F1 Rumor: Ferrari Flexi-Wings made car unbeatable in USGP
As teams get on top of McLaren’s cheater Flexi-Wing design and construction, they all of a sudden see a gain in performance, like Ferrari had at the USGP Sunday.
–by Mark Cipolloni–
The construction of the largely carbon fiber front and back wings in F1 is critical to how much they flex at race speeds.
Although these wings pass the FIA static load tests when the car is stationary, the aerodynamic loads at speed are far greater, and at different angles, causing the wings to flex far more than what the rules allow.
Because the FIA has no way to test the wings at speed, they hang weights during scrutineering and if the wings meet the static load test, the car passes. These Flexi-Wings are against the intent of the rules that say no aerodynamic portion of the car (bodywork, wings, etc.) may move. However, it is impossible to construct wings they don’t flex at all, so some deflection is allowed in the rule book.
Like McLaren, Ferrari has now figured out how to construct their wings so they flex at speed and in Austin Sunday for the USGP, the two Ferraris were untouchable.
All the teams are now scrambling and wasting valuable design hours to get on top of the flex-wing phenomenon because the FIA has yet to come up with a way to plug the loophole, and it brings significant gains in performance.
The FIA are now using cameras to monitor wing deflection at speed, and word is they intend to implement a rule in 2025 whereby small targets are added to the wings in various places, so the wing movement can be measured via the video feed, and if it exceeds a specified amount the car could be disqualified.
The part that the FIA is struggling with is the exact wording of that new rule and exactly what they will be measuring.
What would be important is to not measure the movement when a car bounces over a curb or uneven track surface, but at steady speed at some specified smooth locations (call it a wing deflection zone) at each circuit.
This gets very tricky, and the FIA has yet to finalize how this will be done and how they will police it. For example, the offending car could be disqualified, or they could be black flagged to the pits, told to remove the wing and run the remainder of the race without it.