GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: John S on June 10, 2012, 10:58:02 PM
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FIA says brake cooling ducts illegal, but have been on car since first race. :swoon:
Just how long does it take FIA to spot contraventions, and will this now cause a protest from another team? Seems that Red Bull can get away with quite a lot, is it any wonder their bendy front wings went most of last season without sanction. ::)
Red Bull has apparently been ordered to change the design of its brake cooling ducts after the FIA found them to contravene the technical regulations.
The news comes just days after the outfit was forced to change its floor design which featured two small holes ahead of the front wheels, which the governing body also agreed were against the regulations.
It's reported that the cooling system within the brakes and wheel hub are being used as an aerodynamic aid, rather the purely to cool the brakes.
The system has been in place on the RB8 since the first race.
According to the report, Red Bull argued that the air flow being channelled through the cooling system within the brakes was purely for cooling purposes.
However the FIA counter-argued that because the rim, hub and bolt move, they're not classed as 'immobile in relation to the car' and therefore any use as aerodynamic aids contravenes regulation 3.15.
A quick fix is likely in Canada, with the team able to close off the offending holes, but a redesign is necessary prior to the European Grand Prix.
by Ryan Wood, TheF1times.com, Sat 9th June.
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It is a dream of mine that the FIA will drag itself into the 21ST century and determine whether or not a car is legal during tech inspection before the first race. After it will only need to check updated parts. What they do now is laughably amateurish.
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Newey's designs have always pushed the rules to the limit. I wonder if the FIA are finding all of these infractions on their own, or responding to complaints from other teams.
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Newey's designs have always pushed the rules to the limit. I wonder if the FIA are finding all of these infractions on their own, or responding to complaints from other teams.
Indeed, I suspect the amount of work to determine if Adrian's various designs are 'illegal' takes plenty of time. He spent months testing them in wind tunnels and computer simulations. Without doing the tests themselves, the FIA can't just look at one part of a complex machine and see if it violates the rules.
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If NASCAR suspects you are cheating with your Aero, they confiscate your car and stick it in their own wind tunnel. Wonder how that would go over in F1? :DD
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If NASCAR suspects you are cheating with your Aero, they confiscate your car and stick it in their own wind tunnel. Wonder how that would go over in F1? :DD
That's what I feel F1 should do.
In fact, I think that F1's rules shouldn't focus on individual parts, but rather ensure that the car forms a specific 'wake' through the air. Then you can pop the car into a wind tunnel, pop it on a scale, and be done with it.
It might not be possible to rig up a full blown wind tunnel trackside, but surely a simple one could be devised to see if further testing is needed?
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Much of this would be eliminated if they would allow the return of ground effects designs. They were originally banned because the FIA thought they raised cornering speeds too high. Now however, they achieve similar levels of down force with other means and because the focal points are at the ends of the car, it is difficult to balance the car, difficult to pass without things like DRS. and losing the effect at either end can pitch the car off the track just as suddenly as loss of GE can. Personally I think they should allow only small trimtab type wings and no diffusers or any thing like that. The aero effect should be reduced to almost nil so that chassis and suspension design comes back to the fore.
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Newey's designs have always pushed the rules to the limit. I wonder if the FIA are finding all of these infractions on their own, or responding to complaints from other teams.
Indeed, I suspect the amount of work to determine if Adrian's various designs are 'illegal' takes plenty of time. He spent months testing them in wind tunnels and computer simulations.
It's almost a back-handed compliment to be pulled up for something subsequently 'illegal'.