Flexing rear wings discovered: 'Red Bull Racing's drops 3 centimeters'

17:17, 10 Aug 2020
7 Comments

During the second Grand Prix at the Silverstone circuit last weekend, the rear of the Mercedes W11 came into view frequently. The direction wanted to show the wear and tear on the tyres of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton, but journalist Franco Nugnes and artist Giorgio Piola of Motorsport.com noticed something else.

The FIA has been struggling with the teams for over a decade and a half over flexing wings. Every time the FIA seems to have found a test to prevent this, we see wings sagging at high speed again after a while. This is a very efficient way to gain top speed without losing downward pressure in the curves.

Mercedes certainly isn't the only one

The guys from Motorsport.com noticed last weekend at the Mercedes that the rear wing 'snaps' above a certain speed with a rather abrupt movement to the inside of the corner and thus follows the rolling movement of the car. At Ferrari and Red Bull Racing a similar system would be present, which causes the rear wing to drop as much as three centimetres on the RB16.

If these cars have passed the tests for sagging the rear wing and are therefore just legal. Nevertheless, this is something the FIA will want to eliminate quickly for safety reasons and so the expectation is that they will come this week with a new directive of the regulations

7 Comments
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Mech Engineer 10 August 2020 at 17:47+ 55086

The rear wings are made of carbon fibre, supported about a meter apart on the end plates and at full speed, generates a force of approx 930 kg, so of course it’s going to deflect! 3cm is negligible. The full aerodynamics of a modern F1 car generates 5g of downforce. The weight of an F1 car is about 750 kg. The rear wings accounts for about 25% of the overall downforce. That is where my figure of 930kg came from. I didn’t just pluck that figure out from the air.

mp599 10 August 2020 at 18:39+ 11881

Premise... about wings (to fly), I've certain knowdledge. Your point is is agreable, but it doesn't explain the abrupt deflecting movement, which has to be produced by purpose, somehow.

Ronrock1952 11 August 2020 at 04:08+ 5391

mp599..please explain in more detail your point..

mp599 11 August 2020 at 14:14+ 11881

Because of air pressure, the "wing" flexes. How much depends by pressure, materials and construction. In any case, the only natural "abrupt" change in shape is when the material breaks. If an abrupt change occurs, but then shape reverses to it's normal, it means some device (to change wing tilt) activates at a certain pressure, by purpose. ...in other words, there is a trick-device designed to modify downforce (or better to say the resistance) changing wing tilt. Until a certain pressure the wing doesn't flexes over the allowed limits, as required by rules, over that pressure (so, under static test checks this device doesn't work) it abruptly changes wing tilt. Some device is circumventing the rules...

Γιάννης Πρωτόπαπας 11 August 2020 at 02:11+ 113

Wings are firstly generated as surfaces and then a distinct number of materials/plies and orientations is decided to maximize weight and stiffness. Unless intended the 3cm deflection is a really poor design and not within the margin of any expectation

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Mech Engineer 11 August 2020 at 05:24+ 55086

The wings tips on a passenger aeroplane flexes by between 3 to 5 meters while in flight compared to it when the plane is on the ground. The top floor of a sky scraper sways in the wind. The top floor of the Burj Khalifa sways by about 2 meters. Everything will deflect!

mp599 11 August 2020 at 14:29+ 11881

Not abrupltly. No aircraft wing flexes "abruptly".