is elsewhere.”

The Red Bull in Hungary was another full second faster than the Ferrari, which is therefore about far more than the front wing.

One of the secrets of the Red Bull car is the interaction of the front end aerodynamics of the car with the rear end and how they work together. No other car comes close to balancing out the front and rear so well and in generating overall downforce and it seems that the other teams are still scratching their heads about how it works.

Looking at – and even copying – something like the front wing in isolation isn’t going to give them the answer. To match the Red Bull they would have to replicate the way the aero devices work with each other and that will take a long time. By the time they’ve figured that out, next year most likely, Red Bull will be well on with the next thing.

They have built an advantage it will take far more than a flexi wing test to cut down.

But if Adrian Newey has a weakness, it is that he cannot resist the temptation to add extra little things to the car to boost performance – hence the “all-nighters” – and it is often these things which lead to reliability problems.

There will be factions within the team, race operations people most likely and hopefully Christian Horner too, who will now be arguing for Newey to play it more conservative in this respect in the final run-in to the championship and not take risks with too many trick new parts. They have a big advantage and no doubt some more major upgrades coming, so it is vital that they just harvest maximum points from now to the end of the season and this will bring them both the Constructors’ Championship for the team and the Drivers’ title to one of their drivers.

Messing around with risky parts and dealing with driver politics have cost them a lot of points already and remain the two areas where the team can still lose both championships...

Red Bull front wing...

The concept of applying aero elasticity to F1 wings is not new, in fact it goes back over 30 years. Wings which flex at speed have appeared at various times over that period, when new technology allows the rules to be circumvented and new rules the performance gain is attractive enough. This is such a time, due to the new wide front wing rules.

There are two points of view on front wing flex; one is that a rigid front wing will give you exactly the same results on the track as you get in the wind tunnel and in the Computational Fluid Dynamics programmes. The other is that the lower you can get the wing tips to the ground, the more downforce you will generate and this will be faster.

A flexi wing can bring gains of 2/10ths of a second or more in the wing tips alone, but there are risks to this approach.

It is easy to end up with a wing which makes the car loose in high speed corners, which spooks the driver. It can upset the balance of the car with some strange results. The reason for this is that it is not possible to do wind tunnel tests and CFD programmes with deformed shapes, which replicate the full flexing of the wing with the car at various angles in cornering. It’s just far too complex to model. So having a flexing front wing is a bit of an unknown.

Another problem is that by definition, if it is flexing and thus creating more downforce as you go fast down the straights, it is therefore also creating more drag. And then when the driver lifts off the throttle and the wing rises up it drops downforce and can make the car unstable in a slow corner.

However it is very good on medium and fast corners, such as are found in Sector 2 in Budapest, where the Red Bull was untouchable last weekend...

FIA-Flexible-Wing-Test_James-Allen-article

FORMULA 1 GALLERY by DARREN HEATH...

"Flexible friends"

(27 July 2010)

Friday afternoon trackside at one of Silverstone’s flat-out sections, viewfinder to my eye, I focused in on the fast-approaching Red Bull RB6. Panning smoothly as the car rushed towards me I noticed something odd. The front wing endplates, usually running parallel to the ground, seemed almost to be touching the Tarmac below.

Now I probably wasn’t alone in noticing that the Red Bull’s front wing – from the season’s opening race – appeared lower than that of its rivals, but what I spied on the run to Abbey seemed more pronounced. Coincidentally the events that unfolded at the British Grand Prix centred on Vettel’s and Webber’s new front wings – or rather, post-P3, Vettel’s front wing.

Perhaps the brouhaha surrounding the team’s supposed favouring of one driver over the other distracted attention from the front wing itself, and from its apparent flexibility. I resolved to dig a little before shooting the cars at Hockenheim.

Now you don’t need to be a car designer to know that there are obvious advantages to running a formula car’s front aerofoils as close to the road as possible. A considerable increase in downforce with very little increase in drag are just two of the major benefits.

Drawbacks are few, possible high speed oversteer and perhaps an inherent reduction in strength – which could result in dramatic failures.

Certainly some rival team engineers suspect that Vettel’s wing failure at Silverstone may have had something to do with the inner workings of Red Bull’s trick new nose section.

At high speed and under heavy load the RB6’s ground-hugging, skirt-like front wing endplates bring to mind a late ’70s, early ’80s ground effect car: the air speeds up as it’s channelled underneath, sucking the machine closer to the road, resulting in awesomely fast corner speeds.

Indeed at Barcelona earlier this year Mercedes’ GPS system, busy tracking the F1 cars careening around the flat-out Turn 3, registered similar entry speeds for the MGP W01 and the RB6. A few seconds later, at the corner’s exit, things had changed. The Red Bull was pulling away with a 12kph advantage.

If that’s the kind of performance the Milton Keynes outfit had with its old front section, imagine it with the new one.

Judging from my photographs Ferrari has worked out the secret – although the front wings on both the F10s and the RB6s have been deemed legal, so the rest must now follow.

There’ll be some midnight oil burning hard in Woking, Brackley, Enstone, Wantage, Hingham, Hinwil, et al.

The 2010 F1 arms race just went to Defcon 1.

F1-Flexible-Wings_Darren-Heath-article

F1-Gallery_Darren-Heath-photography

There is no try. Just do.