Mclaren’s Rear Wing Deemed Legal – Renault Thinks It’s a Joke

What's wrong with F1? That news story highlights it all...

The FIA should have grown some balls, stood up to the major manufacturers and, legislated what should be the ONLY rule in F1- a fixed budget for the entire season. Everything else goes.

Then, we'll start to see some real innovation plus, no one will have a reason to whine anymore.

Fixed budget? You mean budget cap.
I agree the disparity of spending may be unfair for the smaller teams, but this is F1, the top-tier of racing. The teams are competing BECAUSE of the money involved.

Plus, you shouldn't limit the innovation at any cost. The smaller teams can gain success if they have the right smart people - look at Brawn. And its not the smaller teams that are complaining. Budget cap or not, Ferrari almost always complain when things don't go their way, despite being one of the biggest spender..

On the Mclaren air inlet and rear wing, I don't really understand how it works. Need visual aid to understand..

No, no, I mean what I said; a fixed budget, no other rules. So, for example, all teams will have 100 units of currency to spend for an entire season's worth of racing and thus, also mean that any new teams wanting to enter will have to stump up 100 units of said currency to race. That way, you won't have any lame ducks, finance-wise.

The idea of having a fixed budget is, exactly, to encourage innovation. Which, if you're a follower of F1 and, have read the above article, would realise that innovation is what had been sorely lacking in F1 since they banned Colin Chapman's Lotus 78.

Have you ever given any thought to the basic design of an F1 car that is constantly being rammed down our throats by the marketers as being the most 'technologically advanced'? Open wheels? Big, fixed aero devices? Engines that MUST run on gasoline? Cars that MUST be powered by 4-stroke piston engines?

Oh and, could you please elaborate by what you mean when you say that teams are 'competing because of the money involved'? Ie. they are in it for the potential prize/sponsorship earnings?

Well the rules are so black and white. No aero parts can move when car is driving. So how come double standards? Like that any team can make a air craft style wing to increase or decrease drag right?

u not wat guys? this is just pre season publicity stunt to get us all riled up for this season hehe

I agree that fixed budget WHILE everything else goes (free of regulation) indeed breeds innovation. However that doesn't seem to fit F1. A FORMULA racing series, like F2,F3, GP2, and F1, are racing series made to FOLLOW a set of regulations, hence the name.

Not that I am against innovation, but in formula racing, innovation must stem FROM the rules and regulation - either by interpreting, circumventing, or breaking it. That's why the disputes always arise, that is just how Formula racing goes.

Oh, and there's the case of including some driving talent and input, not JUST the car. I certainly don't want a super racing car driven by a talentless idiot to be the champion..

Your idea is definitely interesting, but that would stem a different category of motor sport, maybe closer to prototype racing like Le-mans racing (even then there are regulations). But this is F1.

I agree though, that some sort of minimum budget is needed, to avoid those teams with no racing future to enter.

On the money thingy, yeah, definitely teams don't compete only for the money. Teams like Ferrari, Mclaren and Williams definitely have 'racing genes' in them, and they compete just for the sake of it. But then again, money talks, exactly how you said it - prize and sponsorship and the benefits derived from them like publicity. That's why other teams enter too, like car manufacturers and beverage company.

I thought it's a rule that said there should be NO mechanical movement and everything should be fixed??

Yes, the rulebook says NO MOVEABLE aero device.

Except for the movement of air itself, nothing in Mclaren's system is moving so it does not contravene the rules. What actually moves is the driver (presumably his leg) and a 'moving' driver is completely legal.

It does not contravene the technical regs BUT it is AGAINST the spirit in which the rules were written for that area.

Mclaren's been using their grey cells very creatively which in itself is good and they've been very clever with this because the race tubs are homologated this year so teams cannot freely modify the structure of the tubs in season to implement their version of this system, except under special circumstances (usually related to safety etc)

You can bet teams now looking for ways to introduce the system without having to re-homologated their tubs. Not easy, more money!

A1Diablo says:
Except for the movement of air itself, nothing in Mclaren’s system is moving so it does not contravene the rules. What actually moves is the driver (presumably his leg) and a ‘moving’ driver is completely legal.
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A moveable aerodynamic device encompasses a component that is a part of the car. The driver is not considered to be part of the car and hence a driver is not a 'moveable aerodynamic device' in the literal sense.

McLaren circumvented those specific provisions literally and in spirit with some creative interpretation of the wording.

Annoyed by un-necessary bitchin. says:
March 12, 2010 at 10:56 pmNo, no, I mean what I said; a fixed budget, no other rules. ....That way, you won’t have any lame ducks, finance-wise.
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"fixed budget"....."no other rules"

Are you freaking serious ??? It's Formula One, not Formula Unlimited. That means, as part of a Formula Series, albeit of the highest echelon of technical capability, there will still be a need for a homologation of engineering rules so that participants and designers have a clear idea of the base engineering platform to aim for. Otherwise the scope will be too wide and far too vague. Part of the problem dogging the 2009 diffuser controversy was that the rule did not have sufficient clarity leading to uncertainty amongst participants as to the scope of engineering design. No one wants to come into a series not knowing what kind of car to build. What you are suggesting is unprecedented in the history of motorsport. Never have been done, never will. And totally unworkable.

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Annoyed by un-necessary bitchin. says:
March 12, 2010 at 10:56 pmNo, The idea of having a fixed budget is, exactly, to encourage innovation. Which, if you’re a follower of F1 and, have read the above article, would realise that innovation is what had been sorely lacking in F1 since they banned Colin Chapman’s Lotus 78.

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If you want to impress us that you are an ardent follower of F1... blah, blah, blah, ....then at least get your facts right.

For starters, they DID NOT ban Colin Chapman's Lotus 78. Where the hell did you dig up that nonsense that they did ? The 78 was Chapman's revolutionary ground effects car which debuted at the tail-end of Season 1977. It was replaced in Season 1978 by the even more effective Lotus 79 which dominated and won the WDC title for Mario Andretti.

Ground effects was legal all through Formula One and continue to manifest itself today through underbody diffusers.

The only aspect of Chapman's ground effect concept which was banned were the sideskirts. Sideskirts were banned starting in Season 1983. The cars of the prior Season 1982 were primarily side-skirted ground effects vehicles with rudmentary wings and extremely stiff suspensions to maintain a reasonably constant underbody geometry (the gap between the underbody and road) in order to maximize ground effects.

So no, they DID NOT ban Chapman's Lotus 78 and only partially negated his original concept by banning car sideskirts in 1983, but Chapman's innovation of using car underbody to generate ground effects lives on even in today's F1 cars.

Furthermore, Chapman's ground effect innovation was introduced amidst the existence of a ready framework F1 1977 homologation rules. Contrary to what you are implying, Chapman did not innovate in an era where there were no rules. So your idea that innovation can only survive without rules is really stretching the concept of believability

One more thing....aside from banning sideskirts, the FIA also subsequently specified that cars have to have flat bottoms in a further attempt to reduce ground effects, but ground effects in itself, lives on even on today's cars through various underbody designs (inclusive of diffusers)

Yes, ground effects still 'in effect' (pun intended) though FIA has over the years limited what teams can do with it and thus causing more reliance on wings for total downforce generated which in my view is why F1 cars today struggle to follow each other closely and overtake one another.

This move to reduce reliance on ground effects was made on the grounds of safety particularly after the San Marino 1994 incident when Senna, Ratzenberger both died and Barrichello had life threatening situation. All on the same race weekend. There were also serious incidents involving spectators. All of which drove FIA to reform F1 for safety

Though not completely proven, a generally accepted theory was that Senna's car bottomed out at Tamborello as a result of reduced tyre pressures due to tyre cooling from the earlier safety car deployment. The bottoming disrupted the ground effects sending his Williams to the wall. There's a very good BBC documentary on his accident where former Williams chief engineer Frank Derney talked about this possibl theory. The tragic thing was Senna would have survived the impact but his collapsed tyre and strut was caught between the car and the wall and popped out akwardly and hit him on the head.

The move to reduce F1 cars' reliance on ground effects actually started long before Senna's fatal crash of 1994. It actually started in 1982 which was one of the most exciting and tragic of F1 seasons. When they lost Villeneuve at Zolder, there were calls made to reduce the ground effects on account that cornering speeds have increased alarmingly since 1979 (the first full year of ground effect cars). Notable amongst such calls to reduce ground effects was that coming from Didier Pironi, Villeneuve's teammate and 1982 spokesman for the F1 Driver's Association.

Sideskirts, as I said, were banned in the following year, but as we see again and again in F1, engineers were really smart people and always found a way to claw back lost performance through new innovations, eg. diffusers, active suspension, improved aerodynamics, etc

It will always be a 'losing battle' for the FIA. The FIA technical team will always be grossly outnumbered by technical teams in the race teams. FIA is constantly moving the goalpost and praying the the teams 'catch up' not too quickly

Yes, that's correct. At least with you, we have someone with an appreciation of the dynamics that affects the technological race within F1.

One more point I like to make regarding people's hasty suggestion about the lack of innovation in current F1.

Well, in the first place, how does anyone here know for certain there is a lack of innovation ?

The majority of new technical developments within raceteams are confidential and not public knowledge anyway. For that matter, Chapman's ground effect concept was never revealed until the other teams caught on to what he was doing. Chapman even went as far to hoodwink the rest of the field by suggesting the speed of the Lotus 79 was due to a super differential which he developed.

Such things only came to light much much later when the knowledge of the technology began to filter through the teams, and only after that, through to the media and the public.

So it seems hilarious to me that a memeber of the forum can so boldly say that there is no innovation in current F1....as though he was in a position to be privy to all the technical development that goes on behind locked doors