Bob Bell on McLaren's Clever Wings: "It's a Joke"
- Published on Mar 12th, 2010 by Adam Milleneuve
During Friday free practise, less than 30 minutes into the 2010 season and the first controversy / legal battle of the year seems to firmly in place and it's all about McLaren's fancy rear wing system with drivers being able to control air-flow over it and make the car quicker in a straight line - all very clever indeed, but "not in the spirit of the rules" according to the Renault boss Bob Bell who was wearing his heart firmly on his sleeve and claimed "it's a joke" - he really wasn't happy.
Unhappy: Renault's MD, Mr Bob Bell - image credit: Renault F1
So what's he getting his knickers in a twist about? If you look at the McLaren car that's being driven by Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, you'll notice one big difference - the odd looking engine cover which pretty much connects to the rear wing. But the big problem is not with that, but with a 'venting system' in the cockpit. Both McLarens have a little air intake on the nose where air can rush in at high speed and then using their knee, the drivers can open and close a hole which open and closes airflow around the cockpit and throught he fin-like engine cover and onto the rear wing.
All sounds a bit technical, but in short, this creates and advantage to the McLaren cars because the the drivers can effectively control the rear wing's stability. By creating a change in air pressure flowing over the rear wing they can make it stiff and hence create less drag in a straight-line and give the cars a straight-line speed advantage over everyone else. The very fact that this is driver controlled and has been approved by the FIA is what's making Bob Bell very unhappy.
We doubt it's just Bob Bell, he's just the first to openly make his complaints to the media. A protest to be lodged after Bahrain? For sure, maybe.
As for a name for this potential saga - "knee-gate" seems to be gather pace as a name, but what about "wing gate" or "vent-gate" or "oh-no-not-another-legal-battle-gate" - ideas anyone?
images: autosport, LAT and Sutton
Comments and Discussion
Knee-gate sounds most interesting. My real worry is that if teams are stopped from innovating, what is the point of F1? The real joke is that Renault did not come up with this. Im sure this no billion dollar development which mclaren have done, just a small innovation.
So again 1 team is handed a huge advantage on the eve of the season!!! Was it coincidence Whiting could not get to McLarens factory to inspect the rear wing 6 days ago due to "flight complications"??? Absolute joke by the FIA(sco) which will now cost all the other teams more money having to incorporate their own copies!! #:)
Im Sorry Tequilla slammer but you are just wrong! If all inovation was banned in F1 then it would be F1. Ferrari have spinner on there wheels that pass only because they are made of the same material as the wheel. I am not a Ferrari fan at all but this is very very clever on their part. This not in the spirt of the rule chat is absolute rubbish, especially coming from a person at Renault.
Also costing teams is not a reason to ban something. It cost Mclaren to develop it so if it doesnt break any rules then why should it be banned?
Is anyone else kicking off about this yet or is it just Renault at the moment?
Just Renault at the moment, not sure if Bob Bell meant to be quite so outspoken live on BBC Radio 5 Live. There will be others, but they're all keeping stum at the minute...
Other are busy copying, while bob is crying
I think everyone's annoyed; a) because it's a clever solution that nobody else thought of first and b) they can't go cutting new holes in their safety cell since that area of the car is now (according to James Allen's site) signed off for the season. In other words, teams can copy the channel to the rear wing, but they can't drill a new hole in the top of the cockpit to take the air in.
Same with the wheels as well, they're also of an unchangeable design as soon as they've taken part in an official session. Both Ferrari and McLaren now have a part that brings a performance advantage that no one else can properly replicate.
As for Bob Bell's protest, he said so himself; "The developments are against the spirit of the rules". Exactly the same thing was said of the Toyota/Brawn/Williams diffuser in 2009. Legal in other words.
A Ron Dennis quote from 1998 springs to mind: (When you think outside of the box,,,) other teams first reaction is to try and get the system banned rather than rising to the technical challenge."
All sounds like sour grapes, im sorry Renault(and the other teams that havent spoken out yet) but just becuase you didnt think of it doesnt make it illegal. and whats all this about "spirit of the rules", what a load of rubbish. Rules state hard facts and regulations, if it doesnt say you cant do something then you can. thats how its always been and always should be.
Is this not a moveable aerodynamic device??
Aren't those against the rules?
I find it shocking that Renault's suspension technology was banned a few years back because it was a "movable aerodynamic device"(inside the car's bodywork, lol) and yet this sort of device is allowed.
It's no more a moveable aerodynamic device than a driver cocking their head to improve airflow to the airbox.
Well played McLaren I say
It is pretty smart.
This system considerably alters the cars aerodinamic properties at a driver's command. This sort of thing is supposed to be possible only via adjustable wings that are allowed in the rules. This gives McLaren a very unfair advantage to the competition.
And I would also hesitate to call this sort of thing "Innovation". They found a loophole and are now exploiting it to the max...this is no more an innovation than tax evasion.
No different to this time last year when Brawn et al came up with the double diffuser. The rest took the 'lets cry about it to the FIA' approach rather than develop it themselves and ended up losing out in the early races to the point where the championship was already effectively lost.
Now they're doing it again - why don't they just get into the design shop and develop it themselves? If it's deemed illegal, then the FIA will ban it but what is not up for debate is that it is currently legal and therefore you'd be mad not to exploit the advantage.
For what it's worth it's not illegal in my opinion. Moveable aero devices are illegal but this cannot be considered as that because it's the driver moving, not the car. If they find this illegal they best advise all drivers to keep their heads perfectly still because surely the movement of the helmet will affect the air flow in a similar way? (remember those races in China where certain drivers tilted their heads to one side so that more air could get in the air intakes?).
If the driver's heads are ever subject to debate on whether or not they are movable aero devices, I am sure there will be rules and regulations to either build a visor that is attached to the car or other specific instructions on how the airflow should be guided around the open cockpit.
I also do not understand the teams approach to cry about things to the FIA.
But I disagree on how this situation is comparable to the diffuser bebate of last year.
Brawn took a aero device that has been a important part of F1 cars for years and developed it to the maximum potential of the rules, also the diffuser was not controllable by the driver from the cockpit simply by some "bullshit, not-specified-in-the-rules" like him repositioning his leg or when his bodytemperature reached a certain point.
McLaren this year have come up with a completely new device, and it is an adjustable aerodynamic device, other than a front wing.
Doesn't that make it against the rules...?
Yes, Monza's been a particular favorite for head-bending in the past too. Drawing a parallel with drivers tilting their helmets is a good example. The McLaren innovation relies on movement from the driver to benefit the aero, like the head-tilting. Not parts of the car moving themselves like, for example; Renault's Mass Damper which was banned. That was the car adapting itself with no input from the driver.
If there was any part of the air-channelling system that was mechanical, electric or hydraulic then yes, it probably would be deemed illegal.
Every team out there is bending the rules in one way or another, it's just the ideas that are visible which the most fuss is made over.
The 'device' is not movable; it's fixed in relation to every measurable plane of the car. In the same way that wheel spinners were & Ferrari have blasted through the spirit of that rule.
The only way it could be deemed movable was if it was actuated in some way so as the stream of air altered path over (or under) the rear wing. It doesn't do that (as far as we know) it only changes velocity (or flow capacity) when the ducting is fully closed by the drivers leg. Provided it's just a hole they are covering with their suit & not a flap they are pressing into place then I fail to see what is moving apart from the leg.
Anyway it's legal (for now) so the teams should shut up & get on with it.
My comment about comparing it to Brawn last season was in relation to the performance advantage - NOT specifically the dynamics of the feature.
And playing devil's advocate for a second, what about when Button drove one-handed at Hockenheim some years back because his visor had worked loose? Most would consider what he had to do being a dis-advantage rather than an advantage but all the same it changed the airflow around the car.
Back to this instance, F1 monocoques have had a hole in the front of them (at the nose) for years to aid cockpit cooling for the drivers. A well-placed left foot could conceivably cover this too causing the same issue thus if the FIA are going to impose a ban for McLaren's 'feature', they'll surely need to take action on all the other teams too and ensure that the tub is fully enclosed?
I think that it's obviously legal, otherwise it wouldn't have been deemed so on thursday, that decision should final, instead of whining actually do something about it and let's all go racing. I think I speak for most f1 fans when i say that i don't want this to be deemed legal and then have the results changed because they've changed their minds.
Why is he complaining that it isn't in the 'spirit' of the rules? If it was illegal it would say so in the rules! The other teams should have thought of it, shouldn't they?
I'd like to go back to the DD comparison if i may, because that was just about a few teams being more ingenious and finding a loophole in the rules,the same as this year, so I won't be suprised when these vents start popping up on other cars before long. I think they should be rewarding innovation, not shooting it down when a team does something the rest didn't think of.
Anyway, sorry for the rant and i hope we can all just concentrate on the racing for once, rather than the politics!
It's great that such a passive device has been used to bring such enormous gains. Normally in F1 it's all about developing more bhp using high technology. This is just a beautifully simple adaption that could benefit all teams.
Plenty of things happen in F1 that aren't in the spirit of the rules. I think Renault should keep their tail between their legs for a few more races, since crashing on purpose isn't exactly a spirited display.
If you want to talk about cheap shots.. Maybe McLaren got this idea when they stole 100 million dollars worth of documents from Ferrari?
If this device was on a Ferrari I think you guys would feel differently.
I just hope it's not the ability to exploit loopholes that decides who wins the championship like it did last season. You can call it innovative or you can call it cheating, doesn't matter what you call it. I want to see the teams that build the best car as a whole be rewarded, not the second or third best car with a loophole that makes them win. Redbull built the best car last year, not Brawn. I hope if McLaren wins it's because they built the best car, not because of some kind of potentially dodgy device. I explained McLaren's device to a coworker and the first thing he said once the knee was mentioned was "sounds pretty dodgy to me". Dodgy, but clever.
The problem with these issues as always goes back to the FIA. As soon as a part like this arises, it's unfair to ban it, because it's clever. It's unfair to leave it on the car because it hurts the teams that stuck to the rules. The rules aren't written properly and someone is always going to get jipped. It has been happening in F1 for 10+ years (probably since the first F1 race). FIA never learns. A part that exploits a loophole is the same as a criminal who is found not guilty based on a technicality. The thing with the FIA is they can change rules as they please (like they did with mass damper). But if and when they do it is always random, which makes it impossible for the teams to know what they should do. Usually if a new part is ugly, it's banned straight away even if it's "legal" as most of you put it.
There is no black and white, it's all grey grey grey.
@ Dave Highkinen
The renault mass damper DID require input from the driver.
I propose to you that any ballast added to the car can be used as a tuned mass damper, it's just the manner in which the weight is attached to the body of the car that matters.
Without braking, steering etc. the sprung weight just sits there doing nothing.
The same lame excuses used to ban the tuned mass damper could be used to completely ban any kind of diffusors...but that would take us waaay off topic in this conversation.
The renault damper was designed to aid suspension. The insignificant effect it had on aerodynamics was a byproduct.
McLaren's snorkel however is a device specifically for aerodynamic purposes and it is controlled by the driver directly...how is that allowed...? And no, i do not agree with all this "it's the same as a driver moving his helmet" excuses that all the fanboys keep clinging on to.
Absolutely agree!
Ok I agree it isn't completely the same as a driver moving the helmet as they aren't actually operating anything by moving it, but it is impossible to not move your knee for two hours while driving at 200mph! There are no moving parts relating to the actual aero of it.Yes the driver moves something to change it, but the actual part being affected by the change in airflow, the rear wing, doesn't move an inch. That's why I think it should be legal, not because i'm a 'fanboy'.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
If this "part" was on a Ferrari, for sure I'd be annoyed that /they/ had the perceived advantaged and not my - admittedly favourite - McLaren team. However, if in that case the FIA had said sure, that's fine, then I'd sit back and let them get on with it. The other teams will adapt.
I strongly doubt that this innovation was a result of any document stealing from Ferrari, either; if it was a Ferrari secret, and it was that effective, Ferrari would be using it themselves.
Anyway, so far it's all a bit moot as at least one McLaren struggled to get into Q3! Still very early days though.
Are we back to this "Against the spirit of the rules" business again??
Clever rear wing staller - gate!!!
Well Ferrari have got their own contraversial part in the form of their double-rimmed wheels, which also are 'against the spirit of the rules' and also legal.
I think it's just "pick on McLaren for being cleverer than us" week.
@cranberry
So a considered example of a driver moving different parts of his body to aid air flow makes me a fanboy - sheesh. Argue with examples & logic please.
The facts are McLaren have a very simple innovation & the rest of the teams are envious as they know they can't simply copy it.
Without innovation we would have front engined wingless cars running on radial tyres with drum brakes. Probably better races though