But how do they decide if the wing is compliant, if the weight is applied and no more than 10mm movement is seen then surly by FIA ruling that's compliant but if more weight is added the wing will always flex more but there's no measurable ruling for that in the rule book (as far as I'm aware).

Or are you saying that the wing cannot flex by more than 10mm period it's just that 50kg is the weight they use.

The rules say that moveable bodywork is not allowed. However, it would be impossible to build a car which does not flex (move) at all, so tests are applied to ensure that the bodywork stays within the spirit of that basic rule (that bodywork may not be moveable). So it is accepted that a wing may flex beyond 10mm with a weight more than 50kg, but that a non-linear flex to create an aerodynamic benefit would be naughty. The tests may be changed to ensure compliance with the rules at any time.

With the Ferrari floor, the test was changed with effect from the next race, so having no retrospective effect. I suggest that the same would happen with the Red Bull front wing if only someone could just work out what was happening.

There's vibration, and there's flexing.

It'd definitely flexing, "drooping". It's actually quite interesting how well it appears to be "timed" based on car speed; this may be an example of something where the material
layup doesn't translate well in CFD, hence everyone quick to chide Nick Wirth?

All of Horner's "concern" about cameras looking at the rear of the car (having all the mechanics stand around it) a bit of diversion?

Looking at what it's doing, I'd surmise that Force India are doing something similar, because of the way/where the front wing has been coming off (from the pylons). It looks like the wing is twisting transverse downwardly across the spar - seems like that would put a lot of stress on the pylons where the Force India wing keeps coming off...

You can't defy physics no matter what arguments you bring. No one is talking about non-linear deformation.
Being more into the kitchen of F1 please quote a number showing what the real force acting on the front wing at say 250 km/h is. If it is less than or equal to 255 grams per sq. cm (the test value) I'll happily accept that I am not right.

BTW you quote CW like him being the Pope of F1. IIRC this is the same man with quite controversial behavior and changes of mind. TMD comes first in my memory.
If a part passes the legality test, it's legal. If the test is insufficient, problem lies with those who define it. Everything else is just a talking exercise.

Dragonfly,

I refer you to post #55. Regardless of what you might think of Charlie Whiting, his role in this is important.

It's not about defying physics, it's about how you define the amount of flexing that is acceptable.

But the rules themselves mandate the opportunity to modify the test if it is considered insufficient. So your second sentence is wrong. The problem, if it is deemed insufficient, is with those who are in breach of the revised test.

The acceptability is defined in the technical rulebook.

See post #106.

Oh, I am giving up.
I thought I know English sufficiently enough to be understood correctly by others, but I must have been wrong.

I can't see anything convincing, and I don't think anything will come of it, because there's nothing there. Flexing under speed will always happen. The test is a stationary test to make sure parts are not designed to delibrately flex. If it passes this test it's fine. Have you seen how the mirrors on practically every car flex?

Dragonfly - one more go to try and help.

Rule 3.15 of the Techincal Regs states that: bodywork (with a couple of exceptions) "must remain immobile in relation to the sprung part of the car". This means it must not flex. This is, of course, a physical impossibility so we have rule 3.17 that sets out the tests to measure this - pass the test and you're legal, fail it and you're not. I think up to this point we agree.

At the end of rule 3.17 we have the following: "3.17.8 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". In other words, if the FIA decide that teams are "abusing" the tests laid down in 3.17 in order to have what I would term as "intentionally" flexible bodywork, rather than "inevitably" flexible bodywork, then they can think about altering the tests. In season.

We also have an example of this happening in 2007 with Ferrari's flexible floor. That floor passed the 3.17 tests, so was legal for the races it ran in. But when the FIA fully understood how it worked, they revised the test in 3.17 so that the floor would fail them. Subsequantly, Ferrari ran without that floor.

So what we see is that it is not as simple as "pass the test, end of story". For the races run so far, it is that simple. For the remainder of the season, it is not. If the FIA decide that the flex in the RB front wing is unnacceptable to them (and I have no reason to suppose that they will, but talking hypothetically) then they would be within their rights to alter the 3.17 tests. If the RB front wing would fail the revised tests, RB would have to revise their front wing.

Sorry, Gareth.
The above, though absolutely correct, has nothing to do with what I am saying.

It's quite clear that no matter how poor I express my thought in English, you haven't read what I have written.
IF there is a change in the procedure by FIA, then and only then, all current cars will be illegal. And teams will have to modify their design. But again, this is a probability, not a fact.
Actually this is what happened after the Ferrari floor 'clarification'. FIA then went even further and increased the applied force so much, that all the teams had to redesign and enforce the floors.

I really can't understand such attitude and the desire to prove me wrong at any cost without even trying to understand what I am saying.
And in a last try this is it:
10mm deflection is defined under very particular conditions - load, area of application, offset from the attaching point. This is not an absolute limit but rather a method to determine rate of deformation and is considered enough to assure sufficient relative rigidity of the wing. Nowhere in the rules it is said that if the force exceeds the one applied at the test, the wing again must not deform more than those 10 mm.

BTW. This is OT but shouldn't Hamilton be DQ'ed at the Australian GP, because after he clipped the rear tyre of Massa's car his front wing was visibly shaking and bending with a significant magnitude?

I agree with what you are saying in the section I have highlighted in bold, with the small caveat that I would state the bit in italics as "all current cars [that do not comply with the new test] will be illegal".

There is no attitude or desire to prove you wrong at any cost at all - it's just taken a while for us to work out that we agree

I made a small addition to my previous post, although a bit OT, but having to do with front wings.

Whatever the reasons for the misunderstanding my initial intention was to prove to the thread starter and some other posters that they wrongly take those 10 mm from the rules as the absolute allowed maximum. And upon this assumption, their conclusions about excessive flex are wrong.
On top of that shots from different moments, taken with a wide angle lens make it a pure speculation.

Absolutely agree - even if the videos proved flex of more than 10mm, it would prove nothing with regards to legality (one way or the other).

I think the more interesting point on this, because it is clear that the RBR front wing is currently legal, is: do the videos suggest excessive flex that might lead to the FIA to consider if the current tests are appropriate?

The answer to that question, from me, is: I have absolutely no clue. But it's an open question, IMO. I think I was taking your posts to mean that that question was closed off, which clearly was a misunderstanding on my part.

From here.

Not really if you think about the front struts and what would happen if the car was being lifted due to trick suspension then you would see the front wing appear to lift relative to the front cross members as the car rises.
People have to remember that 50KG is nothing compared to the total force exerted on the wing at 200MPH.

R2D2 perhaps you should check out the movement of the front suspension as clearly that has moved upwards (car under higher downforce) relative to the front wing by at least 5MM which would make the front wing appear to dip, then you also have to add on the fact that if the car is lower due to downforce then also the wing will be lower due to the natural flexion of it under the added down force.


edit add it also helps if it is the same race and ideally also from the same straight and on the same lap as clearly if one was taken say in FP1 and another in FP2 the car could be set up completely differently.
sorry to say unless it is at least from the same lap there is no way any meaningful data can be gathered or even inferd.
your picture while nice is meaningless sorry

Well all the pictures I have seen in this thread have been taken from the same lap. I can confirm for my pic that it was from the same lap, same straight as well.
Another animation above is also from Q3 lap as clearly it shows on the screen so the shots are valid.

Dont you think on the straights when the car is pressed down due to downforce, the suspension should also move relatively down?

This shows quite a lot of flex in the wing.
We also need to keep in mind the camera angle towards the front wing. The camera is looking top down toward the wing. If we happen to see this much flex from this camera angle, the actual flex would be even more than what we can see... Ideally a nose cam onboard would be great... my point is that this flex is very easily noticeable even from this camera angle where as other onboards from the same camera angle that I have come across, there wasn't any noticeable flex.

Other thing is although wings are inherently flexible and the go through the scrutinizing but as someone pointed out earlier that the tests can be changed if an advantage is gained from the flex.

lot of informative discussion. Thanks every one.

If the scrutineering test tests the upward deflection of the front wing by applying a downward weight, is there a similar test for downward deflection? My assumption has been that if the wing can deflect (10mm?) upwards that it should only deflect the same amount in a downward direction. Is that the case or is there a loophole here? Would it be possible to produce a wing that did not deflect equally in an upward and downward direction? Would it be legal?

R2D2 thx for the pic. It shows that it flexes quite a lot. Action needs to be taken.

Part of this point was covered by Dragonfly. I agree with the point being made earlier that greater loads that the scrutineering test will produce greater deflection in the front wing.

There is no rule saying the amount of movement when the car is motion.

No moveable aero parts is the rule huh? And I think the wings are aero parts lol

So they are not banned then, thanks for the clarification, now read the rules and interpret them correctly and you would not have even had to subject yourself to 4 pages of guessing.

Moveable aero are banned. I didn't say otherwise

I was amazed to see how much Force India's shark fin flexed in the corners.

The way I understand it is that-

A front wing that is designed to flex in a non-linear way when in motion in order to give a performance advantage is banned, as this comes under the flexible aero parts rule.

The test performed by the FIA is to apply a weight of 50kg to the wing, if there is no more than 10mm flex then it is perfectly legal. However if the FIA suspect that the wing is moving in a non-linear way when in motion to gain an advantage then the FIA have the right to change the test in any way they want (basically to prove this advantage) which would then make there wing illegal and any other teams wing which is designed to do the same thing would also be declared illegal.

The front wing flaps are fine they can be moved by the driver to a small degree but the wing end plates not only move down a long way when they reach top speeds but also appear to tilt back which would have the effect of taking off lots of front wing downforce and drag to gain higher top speed, this movement if it is as much as it looks on the videos maybe deemed illegal by the FIA if they can prove it during any test they wish to make up, although the car was still running perfectly legal for all past races up to the point of the new test.

Personally I have not seen another video of a car that shows as much movement of the front wing or rotational movement as the RB6, and I invite anyone who thinks this thread is utter BS to post that video so I can stop wasting my time on it as well because I can't see how this can be proven by anyone either way on this BB without a video showing the same level of movement, the only recent one I've seen is Massa's Ferrari and that only had about 40-50% of the movement that the RB6 has and appeared to be more linear (although that ones difficult to see from that camera angle).

The confusion here is with non-linear. The stress failure curve of a wing will be non-linear. Unless there is a destructive test, it is not possible to know how much a wing will deflect.

Every thing moves when the car in in motion, in various speed and acceleration. lol.

No confusion here and there is nothing non linear about a flexing wing. They all do it and if the Redbull flexes 100mm it doesn't matter as long as it passes the test and its flex is linear, if you make more down force you will flex a wing more, simples.

I think the problem is people are mistaking moveable with a part flexing.
Clearly the rule allow a a maximum amount of flexing for a given amount of force,
but and perhaps this is where the rules perhaps could be cleared by also setting a maximum amount of deflection
e.g. 10MM at 50KG and 20MM maximum (eg to get the front wing to flex 21MM you need to exert enough force to break the front wing)
does anyone think the RBR wing failed the 50KG 10MM test?
and if it passed that test then clearly it is not illegal even if it is exploiting a loop hole, as we all know the teams love loop holes and just because you find and use one does not make it illegal at least until the FIA say otherwise.

I am not a member of the group that has been arguing that thr wing is illegal. I have been trying to defend the wing as being legal. I hate the "they are beating us so they must be cheating" attitude.

How do you measure the deflection as being linear?

You can place 100kg and 25kg on the wing and see how much it bends.

Doing this when the car is motion is a huge difficulty.

Any material weights thing on the wing will change the aero force so it has to be done all by sensors...

Thank you. I am still not sure that I understand how this is a linear test though.

Yeah sorry I wasn't accusing I was just putting my hand up as not confused, how do you measure the deflection being linear you place a load on the wing until it breaks if it bends constantly until it fails in a linear fashion its linear, if it moves suddenly to a particular attitude (in other words the wing it tuned to do that) then its non-linear flex.

Well I see, I am begging to become nervous.

Linear deflection.
Say 5okg of weight does bend wing 8mm, then with 100 kg it must be 16 mm deflection. With 25kg it must be 4mm.

It the wing has none linear then
50 kg 8mm, with 100 kg anything other than 16mm, with 25 anything other than 4 mm...

correct?

I thought that the wing would have to tested to the point of failure too.

I could be wrong here, but my understanding is that it does not matter whether the weight test plots to a curved or linear point on a graph so long as the wing deflects by the stipulated amount for the stipulated weight. The test permits a wing to behave like a piece of wet cardboard beyond the pressure test so long as it returns to the tested state so far as I can see.

I do agree. It is harder to build thing that is perfectly linear.

But the point is by controlling the non- linear bends engineer can extract more performance from the front wing, and that is against the spirit of the rule as the rule is written aiming safety and fair racing - with no bias to any team I hope. .
To make thing work in non linear fashion teams need to let it work in figure of "S" meaning that it is stiff till the FIA test and flex nicely but it must prevent being broken with max aero forces.

Such wings should be made out of complex layering of aramid and carbon that is very expensive...

Teams use a lot of tungsten in the center section of front wing so it not only bends down, but also bends backwards tomake the leading edge a little bit more curvy,... ( guessing)

That would be another clever interpretation of the rules.

For sure there is much more movement than compared to Massa's video. There seems to be a difference when they let off for turn 3 and coming out of the first chicane. It looks like Vettels wing is loose when going down the main straight.

Someone in Brazilian press mentioned that Gary Anderson said somewhere that the most advanced feature on any F1 2010 car was Red Bull nose/front section. For sure it has to do with the claims we are witnessing on ths thread.

I'm an ardent Mclaren fan and even I can see that this thread is a little silly. The wing moves because of the incredible loads placed upon it and it isn't that unusual. I remember seeing shots from the camera that was placed on the fin at helmet level on the Mclaren and at high speed the whole car seemed to be flexing as the fin moved. If the Red bull wing has passed the test then it's legal. Truth is that Red Bull have delivered a fast car and people are looking for ways to undermine their performance, which they don't really need to do because Red Bull seem to be doing a good job of that themselves...(apologies for the dig but I had to get it in ;-)

Personally I think it's an interesting thread, much like the analysis of any seemingly non-obvious feature of any other car would be interesting. And comparisons with the extremes of movement on other cars would be good to see, for balance.

It's certainly not impossible that other teams have missed a trick, such as something simple which (mechanically?) changes the wing only when it is at speed, which would help to defeat stationary tests. That could even be connected to the existing manual changes that are permitted (giving a different change when moving).

It is not so much a question of defeating the static test as complying with it.

There were several epic threads on flexing wings before, especially 2006 and 2007. Not only on front, but on rear wings also as well as the whole wing assembly.
This one is simply a recycle of what has been said countless times before. Like inventing the bicycle again and again.

Until there is a clarification (if ever) then the wing has passed the tests and is legal...it does indeed look to be flexing more than others, but looks can deceive.

I can see where a new test is warranted though.

Do we know where exactly the weight is placed on the front wing during the FIA test?