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Watching the races so far, I have noticed on the Renaults and Mclaren cars that the left mirror is vibrating really bad, but on the right it seems okay, does anybody have any reasons why it is vibrating on the left side so much?

m3_lover wrote:Watching the races so far, I have noticed on the Renaults and Mclaren cars that the left mirror is vibrating really bad, but on the right it seems okay, does anybody have any reasons why it is vibrating on the left side so much?

I don't think it's vibration but I think the team purposely left it shake to reduce turbulence I think. If it's vibration will last the whole race? But there's 1 thing weird......why let the left shake and not both left and right? .

Did you guys notice that Montoyas' left mirror broke off!

On both the Renaults and McLarens each mirror does vibrate, but the left much more so than the right. Also, they seem to vibrate more as a function of speed, rather than engine vibration. Only on the fast straights did the mirrors really start to dance. On braking, cornering, and even accelerating out of corners, no noticeable shake.
My opinion is that these mirrors are being severely buffeted by airflow under high speed.

I agree with Dave

I remember seeing the same vibration from the Mclarens at the last year's Australian GP.

Again, why only the left.

It was the same in Bahrain, but I put it down to the high winds.

Perhaps the drivers only ever use one, and the other is there to comply with the rules, therefore is not held on so well to save a couple of grams.

Can't think of another explanation.

the reason for one and not the other may lie in the mirror's asymetrical shape, not with the left and right, but of the sides of each mirror. The angle of approach of the wind may have something to do with it, but even in this case the other mirror should vibrate as well if the car is going the opposite way, I taped the race, will look for it when I watch it again.

Its actually way way simpler than that. Its true the buffeting is caused by airflow, but the left moves more than the right because....

....there's a TV camera in the left mirror, it adds weight.

Bit of an anti-climax really

The mirror is dancing like crazy on straights, is it designed to shake like this or it's just a coincedence ????

DaveKillens wrote: My opinion is that these mirrors are being severely buffeted by airflow under high speed.

Technically, you can call it 'periodic vortex shedding'. If the frequency of the shedding vortices matches a the resonance frequency of the structure both can contructively interfere causing high amplitude vibrations.

....there's a TV camera in the left mirror, it adds weight.

And I thought it was airflow, oh well no monster vortices.

I'm not sure whether it is still true, but in the past the right hand side wing mirror contained the transmitter to 'beam' a burst of telemetry data back to the team each time the car went through the pit straight. When I visited the Ferrari garage a few years back they had a protective shield over the rhs mirror.

That might account for a difference between the rhs and lhs mirrors, perhaps the transmitter mirrir needs to be attached more strongly to avoid any doppler issues as it is transmitting data.... just a thought.

Hang on.

I thought there was a camera in both?

Also, what is that at the front of the A1 GP car cockpit. 2 short pillars on each side.

Perhaps vibration of mirror has something to do with asymetrical aero Mclaren has?

manchild wrote:Perhaps vibration of mirror has something to do with asymetrical aero Mclaren has?

But you see it on the R26 too