Red Bull RB18

[diffuser]

p.s.:
This is the movement of their nose tip or probably rather the vanity cover on the nose tip
https://i.imgur.com/zADl4Ie.gif

The really interesting bit here is the nose is moving underneath, so the entire assembly is flexing rather than just the vanity part on top.

The whole nose seems to flex down a bit under aero load, but that seems not intended as that would actually increase the angle of attack of the FW elements the faster you go. Which only results in drag, you don’t need extra DF when going very quick on the straights.

The bottom does NOT appear to move in that GIF. It looks like the top moves up and down ....so it compresses ?

[n_anirudh]

That gif seems to be made of 2 images and its zoomed in so much (probably to highlight the flex I assume) its hard to discern. It is one big T shaped cantilevered structure that would flex at high speeds.

[RZS10]

Yep, the speed is still in the gif so it's between 80 and 269kph, it's zoomed in on the nose cone from the comparison of the entire wing, the movement is visible on the panel gap and the top surface of the nose cone imho and i made the switch from one image to the other so rapid to make it more visible, just watching the video footage it's not noticeable, i really only noticed it when doing the comparison on the 11th of March, it wasn't as pronounced or even visible on the other cars (this might have changed).

I really just brought it up because of the pointless finger pointing in this thread "oh this or that on car x or y is flexible" when the nose cone on this one appears to be squishy...

Either way ... the forwardmost visible element does not appear to move at the center (it does towards the outside edges)


This is obviously just guesswork but maybe the green stuff stays pretty much rigid with the red area moving with the shell/vanity cover, maybe the elements moving down or potentially rotating around the point i marked is causing the slight movement of the shell but even then it's really minimal and i don't believe it's too wise to try to come to any real conclusions simply because the quality of the images isn't high enough to do so, however i obviously do not believe there would be anything wrong with it and if there was some beneficial movement there which gave them a bit of time per lap then they'd have done a good job.

[SiLo]

Is it possible the camera housing is moving?

[RZS10]

I doubt it, the camera support on the RB18 is quite beefy


and all the remaining details/logos stay in the same position, even over the harshest bumps/kerbs - this is cluttering through the last chicane in Canada, could you tell from this footage?


If not for the light and shadows it would be hard to say whether it's even moving imho.

[Big Tea]

Is it possibly just lightweight material and deforming (squishing) due to air pressure? It is cosmetic only so not part of the crash test (is it? )

[RZS10]

It's just a thin cover, yes - it kinda is bound to move under load without any structural support underneath (which would be unnecessary weight)

[SiLo]

I doubt it, the camera support on the RB18 is quite beefy
https://i.imgur.com/tbTH6Be.png

and all the remaining details/logos stay in the same position, even over the harshest bumps/kerbs - this is cluttering through the last chicane in Canada, could you tell from this footage?
https://i.imgur.com/1Gire7E.gif

If not for the light and shadows it would be hard to say whether it's even moving imho.

We might be able to tell if the camera quality was better

[RZS10]

Man I wish i had that footage in crystal clear 4K or at least 1080p, but those are mostly from a compressed online stream, recorded and processed by nvidia experience when i was watching the practice sessions and happened to look at the screen at the right time, thrown into photoshop and then if it's a gif compressed even further when saving to that format and if it's a big file once again processed by imgur in addition to the focus of the onboard cam probably not being on the car parts but the action ahead.

I still think it's good enough to tell between certain panels or parts moving and the camera moving (see McL section in this post) and the mount being very thick on this car gives a certain confidence that there isn't really any noticeable camera movement.

Compare the camera shake in the gif above with this one from a car with a thin camera mount.

[SiLo]

Man I wish i had that footage in crystal clear 4K or at least 1080p, but those are mostly from a compressed online stream, recorded and processed by nvidia experience when i was watching the practice sessions and happened to look at the screen at the right time, thrown into photoshop and then if it's a gif compressed even further when saving to that format and if it's a big file once again processed by imgur in addition to the focus of the onboard cam probably not being on the car parts but the action ahead.

I still think it's good enough to tell between certain panels or parts moving and the camera moving (see McL section in this post) and the mount being very thick on this car gives a certain confidence that there isn't really any noticeable camera movement.

Compare the camera shake in the gif above with this one from a car with a thin camera mount.

I guess the camera housing is designed to be aero neutral, so any flexing shouldn't be possible. Vibrations are easy to see, I was just wondering if RB were somehow using the camera housing in another way and it was bending down which distorted the representation of the nose movement.

We have to remember, even 1mm of travel for these teams might mean 0.1 tenth over a lap, so I think its very plausible that the entire nose assembly at the front flexes down somewhat.

[Sieper]

Would it be possible to produce a similar comparison for the other (top teams) cars in their respective threads?

[RZS10]

Would it be possible to produce a similar comparison for the other (top teams) cars in their respective threads?

I put it in the comparison thread as an update to my older post.

[Juzh]

Man I wish i had that footage in crystal clear 4K or at least 1080p, but those are mostly from a compressed online stream, recorded and processed by nvidia experience when i was watching the practice sessions and happened to look at the screen at the right time, thrown into photoshop and then if it's a gif compressed even further when saving to that format and if it's a big file once again processed by imgur in addition to the focus of the onboard cam probably not being on the car parts but the action ahead.

I still think it's good enough to tell between certain panels or parts moving and the camera moving (see McL section in this post) and the mount being very thick on this car gives a certain confidence that there isn't really any noticeable camera movement.

Compare the camera shake in the gif above with this one from a car with a thin camera mount.

PM me for info on this if you want.

[vorticism]

[Zynerji]

I doubt it, the camera support on the RB18 is quite beefy
https://i.imgur.com/tbTH6Be.png

and all the remaining details/logos stay in the same position, even over the harshest bumps/kerbs - this is cluttering through the last chicane in Canada, could you tell from this footage?
https://i.imgur.com/1Gire7E.gif

If not for the light and shadows it would be hard to say whether it's even moving imho.

We might be able to tell if the camera quality was better

Multi Billion dollar F1, and the 720p cameras