98 replies to this topic

[BalanceUT]

Pretty sure those were structural. Wing ends pull down, wires in tension resist the pull. The turnbuckle on the wire probably was used to adjust the angle of the wing, too. 

 

midgrid, on 02 Apr 2019 - 10:59, said:

Interestingly enough, in days gone by there are examples of both front and rear wings being tethered to the chassis, e.g.

 

[Michkov]

We had 48 cars complete a full race distance with no wing issues and we had two break. One met what can be considered an immovable object while the other was subjected to loads it was never designed for. I dont see why there would be reason to panic over what can easily reasoned why the wings failed. Also it's not like there was a massive change in the way they are mounted.

[Wuzak]

BalanceUT, on 02 Apr 2019 - 13:19, said:

Pretty sure those were structural. Wing ends pull down, wires in tension resist the pull. The turnbuckle on the wire probably was used to adjust the angle of the wing, too. 

 

Exactly, the wires are stays to help support the wing. Evidently the wing structure was no strong enough to sustain the loads.

 

The turnbuckle is to pre-tension the wire.

 

Notice that the car is also fitted with pull-rods, rather than the usual push-rods, on the front suspension. These also operate in tension for the wheel loads, rather than compression in the case of push-rods.

[SenorSjon]

If you watch some current wings, it seems they are fixed to the nose with only two very tiny connectors. That is why a wing fails like a ironing board. That old Benetton had the left or right part snap off in case of an incident. Funny enough it wasn't strong enough with all that surface area to mount it on the nose.

[baddog]

Michkov, on 06 Apr 2019 - 23:49, said:

We had 48 cars complete a full race distance with no wing issues and we had two break. One met what can be considered an immovable object while the other was subjected to loads it was never designed for. I dont see why there would be reason to panic over what can easily reasoned why the wings failed. Also it's not like there was a massive change in the way they are mounted.

 

srsly?

[PayasYouRace]

SenorSjon, on 08 Apr 2019 - 08:12, said:

If you watch some current wings, it seems they are fixed to the nose with only two very tiny connectors. That is why a wing fails like a ironing board. That old Benetton had the left or right part snap off in case of an incident. Funny enough it wasn't strong enough with all that surface area to mount it on the nose.

 

That's 30 years of structural engineering development in carbon fibre for you.

[PayasYouRace]

baddog, on 08 Apr 2019 - 08:21, said:

srsly?

 

Yes. It probably wasn't designed to cope with such an extreme vibration.

[phrank]

PayasYouRace, on 08 Apr 2019 - 08:24, said:

Yes. It probably wasn't designed to cope with such an extreme vibration.

This is very worrisome 

[baddog]

PayasYouRace, on 08 Apr 2019 - 08:24, said:

Yes. It probably wasn't designed to cope with such an extreme vibration.

 

well it damned well should be able to cope with flat spotted tyres. Teams need to make cars that dont fall to pieces after a single flat spin on the tarmac.

 

Also Pirelli could stand to suck less hah

[Kalmake]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 09:19, said:

This is very worrisome 

It's true for every F1 wing ever. Maybe most could have survived that, but it's coincidental. I doubt teams test for all vibrations they might get with damaged tyres.

 

Just blindly making it stronger is never great when chasing performance.

 

Ferrari will probably look to strengthen the wing if they can afford it. There is a decent chance Vettel will spin again.

[Beri]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 09:19, said:

This is very worrisome

Well, no. Forces, like heavy vibration, put stress on parts that were not designed to handle.
Simple. Compare it to a cola can that one bend over and over. One time it will just give way to fatigue. It's simply not designed to do so.
You can calculate all the possibilities under which a front wing could disintegrate, the question at hand is: should you really take measures to eliminate all possibilities?

[phrank]

But flatspotting is a common occurrence, and that wing could have failed at a much worse spot than it did. I can imagine the size of the current wing also has something to do with it

[PayasYouRace]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 09:19, said:

This is very worrisome

Not really. The teams don’t have unlimited resources to test every component. A typical flat spotting doesn’t lead to such extreme vibration. It was clearly an out of the ordinary situation that no reasonable team would have accounted for.

Now it is possible that Ferrari might be redesigning their wing supports to not resonate at that particular frequency, but it’s unlikely that any of the other teams will have that exact problem. It also has little to do with the new wing regulations because the mounts failed where they meet the nose, rather than the wing.

[Rinehart]

It's basically up to each team to design a risk/reward compromise of weight versus strength, within the boundaries of the rule book. I would think with that wing failure on Vettels car has probably already lost them more points than they stood to gain...

[baddog]

Generally it has been the FIA who mandated strengthening for safety reasons. A detached wing is extremely dangerous, for all the incidents look comical right now, they could turn another way entirely

[Retrofly]

The cars go over 200mph, if they crashed at that speed it could be horrible. This is very worrisome.

They should make the cars go slower, then there is less danger and risk.

[wingwalker]

Riccardo looked to be just unlucky to hit uneven ground with his wing but he hit it pretty big time, nothing out of ordinary in wing going its own way there.The Vettel one looked a bit odd at first as he didn't seem to lock up the tires in a dramatic fashion, but the replay clearly shows the car was vibrating very hard just before the wing fell off.

 

So as It's been said I don't see reasons to be worried based on that. Actually, perhaps the most unusual one was Kubica loosing his wing during the start in Australia in what seemed like an end-plate damaging contact, but it's impossible to know without knowing exact loads, angles and forces which were in action when the contact occurred.

[Lotusse7en]

Beri, on 02 Apr 2019 - 13:11, said:

 

A photo posted in the McClaren thread, show a close up of the nose with wing removed - looks like they use 4  x 6mm studs ( pointing downwards)  onto which the wing is bolted to. Strong stud ! 

[ensign14]

Topsu, on 31 Mar 2019 - 17:38, said:

Ricciardo's wing failed because he hit a hedge of grass. Vettel's failed because he had massive vibrations that rocked the entire car. Neither did "just fall off".

 

We have halos now just in case someone loses bodywork because of hedges of grass or massive vibrations or trying to overtake Verstappen.

 

Front wings are a menace and banning them would improve the racing, and save huge amounts of costs.  As well as being safer.
 

[Beri]

Lotusse7en, on 08 Apr 2019 - 11:19, said:

A photo posted in the McClaren thread, show a close up of the nose with wing removed - looks like they use 4 x 6mm studs ( pointing downwards) onto which the wing is bolted to. Strong stud !

Which picture?

[phrank]

PayasYouRace, on 08 Apr 2019 - 10:54, said:

Not really. The teams don’t have unlimited resources to test every component. A typical flat spotting doesn’t lead to such extreme vibration. It was clearly an out of the ordinary situation that no reasonable team would have accounted for.

Now it is possible that Ferrari might be redesigning their wing supports to not resonate at that particular frequency, but it’s unlikely that any of the other teams will have that exact problem. It also has little to do with the new wing regulations because the mounts failed where they meet the nose, rather than the wing.

What?

First year with these incredible big front wings in combination with those fat tires. A innocent spin causing vibrations that can make a car fall apart it, never seen that happen ever before

[PayasYouRace]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 13:03, said:

What?
First year with these incredible big front wings in combination with those fat tires. A innocent spin causing vibrations that can make a car fall apart it, never seen that happen ever before

The wings aren’t significantly different to the last two years from a structural point of view. Yeah they’re slightly wider, but that’s it. There’s not much to be concerned about.

[MattK9]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 13:03, said:

What?

First year with these incredible big front wings in combination with those fat tires. A innocent spin causing vibrations that can make a car fall apart it, never seen that happen ever before

 

I suggest you google natural frequency and resonance.

 

The front wing was vibrating in a very strange way. The amplitude of the vibrations is what caused the failure. I too have never seen a front wing failure like that to a wing that was undamaged from Vettels spin. Given that there are flex test for the front wing where circa 100kg are added to the end plates and the wing can only deflect by a couple of mm maximum, the load generated to cause the amount of vibration seen of Vettels wing would have been huge. Im not surprised that it broke.

[phrank]

PayasYouRace, on 08 Apr 2019 - 13:36, said:

The wings aren’t significantly different to the last two years from a structural point of view. Yeah they’re slightly wider, but that’s it. There’s not much to be concerned about.

That's the whole point isn't it? They are wider and more prone to dangerous vibrations caused by an innocent spin.

 

Spin, vibrating front wing, fast corner, wing falls off, gets stuck under car, no brakes, disaster 

[Beri]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 13:03, said:

What?
First year with these incredible big front wings in combination with those fat tires. A innocent spin causing vibrations that can make a car fall apart it, never seen that happen ever before

The spin wasn't as innocent as it looked. Flat spotting four tyres simultaneously is something you don't see every day.

[PayasYouRace]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 13:50, said:

That's the whole point isn't it? They are wider and more prone to dangerous vibrations caused by an innocent spin.
 
Spin, vibrating front wing, fast corner, wing falls off, gets stuck under car, no brakes, disaster

Wider doesn’t mean more prone to vibrations.

[Beri]

PayasYouRace, on 08 Apr 2019 - 14:02, said:

Wider doesn’t mean more prone to vibrations.

The resonance only changes during vibrations compared to the smaller 2018 front wings. So it could be of influence. But I'm no expert.

[SenorSjon]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 13:50, said:

That's the whole point isn't it? They are wider and more prone to dangerous vibrations caused by an innocent spin.

 

Spin, vibrating front wing, fast corner, wing falls off, gets stuck under car, no brakes, disaster 

 

But, but, we have the halo now, so everything is peachy.

 

Beri, on 08 Apr 2019 - 14:00, said:

The spin wasn't as innocent as it looked. Flat spotting four tyres simultaneously is something you don't see every day.

 

It was a relative low speed spin. I wouldn't expect the tires to be that destroyed by it.

[Beri]

SenorSjon, on 08 Apr 2019 - 14:08, said:

But, but, we have the halo now, so everything is peachy.


It was a relative low speed spin. I wouldn't expect the tires to be that destroyed by it.

Me neither, but it happened. Also in the replay you can see the wheels actually stopped rotating completely during the sideways motion. This logically increased the wear on the tyres. But as said, it surprised me as well.

[JeePee]

SenorSjon, on 08 Apr 2019 - 14:08, said:

I wouldn't expect the tires to be that destroyed by it.

[7MGTEsup]

SenorSjon, on 08 Apr 2019 - 14:08, said:

But, but, we have the halo now, so everything is peachy.

 

 

It was a relative low speed spin. I wouldn't expect the tires to be that destroyed by it.

 

He slid sideways with all 4 wheels locked for 50 meters on a soft racing tyre. It may have looked slow speed but I bet he was traveling at 160kmh at the start of the spin. 4 flat spots all rotating out of sync would cause one hell of a vibration.

[TheJammin]

I imagine that many other drivers flat spotted their tyres at least a little bit during the race weekends with no front wing failures. I find it hard to believe that no other drivers didn't have even slight vibrations from over eager braking at some point.

 

Vettel was unlucky that he drove at the ring speed to cause an intense enough specific vibration frequency to break the thing. One wing failure after flatspots doesn't mean the structure is inherently unsafe or require the FIA to jump in.

[Clatter]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 13:03, said:

What?
First year with these incredible big front wings in combination with those fat tires. A innocent spin causing vibrations that can make a car fall apart it, never seen that happen ever before

Not been watching long then? https://youtu.be/G7d_KF8c2Gg

Vibrations can cause all sorts of failures.

[Beri]

TheJammin, on 08 Apr 2019 - 15:30, said:

I imagine that many other drivers flat spotted their tyres at least a little bit during the race weekends with no front wing failures. I find it hard to believe that no other drivers didn't have even slight vibrations from over eager braking at some point.

Vettel was unlucky that he drove at the ring speed to cause an intense enough specific vibration frequency to break the thing. One wing failure after flatspots doesn't mean the structure is inherently unsafe or require the FIA to jump in.

To flat spot one or two tyres is usually no big deal. But they do get heavy vibrations even if just one tyre is flat spotted. I believe it was Palmer at the 2017 Italian Grand Prix who flat spotted one of his front tyres. I was standing at the parabolica and one could hear him approach from the exit of the ascari. That thumping noise was something else and must have rattled his eyes out of his eye sockets.
Imagine what vibrations four flat spotted tyres in a way Vettel did, that must have been massive those vibrations.

[phrank]

Clatter, on 08 Apr 2019 - 15:35, said:

Not been watching long then? https://youtu.be/G7d_KF8c2Gg

Vibrations can cause all sorts of failures.

I knew this one, this was caused by a massive lockup, this is a classic, but you cannot compare it to a simple spin Vettel had.

[phrank]

PayasYouRace, on 08 Apr 2019 - 14:02, said:

Wider doesn’t mean more prone to vibrations.

Tell Vettel

[PayasYouRace]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 20:02, said:

Tell Vettel

 

Why?

[Clatter]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 20:01, said:

I knew this one, this was caused by a massive lockup, this is a classic, but you cannot compare it to a simple spin Vettel had.

Did you not notice during the spin that the tyres were locked up? Just because it happened during a spin doesn't mean the flat spot can't be bad.

[Beri]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 20:01, said:

I knew this one, this was caused by a massive lockup, this is a classic, but you cannot compare it to a simple spin Vettel had.

You are seriously saying braking a bit too late (Raikkonen did make the corner after all) is worse than setting your car backwards on track? You'll have to explain that one to me..

As I've said before, Vettel locked the wheels whilst going sideways. I reckon his rubber must have worn off to the canvas.

[Stephane]

Half of the rubber was ledt on track. THey were not just flat-spotted

[wingwalker]

Find the replay of Vettel's wing going it's own way and pay attention to the back of the car, it was vibrating massively. The spin didn't produce huge clouds of smoke but it certainly was enough to scrub a significant amount of rubber from the tire.


Oh wait, I keep live in the time when posting links here meant they would get removed in a blink of an eye.

 

 

here's the video, 50 seconds in.

 

Yay for Liberty!

[phrank]

Beri, on 09 Apr 2019 - 06:04, said:

You are seriously saying braking a bit too late (Raikkonen did make the corner after all) is worse than setting your car backwards on track? You'll have to explain that one to me..

As I've said before, Vettel locked the wheels whilst going sideways. I reckon his rubber must have worn off to the canvas.

Last season Vettel spun every other race and never his front wing fell off. But I am convinced by you guys, this has nothing to do with the wing, just the uniqueness of this spin

[PayasYouRace]

phrank, on 09 Apr 2019 - 09:58, said:

Last season Vettel spun every other race and never his front wing fell off. But I am convinced by you guys, this has nothing to do with the wing, just the uniqueness of this spin

 

None of those other spins resulted in a Ferrari was vibrating so badly that looked like it was driving over a washboard.

 

If anything needs to be looked at, it's the tyres. The new wing dimensions wouldn't necessarily lead to unusual failures. We know why it fell off Vettel's car. The car was vibrating itself to hard that something had to give. What gave was the front wing supports at the join with the nosecone.

[Imateria]

It wasn't even the first time Vettel flatspotted his tyres that weekend, having done so in qualifying as well.

 

The whole thing was very unusual, and I'd be quite surprised if we ever see that again even without anything changing.

[sabjit]

baddog, on 08 Apr 2019 - 09:24, said:

well it damned well should be able to cope with flat spotted tyres. Teams need to make cars that dont fall to pieces after a single flat spin on the tarmac.

 

Also Pirelli could stand to suck less hah

 

These weren't normal flatspots. The tyre was down to the canvas. The vibrations on it were immense, no way can you design a racing car to attempt to go that fast with flatspots. Vettel should not have been going at the speed he was.

[BalanceUT]

phrank, on 08 Apr 2019 - 10:51, said:

But flatspotting is a common occurrence, and that wing could have failed at a much worse spot than it did. I can imagine the size of the current wing also has something to do with it

It also could have hit a resonant frequency for a long enough period of time that the wing failed. The car passing through the speed that yields the resonant frequency would only be at the frequency a moment, not enough time to cause the fatigue. But, if it happens to run at that speed for a few seconds, it could pop right off... I'm guessing that's what happened. 

[phrank]

So Grosjean had a front wing spontaneously collapse on him on a bumpy part of the track in fp2.. interesting.

[Imateria]

phrank, on 12 Apr 2019 - 21:42, said:

So Grosjean had a front wing spontaneously collapse on him on a bumpy part of the track in fp2.. interesting.

And a long way from the first time this has happened to Haas, they seem to have a recuring problem since they joined the grid with the strength of their bodywork

[BalanceUT]

Imateria, on 12 Apr 2019 - 23:07, said:

And a long way from the first time this has happened to Haas, they seem to have a recuring problem since they joined the grid with the strength of their bodywork

It appears that one way that they have kept high competitiveness over the years is via testing the absolute limits of minimal structural integrity to save weight. Some are saying they are running slower in Shanghai because they've had to add a meaningful amount of weight to bolster the wing.