Flexible wings

[ojciec dyrektor]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85532

Throw them out of championships! Ban them for life. Throw out Red Bull from all motorsports. CHEATERS! ;p

[Dave B]

I'd completely forgotten about that story, overshadowed as it was by Ferrari's team orders.

It's right that the FIA investigate, but as Horner says you can't always tell the whole story from a still photo.

[ioan]

Both Ferrari and RedBull are in question. Great, give them a nice 2 race ban.

[Robinho]

will be interesting to see if anything comes of this one too, Ferrari seem to be treading a fine line at the moment, RBR and Newey in particular are always out to exploit the rules, its just as well for everyone else in F1 that Ross Brawn and Adrian Newey never found themselves in the same team

[ojciec dyrektor]

As donKey said about Ferrari's performance on chat: "There is something fishy".

[Dave B]

The wings have passed scrutineering without problems:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85563

Move on, nothing to see here

[Sonic]

Plenty of cars have passed scrutineering and later been declared illegal, its right this is investigated. That said I can't see how Red Bull could have got around the load test.

[Robinho]

The wings have passed scrutineering without problems:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/85563

Move on, nothing to see here

the report i read indicated that they cleverly get around scrutineering which doesn't lookk for flex in the central section of the wing, only around the endplates. Look for a) a clarification in the rules or b) a new test in scrutineering in a race or 2

[Dave B]

James Allen's (excellent) website has some photos courtesy of Darren Heath which are very interesting:

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/0...-for-yourself/

Seems that Red Bull have found and exploited a weakness in the current way the flex is measured in scrutineering. Sneaky, but legal. I expect the load test to be modified in the near future to close this loophole.

[AndyL]

Borderline legal at best I would say. The rules say something along the lines of: wings must be rigidly mounted and have no degree of freedom. They then go on to detail the various tests that will be used to check for flexibility. According to James Allen's piece, the test uses a 500N force while loads on track might be up to 2000N. And as has been previously mentioned, perhaps the test load is not being applied in the right place. So Red Bull could have a part that has a degree of freedom - and should therefore be illegal - while still passing the scrutineering tests.

I think it's a bit like breaking the speed limit when no-one else is around - it's still against the rules even if there's no mechanism in place to catch you.