From this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, the FIA has obtained harder on the design of entrance and rear wings in a bid to stop teams from playing games with flexible parts.
As first revealed by Autosport, the FIA has demanded to see all design drawings of wings forward of the Marina Bay race to examine they comply and has outlawed particular wing concepts that it believes contravene the foundations.
This contains wing components that transfer or rotate in relation to the bodywork they’re fastened to, the usage of elastomeric (rubber) fillets that may assist allow localised deflection, plus designs that use comfortable trailing edges to assist flexing.
The FIA has lengthy confronted a battle to remain on prime of the groups’Â flexi-wing antics, however its single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis has revealed the way it was pushed to reply after discovering the lengths some groups have been going to get across the guidelines.
In an unique interview with Autosport’s Italian website, Tombazis has defined the pondering behind the brand new robust stance over flexi-wings.
“Within the F1 laws, we’ve many flexibility standards: there are hundreds that we apply and a sure deflection is allowed,” he stated.
“There are static exams that we do to examine, and it’s apparent that these exams are by no means good as a result of the path of the [test] load you apply is all the time a bit totally different from the load that’s on the monitor when it experiences real aerodynamic power.
“There could also be variations and, for that reason, within the laws, there are some common and conceptual specs that, in essence, prohibit mechanisms.
“For instance, one may draw a wing that, when making use of the forces of the FIA check, is fastened however when making use of every other load, it could possibly be extra versatile. Because of this, we’ve been clarifying for years that mechanisms will not be authorized and we’ve written a number of clarifications on what we think about a mechanism.”
Pink Bull Racing Staff Principal Christian Horner talks with Nikolas Tombazis, FIA Single Seater Director
Photograph by: Pink Bull Content material Pool
Tombazis then prompt {that a} line has needed to be drawn due to intelligent mechanisms that groups may use to get across the guidelines – which has included the usage of designs hidden beneath rubber coverings.
“If underneath a carbon floor, we’ve levers that permit a deflection in a single path and never in one other, we are able to think about this a mechanism,” he stated.
“One other factor we’ve stated up to now is that it isn’t acceptable when a element has relative movement towards an adjoining ingredient, sliding in a special path [from it].
“What occurred just lately? Some groups have parts adjoining to one another which have a reasonably excessive motion however don’t slide [in tandem] as a result of these areas are lined with rubber materials. We don’t think about this acceptable and, for that reason, we’ve made a clarification.”
Tombazis prompt that groups had been exploiting this with each particular person front-wing components and the attachments with the nostril.
Moreover, it has been inspecting the pliability of the decrease rear wing parts to the crash construction. The flexibleness of higher wing components has been higher policed because of the introduction of reference dots from the 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
He added: “We have now noticed some rotations, and we’ve analysed them with the groups as a result of we conduct some examinations.
“On the monitor, we are going to open up one in every of their parts to see what’s beneath, or we are going to take a look at their drawings in CAD to raised perceive how the varied components work.”
Requested if this was carried out in collaboration with groups, Tombazis stated: “It isn’t that they need to, however they should. These days, we’ve seen drawings through which issues have been exaggerated. The development was evident, so then we intervened with a extra extreme clarification.”