Technical Red Bull's Front Wing (Revisited)
- Thread starter snowy
- Start date
Coulthard with his "impartial" BBC head on?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mo...n-Red-Bull-wing-row-says-David-Coulthard.html
I got to "By David Coulthard" and closed the page.
Brundle doesn't get paid by one of the teams.And I wasn't implying you were saying that
What did everyone make of the Red Bull cars this weekend passed?
After Horners comments in the lead-up i was watching the cars quite closely. Certainly McLaren were running a lot more rake than had been obvious previously, from memory, and the RBs certainly do run what seems like enormous amounts of rake, like a 70s hot rod
, but i didn't see their front wing flexing to the ground quite as much as has been seen. Im not sure if this was just down to the track or what, but could it also be a slightly tamer wing in an effort to make the physical element slightly less obvious? (they must be on their 5th / 6th incarnation of the system now, ie. have a very good understanding of their system)
Another thing. Unfortunately for RB, we see the front wing a lot... its obvious what it is doing, but what about all the other aero devices on the car? Whilst everyone is talking about the wing, RB will be applying the principle to everything on the car. I know there were issues with, inc. RB, several teams floors last year, but there are many other more subtle devices that will compliment the wings etc. How many of these also take advantage of RBs research into aeroelasticity?
If Ferrari and McLaren are as far behind with this as they would have us believe, then they have an awful lot of work to do to get their aero package complementing each part on the car like the RB does. On the other hand, both teams in the race had reasonable pace compared to the RBs and appear to have taken a chunk from RBs cushion. If this step in speed has been made without the development of their aeroelasticity understanding (I happen to think McLaren have taken strides in their understanding and begun exploiting it), then when they do get their heads round it, RB could find themselves getting swallowed up... right around the time the FIA get a handle on it and put it all to bed
Well there you are, some observations from the race and the continuing flexy dilemma... what did you make of it all?
After Horners comments in the lead-up i was watching the cars quite closely. Certainly McLaren were running a lot more rake than had been obvious previously, from memory, and the RBs certainly do run what seems like enormous amounts of rake, like a 70s hot rod
, but i didn't see their front wing flexing to the ground quite as much as has been seen. Im not sure if this was just down to the track or what, but could it also be a slightly tamer wing in an effort to make the physical element slightly less obvious? (they must be on their 5th / 6th incarnation of the system now, ie. have a very good understanding of their system)Another thing. Unfortunately for RB, we see the front wing a lot... its obvious what it is doing, but what about all the other aero devices on the car? Whilst everyone is talking about the wing, RB will be applying the principle to everything on the car. I know there were issues with, inc. RB, several teams floors last year, but there are many other more subtle devices that will compliment the wings etc. How many of these also take advantage of RBs research into aeroelasticity?
If Ferrari and McLaren are as far behind with this as they would have us believe, then they have an awful lot of work to do to get their aero package complementing each part on the car like the RB does. On the other hand, both teams in the race had reasonable pace compared to the RBs and appear to have taken a chunk from RBs cushion. If this step in speed has been made without the development of their aeroelasticity understanding (I happen to think McLaren have taken strides in their understanding and begun exploiting it), then when they do get their heads round it, RB could find themselves getting swallowed up... right around the time the FIA get a handle on it and put it all to bed
Well there you are, some observations from the race and the continuing flexy dilemma... what did you make of it all?
snowy
Champion Elect
The Red Bulls qualifying pace has rarely been truly reflected in their race pace. They admitted that they made a substantial compromise setting the car up for the race in Malaysia and clearly McLaren made a lot of compromises setting the car up for qualifying.
We don't know how much faster the Red Bull could have gone but Lewis was quicker than Sebastian in the second stint and Fernando was matching and exceeding Jenson and Lewis during other critical phases of the race. In Australia Fernando was adamant that qualifying well was not going to be the be all and end all and that he had aimed for 5th place, focusing his attention on race pace.
We don't know how much faster the Red Bull could have gone but Lewis was quicker than Sebastian in the second stint and Fernando was matching and exceeding Jenson and Lewis during other critical phases of the race. In Australia Fernando was adamant that qualifying well was not going to be the be all and end all and that he had aimed for 5th place, focusing his attention on race pace.
The RB was running a very obvious rake at the weekend but I didn't notice it too much on the McLaren. I did however note that the RB front wing wasn't bending nearly as much as we've seen in the past, (I always look at the wingtips from the onboard camreas). Different setups for different tracks then?
snowy
Champion Elect
Different wings for different circuits I believe. It occurs to me that faster circuits deflect the wing more, so they have to use a slightly less bendy wing on circuits with a high top speed.
They were in fact caught out in Melbourne weren't they? They spent rather a lot of time repairing and shaving bits off the end plates on Sebastian's front wing on Friday.
They were in fact caught out in Melbourne weren't they? They spent rather a lot of time repairing and shaving bits off the end plates on Sebastian's front wing on Friday.
Without a doubt. They're not going to run the Super Flex Edition you'll see at Monaco or Hungary at a track like Sepang. The last thing they need is that snowplow scooping up the marbles on the Malaysian straights.
That makes sense...and yes, they did spend some time either shaving or repairing the wings in Melbourne.
In another installment of speculation surrounding the RBR front wing, I was just watching the 2008 Chinese GP and I noticed something a bit peculiar with Mark Webber's front wing in that race.
Down the back straight, the Red Bull wing was shaking pretty violently, a lot more than other cars' front wings. When the video is slowed down it is obvious that there is a lot of flexing movement with the wing, but it looks rather wild and uncontrollable. Could they have been experimenting with flex-wing technology back in 2008?
Here's a video that looks at the RBR, McLaren, and Renault front wings at China 08.
Down the back straight, the Red Bull wing was shaking pretty violently, a lot more than other cars' front wings. When the video is slowed down it is obvious that there is a lot of flexing movement with the wing, but it looks rather wild and uncontrollable. Could they have been experimenting with flex-wing technology back in 2008?
Here's a video that looks at the RBR, McLaren, and Renault front wings at China 08.
Hmm I think that's more to do with the turbulent air coming from Barrichello's car rather than the front wing flexing, because didn't we see (at Spa 2010) Vettel's wing shaking more in the wake of Button's car?
No way! That Honda was so slippery it just cut through the air without creating any turbulence whatsoever.
But back in the real world, you may be right. I had thought of that as well but wanted to see what you guys had to say about it.
If they'd have complained about it then, they might have got somewhere.
No-one gave a toss if the Red Bull was illegal in 2008 though, did they?
No-one gave a toss if the Red Bull was illegal in 2008 though, did they?
I don't think it was illegal, and there wasn't really any reason to care anyway.
This video footage just made me start thinking about how difficult it has been for McLaren and others to replicate the RB6/7's front wing characteristics. If RBR has been working on this front wing technology since at least 2008, then it's really no surprise that the other teams cannot magically harness the capabilities that a controllable front wing flex can unleash.
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