Ciro Pabón wrote:About why other teams haven caught up with RBR, I insist that the trick needs a wing that is not elastic, but plastic or thixotropic. That must be quite a trick and requires research.
I support that. All wings have always been a bit flexible by virtue of being as light as possible, but if you pass the deflection tests that is going to give you, what, 10mm? 20mm more at speed? The bulls have found 50-60mm more and probably only stopped there because then there is tarmac. And McLaren also found most of it now...
But respect this being a difficult trick to research, I have this mental image of all CFD engineeres trying to make 3D models with plastic properties, and the wind tunnel guys using some play-doh in their 60% models. And with those high-tech tools I can see how this is hell to research, but actually this is a problem that could be conquered by simply making many real size wings with different construction techniques and a bunch of ramming rods. Fix your wings to a testing scaffold, put realistic loads in realistic places, and measure displacement. Cannot be that difficult. The models don't even need to be aero efficient, just use the same construction techniques as a real wing would.
What has me mystified is hat last year Ferrari seemed to have a flexing wing, although flexing less than the Red Bulls'. In the first preseason tests they still had it, I looked for it in many pics and one could see a lowish tilted wing occasionally. Then they changed to the giant pylons and the wing seems to have stopped moving at all. It is bizarre, if this is really a performance differentiator, they they have forgotten how to do it!
Rivals, not enemies.