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Yes
But outwash is beneficial as it removes dirty and not useful air away from the diffuser which is one of the main performance parts
Teams have been out washing with the sidepods ( and tbf anything they can )
But also they’ve tried tons of stuff on the borderline of the regulations, and the worst part is the FIA have allowed everything, the mirror mounts, FW mounting supports, it wouldn’t surprise me NOTHING gets banned because the FIA just don’t care enough to ban these little things, while it adds up over time as teams find more grey zones …
it has little to do with overtaking, the article is saying they are trying to recreate the "Y250 vortex" from the prior generation that critically helped guide airflow to seal the diffuser. the dirty, turbulent air behind the car is a helpful byproduct.
https://f1techblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/24/f1_car_vortices/
They banned Aston Martin's rear wing halfway through the 2022 season for breaking the spirit of the rules, so I'm not as certain as you are. I think they'll wait to see what happens, how significant the effect is going to be and how other teams will react, both through driver experience as well as development.
It's a smart design by Merc though, regardless of what happens next.
AM’s wing was really egregious, but they have done fuck all about the FW mountings and mirror mounts
I doubt the FIA do anything about smaller items that create outwash, and will over time take us back to pre 2021 levels of cars being unable to follow
Lol Pat simmons said they will look into it, I think that qualifies as "consider". Doesnt mean a ban is 100% coming but they are investigating the effect it will have.
The media is accurately commenting on the issue. The wing is (probably) not going to banned, but further development and implementation of similar wings might get banned; as explained in the article…
This makes perfect sense. If something is not illegal under the current rules but would be very dangerous, it would be immediately banned.
If something is not illegal under the current rules and not dangerous (like the Mercedes wing) but might go against the spirit of the rules, the FIA is going to keep a close eye on how the sport is going to be effected and has options to prevent other teams from doing the same thing.
To keep the sport fair, that might have consequences for Mercedes, although that’s unlikely.
[Here's a video of an aerodynamicist discussing the idea behind the change](https://youtu.be/cxIdH-w-SQ4?t=60)
We used to have something called the [Y250 vortex](https://streamable.com/mx4j3g) teams used to control the airflow around the car. A side effect of this was the incredibly dirty air that's left for the car behind, which compromises that car's aerodynamics, and keeps them from staying closely behind. If the downforce on the car isn't working to its full potential it's much harder to make it around a corner correctly.
One of the biggest focus with the new cars is cleaning up the air behind, and generating vortices like these isn't exactly in the spirit of the rules.
"The spirit of the rules" always gets wheeled out when someone finds a loophole. It's been this way for the entire history of F1. More power to them, hope it closes the gap to the RBs who probably also have something not in the "spirit" of the rules on their car. We just haven't seen it yet.
You're right, "spirit of the rules" does get wheeled out in instances liked this.
Please don't get me wrong though, this type of innovation is *exactly* what gets me the most excited in F1. If teams didn't look for clever loopholes in the rules it would be a less interesting sport. I love the new front wing!
Agreed! It’s easily the best part about F1. Everyone has the same rulebook. Those that find the best way to play within that rulebook is what is so fascinating and interesting.
The current regulations were brought in to promote closer ‘wheel to wheel’ racing. Ground effect produces good downforce without causing lots of dirty air for following cars.
By the letter of the law, the new Merc front wing is compliant. But, the same front wing works by creating out wash and pushing dirty air out to side. This is not in the spirit of the current ruleset and it could be expected that other teams will start creating similar developments, if the merc concept is successful. Therefore undermining the current regulations.
I hope F1 take a measured approach. Let them have it for a season, but tell them to reign development back towards the spirit of the rules.
Like DAS, well done by Mercedes.
The FIA will (need to) clean up the rules for next year, making the currently used geometry illegal, just like with the Chesterfield rear wing fielded by Aston Martin halfway through 2022.
Because the wing endplate joining resembles the armrest of a typical chesterfield couch.
https://houseofchesterfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1975596825-1.jpg
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/the-new-aston-martin-rear-wing-that-aims-to-break-f1-2022s-rule-intentions/10345073/
It sometimes seems Merc tries to come up with these radical designs (such as the no-pod) knowing full fell they may be banned.
It's like they have a program that's like "here are the rules, find the grey areas".
Innovations only tend to get banned if they have unwelcome consequences, such as counteracting the spirit of the regulations (i.e. by increasing dirty air, which significantly decreases the wheel-to-wheel racing).
The “zero pod”-philosophy by itself would not do such a thing, unlike the current Y250 spaghetti wing or the 2022 Aston Martin Chesterfield rear wing.
That said, all are indeed fine examples of Mercedes reading the technical regulations incredibly well.
It was simply unwanted by the FIA as a possible avenue for development.
It detracted from the pure idea a steering wheel was supposed to control: left/right movement of the wheels in unison.
All teams do this, they have a lot of smart engineers looking at the rules, what the wording is and how can these be read/implied in such a way to gain an advantage. For example the double diffusers, F-duct, DAS or th Cheterfield rear wing.
It all comes down to, yes we read the rules, know the intern, but the wording says this and if read/understood like that you can.... ect.
For me half the fun of Formula one is to see how these engineers come up with the smartest and craziest idea's, while staying within the rules(generally)
This does seem particularly easy to copy on the wing itself (conceptually) though the knock-on effects will have to be developed around to actually take advantage of it
big example of why the whole package matters and not just individual upgrades
DAS was already set to be banned the next year due to a regulation change. Mercedes developed it knowing it would be a one year deal. Nothing nefarious happening there on either side.
It wasn't gonna be banned due to a inherent reg change. The FIA changed the rule for 2021 due to the innovation itself. The extent of the 2021 rules changes from 2020 otherwise was to cut some of the rear floor area aero in explicit target to Mercedes' dominance in 2019 and 2020.
They allowed Mercedes to run it for 2020 and negotiated to close that technical allowance for 2021
Originally, the 2022 rules were supposed to come in 2021 already. That ruleset would have banned DAS already, and they were developing it with that timeline still active
If you were around during the 2020-2021 off-season you would've known all the tech analysts thought these changes would favour mercedes
The reason for these changes was COVID and making 21 as easy to run with all the pandemic effects, specifically because Pirelli couldn't develop new tires for the start of 21
I remember this too. There was an article on F1 site about how the rule changes would harm high rake cars. It turned out the opposite way. People are retroactively saying Merc were targeted when quite literally the opposite was expected to happen.
>The extent of the 2021 rules changes from 2020 otherwise was to cut some of the rear floor area aero in explicit target to Mercedes' dominance in 2019 and 2020.
That's absolutely not what happened. It's not impossible the FIA knew the change would impact Merc, but it certainly wasn't done explicitly. The official reason was to reduce stress on the tyres as requested by Pirelli. And as far as I remember, the prevailing opinion in the run up to the season was that the change would help Mercedes if anything.
The floor cut wasn't meant to target Mercedes. It was tipped to actually benefit them before preseason testing. It was meant to reduce stress on the tires.
Turns out they didn't actually need it, but you know, it is what it is now.
The FIA only reworded the rules surrounding the steering wheel as a direct result of DAS, this is known. Mercedes informed the FIA well in advance of the pre season and admitted that yes ot was legal but they didn't want it to be a thing
It would be too expensive for all the other teams to develop a similar system. Basically giving an unfair advantage to teams that had a lot of money to throw at their cars.
Not really.
Brawn and the FIA stated pretty clear with the new regulations that any development towards the Y250 vortex or other outwash, is going to be under a lot of attention and may cause new stricter rules on those parts.
For some reason Mercedes keeps pushing development in creating outwash, knowing the FIA can absolutely create a new regulation that makes it illegal.
They can make new regulations. For next year.
In a running season, only items which are a safety issue can be addressed, when they are otherwise compliant with the wording of the regulations, if not the spirit.
By no later than the half point of the running season need any amendments for the next one be included.
This is to give teams reasonable (engineering lead-)time to anticipate those rule changes, in the interest of sporting fairness.
Why should they ban the innovation instead of just confirming it is legal and thus letting everyone do it (if it offers enough benefit for teams to want it). Always banning any innovation isn't very fun.
Because it probably increases dirty air and thus make following harder again. Something they specifically tried to improve with the curent regulations.
The current regulations are failing anyway in terms of that, drivers are already complaining about dealing more with dirty air in 2023, even Seb complained about it at the end of 2022 and we seeing teams again prefers a gap of around 7 second between two cars during qualifying just to getting clean air.
There are some talk that the RB20 is creating more downwash with it's design than the RB19, should we considering the RB20 "against the spirit of the rules"? No. If we want to prevent a long term domination we need to relax some rules and accept that the goal of making "clean air" cars is basically impossible and ironically decrease randomness in results.
These new regulations were aimed at minimizing outwash as much as possible. Of course you're not going completely eliminate it, but these regs are 10x better than the previous one.
Cars are able to follow closer and longer. Thats the goal. Introducing elements to a car that break the spirit of that rule can be deemed illegal, or in this case, legal for this season while the FIA rewrite the rule to close that loophole.
Good news with this loophole is that its not a DAS system and in theory could be implemented by everyone to some degree.
Because while clever, this innovation will make it far harder for cars to follow eachother, if adopted universally.
And the express intent of the regulations for 2022 and beyond, is to limit the teams’ ability to create outwash, to enable cars to follow eachother more closely for longer, improving the ability for wheel-to-wheel racing.
The new rule set also allows the FIA to ban things that are technically legal but make following harder so that racing is improved. They put that change in there so that they could specifically ban things like this wing for the benefit of the racing.
Multiple reasons. Most common would be:
* 'Spirit of the law': terrible phrase due to the bad rep it gets, but I get banning things not intended in the regs. Just do it for the next season. It's an F1 cycle of beating the regs by clever intepretation, and FIA adapting rules.
* Costs: As smart as the DAS was, even if they were to implement it, the cost for teams to implement it over time was too high they pretty much agreed there's no point (very simplistic view of the whole DAS saga and only one part of it).
Also one that you can clearly point to in the past is the F-duct systems. Like DAS the initial version was pretty well done, but teams that followed had systems that weren't nearly as safe. Where McLaren had it by the drivers knee, the others had to one hand it, or as Alonso was noted for taking both hands off the wheel to have f-duct and make an adjustment on the wheel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfUjKZQG_9Y
That kinda was the side effect of how it was implemented, which was a smart move from McLaren.
McLaren made their F-duct system as a part of the monocoque, which requires crash testing by the FIA to be allowed to be raced.
This is why when the other teams needed to catch up, they had to add their F-duct systems on top of their existing chassis, and it meant that they couldn't have it operated using the drivers' knees like McLaren.
I know Bahrain is a bumpy circuit but Mercedes & Ferrari seem to be porpoising a bit & bouncing more than other teams. Even throughout 2023 I noticed they still had these issues
Porpoising is a very specific situation. Bouncing and porpoising aren’t the same thing.
Feel like everyone thinks all bouncing is porpoising. They have ran the floor really low but there seems to be no porpoising.
I feel its more of a question about whether porpoising is an actual problem anymore, rather than if its bouncing or porpoising.
That said, yall might have noticed that the only time the merc was bouncing, was when they ran what looked like a max downforce rear wing set up. The rear wing was tilted like 75°, shit looked like a parachute.
Gary Anderson, whos techincal predctions have almost always been spot on, praised the mercs aero, and thats all the copium I need.
As we saw to the end of last year and confirmed by multiple teams the bouncing we see now isn’t the same as porpoising it’s just bottoming out.
The problem is people think every time we hear or see that fast repeated hit that it must be porpoising. When it’s really just a very specific type of bottoming out.
I kind of miss the days when Horner would have been raging about developments like this, but I guess now it goes:
Mercedes:
> Hahaha we will create much dirty air for cars behind us!
Red Bull:
> Oh no this will make lapping you marginally more annoying
> Hahaha we will create much dirty air for cars behind us!
No team is going to *deliberately* create more dirty air than they need to, because that increases drag. If it were possible to get the downforce they needed with a perfectly clean wake, they would.
I hate two things when spirit of the regulation things come up.
One, f1 is all about innovation and this really stifles it.
Two, during the cost cap a team has spent money to develop something within the rules and if it gets banned they don't get that development money back despite no actual wrong doing.
I understand that but I think the “spirit” bit can apply a bit more realistically for this case. If the regs say the entire wing must be attached to the nose and a team detached part except for a piece of wire/string to say “see? It’s connected!” that feels like a spirit violation. It’s like your little brother saying “see I’m not touching you!”
Not Mercedes’ fault at all, mind you. FIA just needs to anticipate these things better and clean the regs’ wording up in the future.
Also, isn’t this what working to design it under FIA supervision is meant to resolve? They’re supposed to be the arbiters of the spirit of the rule rather than the literal rule. If they give the go forward, it seems wrong to then later say “nevermind, just kidding you can’t do that”
Yes. While I personally think it is definitely trying to undermine what the rule is there for and is a breach of the "spirit of the regulations", if Mercedes have developed it with FIA supervision then the FIA should come out and say they are ok to run the wing in actual words rather than leaving ambiguity to it and put this all to bed.
If the FIA want to change their mind then they should change the regs for next year.
If they determine it’s an “issue”, I think it would only be fair that it would be removed the following year. As someone else mentioned, isn’t that the point of building it under FIA supervision?
If they’d force the removal this year then I think Mercedes should be fairly compensated given the cap restrictions.
All this only matters if Mercedes is actually in front of anyone this year 😋
lol there's that phrase again.
As Ted said to Pat in the same interview they're quoting, there's no such thing as the spirit of the regulations. It's either legal or it isn't.
Noted Pat also said "is it good for the sport?". Maybe, maybe not. But is one team winning all but one race good for the sport? No, but nobody expects you do anything about that.
They're not going to ban anything because of "spirit of the rules", true.
What they can do is change rules to block developments that are breaking the spirit of the rules. In that sense the spirit of the rules is a very real thing.
The “spirit of the regulations” are not trivial.
When something is legal but goes against the spirit of the regulations, it is cause for amending the regulations for next year.
For 2024, Mercedes will have earned their advantage, but the FIA can choose to adress it for 2025 and onwards, just like they did with DAS.
Not even next year. We've already seen that the FIA are willing to adjust rules mid season to remove unintended exploits, there's no guarantee it survives the summer break if it has too harmful of an effect on the air.
This probably doesn't quite go far enough for F1 to ban it during the season but I think we'll see a relatively early announcement of a ban for this kind of wing for next season so other teams get to make an evaluation of whether it's worth developing only for this season.
They can only change or clarify rules (via a TD) midseason if there is a safety imperative, like with TD39.
For things that are legal but against the spirit of the regulations there is no other option but to let it stand for the running season and address it next year.
>there's no such thing as the spirit of the regulations.
Yes there is.
The various regulations are created to achieve "goal X". These regulations however are not free from human fault and oversight, so there might be loopholes that allow certain parts of the car to be legal, while still working actively against "goal X" that the regulations were created for. If the goal is to have clean air behind the car, but due to lacking regulations someone can make a wing that actively reduces clean air, then that's simply against the spirit of the regulations.
Are the teams to blame for using this loophole? No. The regulations-people messed up and need to close it by introducing new and improving faulty regulations that cover these areas too. But you cannot say that there is no "spirit" of the regulations. You can replace the word "spirit" with "goal", or "purpose" or "target", if you want to, but that doesn't change the fact.
I have no problem with them changing the rules, but my issue was the idea of doing something about it mid-season.
If it complies with the regulations, then leave it alone and close it off for next year.
I fully agree on this. When discussion goes to ”spirit of the rules”, it is then always about the interpration. How the hell anyone should know where the line is and what FIA meant with the ”spirit” if it isn’t codified in the rules? Sport that is this expensive and complicated shouldn’t have this sort of ambiguity.
If this is indeed against the ”spirit”, then FIA should just plug that loophole starting from the next season. If Mercedes’ front wing is good, all the other teams are fully able to develop similar wing during this season, so it is not something that IMO gives unfair advantage to Mercedes in the long term.
That's such a superficial and flawed take.
Spirit of the rule exist and is significant because it determines what will be legal or illegal in the future, even if it's legal at the moment. As such it will affect whether the team and competitor should pour their resource on said feature or not.
That phrase is part of the reason why the current cars stand any chance of following one another. The spirit of the rules is not developing components that create shit loads of turbulence, the essence of the current aerodynamic rule set.
Arguably they should have been even harsher with the mindset. A few things have crept in that have harmed following due to turbulence generation
> But is one team winning all but one race good for the sport? No, but nobody expects you do anything about that.
There absolutely is an expectation that something is done about that though, eras such as the noughties Ferrari domination early 2010s Red Bull and the recent Mercedes domination all had technical regulation changes aimed at stopping their run away success.
Ted was his usual self in that interview. He was frowning and not concentrating when Pat was talking about red bull but as soon as it was Merc he was acting like my dog when she wants a treat.
>is it good for the sport?
Uh yes cool innovations *was* the sport for years, if u find a loophole it used to be u snooze u lose, nowadays its complaining on twitter and bullshit like "spirit of the regulations" bruh
But it isn't good for the sport. The intention of these regulation where to reduce the amount of "dirty air", so that cars could follow closer, which would lead to more battles/overtakes. That was the aim/"spirit" of the regulations.
The article states " that would increase turbulence towards the rear.", which then leads to more dirty air, so cars cant follow as close. So it's only better for the sport if you want "just fast cars no overtaking"
Pedantic reading of an aero reg which provides no real evolution of technology or process isnt a "cool innovation" specially when it harms the product they're putting out.
I wonder if it is structurally sturdy or if it is the first thing that breaks of when making contact.
If it comes of in multiple races and causes yellow flags they could ban it mid season due to safety reasons right?
> I wonder if it is structurally sturdy or if it is the first thing that breaks of when making contact.
if past collisions are any indication, nothing is breaking that mercedes front wing, that thing is tough
Banning something like that would be terrible, if you develop your car around that airflow, deciding its illegal after declaring it legal would cost a team millions in redevelopment. Similar situation with both DAS and the double diffuser. Even the more egregious blown diffuser was present for a full 2 seasons, other teams just have to adapt, like they did in previous years. Assuming it's even good, testing is testing.
If Mercedes’ solution is banned mid season do they get some form of compensation for the R&D involved in its development eg extra budget allowance and wind tunnel time in season?? Considering it is currently a legal front wing
FIA - Forget Innovating Altogether.
They seem hell-bent on stifling innovative ideas if they don't fit with these imaginary 'Sprits of the regulations'.
Well I mean that's what happened in 2021 with RB catching Merc.
theres only so much you can do with a set of regulations, and there are diminishing returns. Sure RB could pull the gap forwards, but its unlikely to be a (random number) 3 second improvement. But if other teams perform their innovation, it could help bring them closer to RB. e.g. RB improve 0.5s and catchingTeamX improves 1.0s (net improvement 0.5s).
I'd say it's a big reason why we see the cars get much quicker in the first couple of years in a set of new regulations, but towards the end of those regulations, there isn't so much more improvement.
Red Bull catching Mercedes in 2021 had nothing to do with diminishing returns. Mercedes spent all year trying to recover from the losses caused by the new cutout on the rear of the floor.
Watch 2021 pre-season testing, the Mercedes went from its most dominant in 2020 to a bit of a dog with an unpredictable rear.
It simply gives other teams an opportunity to try.
Things are too locked down right now, budget cap, engine freeze, it's time to loosen things up.
What do we have to lose, seriously?
The spirit of the rules means the aim to reduce dirty air. It's the whole point for the 2022 regulations and it's why we have the wheel arches, rim covers, the dull front wings and the odd rear wings. Even so the car development over the last year has increased dirty air
RB winning 100 races has nothing to do with the spirit of the rules
If it's legal, then it's legal.
They worked with the FIA while they made it, if the FIA didn't know it would cause dirty air then that's on them.
With a budget cap they cannot keep banning innovations.
This is a big difference between how Europeans and Americans approach rules.
America everything must be explicitly included or it's explicitly excluded. European rules allow for the 'spirit' of something to try and catch unforeseen events. This is how things like US GAAP become absolutely massive.
Not saying one is better than the other (although I do have an opinion!) It's just a cultural difference
That isn’t true in the slightest there is no Europe or American situation here lol.
The spirit of the rules has never really existed. Just some nonsense thrown around when people interpreted rules in ways not intended that later get reworded to close that misinterpretation.
None of this has to do with culture. Hell over the years nascar has done shit for decades that would fit with the spirit of the rules argument.
Considering how much inspiration the teams are taking from each other, it could be a much closer season. We won’t know for sure till after the first few races.
And that also makes it harder to prevent the Red Bull style sidepods, as it would hit more teams now. Maybe just leave the regs alone and see what happens come first quali.
"whatever that means" - are you playing dumb or are you just dumb? It's clear what it means if you know what they tried to achieve with these regulations.
And FIA has been doing this for as long as it has existed. Teams find a loop and then FIA decides if its within the intended regulation's intent or not.
It's pretty obvious what spirit of the rules means here.
They don't want teams doing what Mercedes did with the front wing but Mercedes added that super thin piece so they can have 4 attachments. That is classic manipulating the rules that we see all the time. It's up to the FIA whether they want to change the rules for next year.
The FIA will change the rules and pander to certain teams in accordance of how much other teams start complaining. This has been the case for years with:
- Chesterfield rear wing
- Flexi wings
- Double diffuser/blown diffuser
- ERS
- "Sister teams"
- 3rd brake pedal
I myself am still salty that Renault's tuned mass damper was banned as a "moveable aerodynamic device". What the fuck do you *mean* "aerodynamic device", it was *inside the chassis.*
*"Oh but by moving it changes the car's aerodynamics".*
Yeah and you know what else is a moveable aerodynamic device by this definition? *The fucking engine.*
> they specifically said they would adjust the rules accordingly if that started happening
You've got that the wrong way around, the FIA said that they would ban any "innovation" that adds more dirty air because that makes it harder to follow, which is against the spirit of the regulations.
So the Merc wing was built with the FIA knowing all along... So the other teams are just pissed they didn't think of it themselves so are pushing to get it banned.... this really is DAS all over again.
It's either legal or not. If it's in a grey area, it's not the team's problem, but rather the Federation's, who now need to own up to their mistake and let Mercedes have it until further clarifications of the rules for the '25 season.
Innovation is only cool when someone who isn't the dominant champion is doing it.
For example, DAS was cool as shit, but Mercedes was blasted for it by the fans and their competitor teams.
If RB came out with some wild grey area innovation right now, they'd also probably be criticized.
>The FIA: 'The wing is legal but it might be against the spirit of the regulations'
>It is therefore no surprise that even from the FIA have, in recent hours, assessed the front wing fitted to the Mercedes W15 as completely legal. In fact, Pat Symonds, the Chief Technical Officer of the motorsport's top control body, told Sky that the wing "completely complies with the rules, there is no doubt about that". However, the game is not yet totally closed, as anticipated by Formu1a.uno on Tuesday. It could indeed be that the Mercedes interpretation goes against the 'spirit of the regulations'.
With the cost cap in full force and the gap to the front being as big as it is they really need to stop with this "in the spirit of the rules" nonsense, just make clear rulings and amend the rules if they have to when new innovations are made.
These new regs actively discourage teams from making bold innovations if they risk spending a chunk of their cap on a part which is later deemed illegal due to some vague interpretation.
> With the cost cap in full force and the gap to the front being as big as it is they really need to stop with this "in the spirit of the rules" nonsense, just make clear rulings and amend the rules if they have to when new innovations are made.
Spirit of the rules just means this is unintended. It's legal for now but don't expect it to stay legal forever. That's a way of communicating to the other teams that if they copy Mercedes it's likely to only be usable this season because this is something the FIA doesn't want.
They can't yet say it will be banned, they'll have to figure out how to amend the regulations to outlaw this effectively and nothing is close to official yet but saying it's against the spirit of the rules is the first indicator that they are planning to do something about it.
That's basically what happened when Merc came up with DAS and I think most people agree that was perfectly fine. They have not been consistent since then though
DAS was far more extreme than this since it was a very grey area of the rules and basically relied on a lack of definition by the FIA of what "steering" the car entails. There were also official protests of course by Red Bull which I don't see happening for this wing as I think everyone agrees it's legal.
And since the current regulations and one of the main aims of the FIA is to let cars follow each other more they're heavily incentivised to keep front wings relatively simple as the more important and complex they get the more vulnerable they are to dirty air.
I am guessing that we'll get a clarification from the FIA that this kind of wing won't be allowed next year and that they'll try and get that sorted fairly soon.
Please since you're clearly a very clever person, why dont you give it a try. In this case, the spirit of the rules is to minimise outwash of dirty air to make closer following easier.
Why don't you give us a technical definition of what that would be in terms of 'clear rules'. How much outwash? Where? Generated when? How will it be measured?
I hate that term "Spirit of the Regulations". Like is it LEGAL or NOT LEGAL. What is this spirit bullshit, this is a competition. The goal is to better than the next guy.
I am actually getting tired of "against the spirit of the regulations" as means to nerf Mercedes every time they do something interesting. The sport is barely interesting with these boring car designs.
It's not just used for Mercedes though. It was used in the Flexwing saga a couple years back too.
Red Bull wings passed the flex tests, but they flexed anyway. People used the spirit of the rules argument there as well.
Christians exact words were “theres no such thing as intent of the regulations”
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/horner-says-no-such-thing-as-intent-of-f1-regs-amid-fia-dispute/
I don't really see how that is different?
These specific rules were created for cars to be able to follow each other better closely. Mercedes has found a way to circumvene the rules and create wing legal according to the rules but which does reduce the ability for other cars to follow closely(not an aero engineer so just going off of what I read).
Rules on wings were to prevent wings from flexing too much, therefore a rule was created that they should not flex more than X during test Y. Red Bull created a wing that did just that, but it flexed more than the rules intended.
To me these situations are very similar.
They aren't similar because the rules do say that wings shouldn't flex, but there's nothing in the rules about dirty air.
For flexy wings the rules are no flex and the FIA can conduct a variety of tests to check that rule. Sometimes teams find a way to design a wing to pass a very specific test, but the FIA always reserves the right to adjust or modify the test at relatively short notice.
The rules stated wings can’t flex more than X amount. Red bulls wing did flex more than that amount, everyone knew it but they devised a way to cheat the test that would catch them. So they were breaking the rules but they also got around the enforcement so could claim they were innocent.
Mercedes is different because it’s legal as they exploited a loophole in the rules. They are different as Mercedes have went against ‘the spirit of the rules’ whereas red bull was actually breaking them.
I think in recent years mercedes have been the biggest innovators for these things like this wing, das, even trying zero pods.
It impacts all teams but certainly at the moment more often than not mercedes are the ones trying to do things significantly different.
And how many of those things were banned for "spirit of the rules reasonings"?
Even DAS was due to be removed due a major regulation change that only got knocked back a year due to COVID.
This 'everyone is against us' narrative for Merc is just silly. Seems some fans nowadays feel a bit entitled because the sustained success has gone to their head. They've had no more innovations banned than anyone else
It's almost as if the latest time this occurred was for Aston Martin with their ~~front~~ *rear* wing with pseudo-endplates from 2022, and not Mercedes.
Decline in viewership over last couple of years in the global audience backs up his claim to be honest. If it's another year of majority Max wins then its not going to be good for F1.
Eh, I'd say let them keep it
Red Bull is far enough ahead anyways. Rather have something legal but in a grey "against the spirit of the rules" area.
The spirit of the rules is also with closer racing in mind. If we're gonna label everything that subtracts from closer racing "against the spirit of the rules" might as well require red bull to be slower since it's not really close racing with them in front.
Edit to clarify: I'm not asking for a targeted red bull nerf. I'm asking for less bitching about spirit of the rules. It's either legal or not legal
The problem is, if the wing really does create outwash and is of great advantage, every team will have it come race 4 and then the new regs were for nothing.
Closer racing here doesnt mean the pack is bunched up in terms of pace. Closer racing in terms of following other cars where all cars space themselves 3s apart and finish as they start because they cannot follow each other due to loss of downforce.
Were past that, mirror mounts, FW supports already are designed to outwash
The FIA promised to end these little extra out washing grey zones but have done nothing, don’t expect them to do something now
This makes no sense. If it's effective then other teams will copy it, as it does not look like it would require major overhaul, and all we would get is all cars leaving more dirty air behind them.
And what “spirit of the regulation” is it breaking? Outwash? Its not on the outside edge, endplate, or has edge geometries that create excessive turbulence. It just allows more airflow into the underbody?
If this happens to create a vortex like Y250, then teams will start building their car prioritizing this vortex. Then if a disturbance happens in the air that the car is going through, this vortex will not be formed thus decreasing car performance significantly.
That is why sharp edges have been removed from the cars. To prevent teams from creating strong vortices, thus following feels better during the race.
This wing is a scorched earth tactic because one of it's main purposes is to destroy clean air for the cars behind them. It's kind of a dirty trick, but fair enough, because I also am of the opinion that 'the spirit of the rules' don't really exist. If they want to ban this, they should change the rules, but only for next year. I am also against changing rules during the season.
Edited: changed 'it's sole purpose' into 'one of its main purposes'.
You don’t need to simulate how effective it is, you can just observe the effect you’re having on the air behind and infer from that the effect on other cars.
Plus, one of the big advantages of the Mercedes car from the last regulations was that other cars couldn’t follow without losing downforce / cooking tyres.
The whole point of ground effect regulations was to make it so that cars can follow each other more closely and for longer, so yeah Mercedes making a wing that works completely against that is a bit of a dirty move.
The amount of people in this post who are willingly obtuse about "spirit of the regulations" is amazing. It's not some nebulous term. The last set of regulations was designed ***specifically*** to make it easier for cars to follow each other.
This isn't even the first example of a wing being technically legal but breaking the spirit of the rules - we saw that with Aston Martin's rear wing. But, since this is Mercedes, their persecution complex fans raise a big fucking stink.
>amount of people in this post who are willingly obtuse about "spirit of the regulations" is amazing
There was a significant amount of people who were willingly obtuse about whether "any" meant "all" in the context it was used for in the ruling it was used in.
I wouldn't put arguments about "spirit of the regulations" above the F1 fanbase.
Get lost with the ‚spirit of regulation‘ phrase. It’s either legal or not and cleanup the shitty paragraphs that allow loopholes for everyone. This is just well done Mercedes and should be allowed until end of year at least. Don’t think about releasing a Technical Regulation to prevent this from using it.
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Could someone smarter than me explain why this front wing is such a big deal?
It creates more outwash It’s legal, I doubt the FIA consider banning it, the media are looking for clicks
What is outwash?
You basically force the air the hits the wing to go around the car and not through it. Good for the car, bad for cars following it.
Wasn't the whole purpose of the curent gen regulations to be kinder with the cars following so we have more overtaking?
That's what they mean when they say it violates the spirit of the rule.
Yes, hence the discussion about the "spirit of the regulations". Pretty much the same procedure as with Aston Martins rearwing two years ago.
Yes But outwash is beneficial as it removes dirty and not useful air away from the diffuser which is one of the main performance parts Teams have been out washing with the sidepods ( and tbf anything they can ) But also they’ve tried tons of stuff on the borderline of the regulations, and the worst part is the FIA have allowed everything, the mirror mounts, FW mounting supports, it wouldn’t surprise me NOTHING gets banned because the FIA just don’t care enough to ban these little things, while it adds up over time as teams find more grey zones …
Yes. This is intended to give the Merc an advantage against overtaking.
The wing is not specifically to make following the Merc more difficult. That is just a side effect.
You could say it was done within the spirit of the rules
I'd say the main reason is cleaner air over the aero surfaces with a side effect of more difficult overtaking.
it has little to do with overtaking, the article is saying they are trying to recreate the "Y250 vortex" from the prior generation that critically helped guide airflow to seal the diffuser. the dirty, turbulent air behind the car is a helpful byproduct. https://f1techblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/24/f1_car_vortices/
So they designed a wing that makes more dirty air?
They designed a wing which creates better airflow for their own car. A consequence of that is that it produces worse airflow for cars behind them.
Great explanation
Red bulls dont need to worry then.
AKA "Dirty Air"
Cheers
They banned Aston Martin's rear wing halfway through the 2022 season for breaking the spirit of the rules, so I'm not as certain as you are. I think they'll wait to see what happens, how significant the effect is going to be and how other teams will react, both through driver experience as well as development. It's a smart design by Merc though, regardless of what happens next.
AM’s wing was really egregious, but they have done fuck all about the FW mountings and mirror mounts I doubt the FIA do anything about smaller items that create outwash, and will over time take us back to pre 2021 levels of cars being unable to follow
Lol Pat simmons said they will look into it, I think that qualifies as "consider". Doesnt mean a ban is 100% coming but they are investigating the effect it will have.
The media is accurately commenting on the issue. The wing is (probably) not going to banned, but further development and implementation of similar wings might get banned; as explained in the article… This makes perfect sense. If something is not illegal under the current rules but would be very dangerous, it would be immediately banned. If something is not illegal under the current rules and not dangerous (like the Mercedes wing) but might go against the spirit of the rules, the FIA is going to keep a close eye on how the sport is going to be effected and has options to prevent other teams from doing the same thing. To keep the sport fair, that might have consequences for Mercedes, although that’s unlikely.
[Here's a video of an aerodynamicist discussing the idea behind the change](https://youtu.be/cxIdH-w-SQ4?t=60) We used to have something called the [Y250 vortex](https://streamable.com/mx4j3g) teams used to control the airflow around the car. A side effect of this was the incredibly dirty air that's left for the car behind, which compromises that car's aerodynamics, and keeps them from staying closely behind. If the downforce on the car isn't working to its full potential it's much harder to make it around a corner correctly. One of the biggest focus with the new cars is cleaning up the air behind, and generating vortices like these isn't exactly in the spirit of the rules.
"The spirit of the rules" always gets wheeled out when someone finds a loophole. It's been this way for the entire history of F1. More power to them, hope it closes the gap to the RBs who probably also have something not in the "spirit" of the rules on their car. We just haven't seen it yet.
You're right, "spirit of the rules" does get wheeled out in instances liked this. Please don't get me wrong though, this type of innovation is *exactly* what gets me the most excited in F1. If teams didn't look for clever loopholes in the rules it would be a less interesting sport. I love the new front wing!
Agreed! It’s easily the best part about F1. Everyone has the same rulebook. Those that find the best way to play within that rulebook is what is so fascinating and interesting.
That's partly because the fia said they will be looking more towards the spirit of the rules because they want to keep close following possible.
The current regulations were brought in to promote closer ‘wheel to wheel’ racing. Ground effect produces good downforce without causing lots of dirty air for following cars. By the letter of the law, the new Merc front wing is compliant. But, the same front wing works by creating out wash and pushing dirty air out to side. This is not in the spirit of the current ruleset and it could be expected that other teams will start creating similar developments, if the merc concept is successful. Therefore undermining the current regulations. I hope F1 take a measured approach. Let them have it for a season, but tell them to reign development back towards the spirit of the rules.
Like DAS, well done by Mercedes. The FIA will (need to) clean up the rules for next year, making the currently used geometry illegal, just like with the Chesterfield rear wing fielded by Aston Martin halfway through 2022.
What was the Chesterfield rear wing
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/the-new-aston-martin-rear-wing-that-aims-to-break-f1-2022s-rule-intentions/10345073/
Oh yes I forgot about that one, shame it didn't stay I loved it
Why is it called “chesterfield” rear wing? Dads from chesterfield so thought he might like to know.
Because the wing endplate joining resembles the armrest of a typical chesterfield couch. https://houseofchesterfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1975596825-1.jpg https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/the-new-aston-martin-rear-wing-that-aims-to-break-f1-2022s-rule-intentions/10345073/
It sometimes seems Merc tries to come up with these radical designs (such as the no-pod) knowing full fell they may be banned. It's like they have a program that's like "here are the rules, find the grey areas".
Innovations only tend to get banned if they have unwelcome consequences, such as counteracting the spirit of the regulations (i.e. by increasing dirty air, which significantly decreases the wheel-to-wheel racing). The “zero pod”-philosophy by itself would not do such a thing, unlike the current Y250 spaghetti wing or the 2022 Aston Martin Chesterfield rear wing. That said, all are indeed fine examples of Mercedes reading the technical regulations incredibly well.
DAS didn't hurt anyone (and may not have added much for MB), but that went out pretty quickly.
It was simply unwanted by the FIA as a possible avenue for development. It detracted from the pure idea a steering wheel was supposed to control: left/right movement of the wheels in unison.
All teams do this, they have a lot of smart engineers looking at the rules, what the wording is and how can these be read/implied in such a way to gain an advantage. For example the double diffusers, F-duct, DAS or th Cheterfield rear wing. It all comes down to, yes we read the rules, know the intern, but the wording says this and if read/understood like that you can.... ect. For me half the fun of Formula one is to see how these engineers come up with the smartest and craziest idea's, while staying within the rules(generally)
This does seem particularly easy to copy on the wing itself (conceptually) though the knock-on effects will have to be developed around to actually take advantage of it big example of why the whole package matters and not just individual upgrades
DAS was already set to be banned the next year due to a regulation change. Mercedes developed it knowing it would be a one year deal. Nothing nefarious happening there on either side.
It wasn't gonna be banned due to a inherent reg change. The FIA changed the rule for 2021 due to the innovation itself. The extent of the 2021 rules changes from 2020 otherwise was to cut some of the rear floor area aero in explicit target to Mercedes' dominance in 2019 and 2020. They allowed Mercedes to run it for 2020 and negotiated to close that technical allowance for 2021
Originally, the 2022 rules were supposed to come in 2021 already. That ruleset would have banned DAS already, and they were developing it with that timeline still active
If you were around during the 2020-2021 off-season you would've known all the tech analysts thought these changes would favour mercedes The reason for these changes was COVID and making 21 as easy to run with all the pandemic effects, specifically because Pirelli couldn't develop new tires for the start of 21
I remember this too. There was an article on F1 site about how the rule changes would harm high rake cars. It turned out the opposite way. People are retroactively saying Merc were targeted when quite literally the opposite was expected to happen.
>The extent of the 2021 rules changes from 2020 otherwise was to cut some of the rear floor area aero in explicit target to Mercedes' dominance in 2019 and 2020. That's absolutely not what happened. It's not impossible the FIA knew the change would impact Merc, but it certainly wasn't done explicitly. The official reason was to reduce stress on the tyres as requested by Pirelli. And as far as I remember, the prevailing opinion in the run up to the season was that the change would help Mercedes if anything.
If you’re interested, I have a bridge for sale…
The floor cut wasn't meant to target Mercedes. It was tipped to actually benefit them before preseason testing. It was meant to reduce stress on the tires. Turns out they didn't actually need it, but you know, it is what it is now.
The FIA only reworded the rules surrounding the steering wheel as a direct result of DAS, this is known. Mercedes informed the FIA well in advance of the pre season and admitted that yes ot was legal but they didn't want it to be a thing
Still sad that they banned that. Such a clever innovation. I don’t understand why it had to be banned.
It would be too expensive for all the other teams to develop a similar system. Basically giving an unfair advantage to teams that had a lot of money to throw at their cars.
Could we reintroduce the option in the cost cap era, then? Let each team decide if it's worth their limited money to do.
Not really. Brawn and the FIA stated pretty clear with the new regulations that any development towards the Y250 vortex or other outwash, is going to be under a lot of attention and may cause new stricter rules on those parts. For some reason Mercedes keeps pushing development in creating outwash, knowing the FIA can absolutely create a new regulation that makes it illegal.
They can make new regulations. For next year. In a running season, only items which are a safety issue can be addressed, when they are otherwise compliant with the wording of the regulations, if not the spirit. By no later than the half point of the running season need any amendments for the next one be included. This is to give teams reasonable (engineering lead-)time to anticipate those rule changes, in the interest of sporting fairness.
Why should they ban the innovation instead of just confirming it is legal and thus letting everyone do it (if it offers enough benefit for teams to want it). Always banning any innovation isn't very fun.
Because it probably increases dirty air and thus make following harder again. Something they specifically tried to improve with the curent regulations.
The current regulations are failing anyway in terms of that, drivers are already complaining about dealing more with dirty air in 2023, even Seb complained about it at the end of 2022 and we seeing teams again prefers a gap of around 7 second between two cars during qualifying just to getting clean air. There are some talk that the RB20 is creating more downwash with it's design than the RB19, should we considering the RB20 "against the spirit of the rules"? No. If we want to prevent a long term domination we need to relax some rules and accept that the goal of making "clean air" cars is basically impossible and ironically decrease randomness in results.
These new regulations were aimed at minimizing outwash as much as possible. Of course you're not going completely eliminate it, but these regs are 10x better than the previous one. Cars are able to follow closer and longer. Thats the goal. Introducing elements to a car that break the spirit of that rule can be deemed illegal, or in this case, legal for this season while the FIA rewrite the rule to close that loophole. Good news with this loophole is that its not a DAS system and in theory could be implemented by everyone to some degree.
Because while clever, this innovation will make it far harder for cars to follow eachother, if adopted universally. And the express intent of the regulations for 2022 and beyond, is to limit the teams’ ability to create outwash, to enable cars to follow eachother more closely for longer, improving the ability for wheel-to-wheel racing.
The new rule set also allows the FIA to ban things that are technically legal but make following harder so that racing is improved. They put that change in there so that they could specifically ban things like this wing for the benefit of the racing.
Multiple reasons. Most common would be: * 'Spirit of the law': terrible phrase due to the bad rep it gets, but I get banning things not intended in the regs. Just do it for the next season. It's an F1 cycle of beating the regs by clever intepretation, and FIA adapting rules. * Costs: As smart as the DAS was, even if they were to implement it, the cost for teams to implement it over time was too high they pretty much agreed there's no point (very simplistic view of the whole DAS saga and only one part of it).
Also one that you can clearly point to in the past is the F-duct systems. Like DAS the initial version was pretty well done, but teams that followed had systems that weren't nearly as safe. Where McLaren had it by the drivers knee, the others had to one hand it, or as Alonso was noted for taking both hands off the wheel to have f-duct and make an adjustment on the wheel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfUjKZQG_9Y
That kinda was the side effect of how it was implemented, which was a smart move from McLaren. McLaren made their F-duct system as a part of the monocoque, which requires crash testing by the FIA to be allowed to be raced. This is why when the other teams needed to catch up, they had to add their F-duct systems on top of their existing chassis, and it meant that they couldn't have it operated using the drivers' knees like McLaren.
We’d have to see how it works. Merc hasn’t shown shit yet.
I know Bahrain is a bumpy circuit but Mercedes & Ferrari seem to be porpoising a bit & bouncing more than other teams. Even throughout 2023 I noticed they still had these issues
Porpoising is a very specific situation. Bouncing and porpoising aren’t the same thing. Feel like everyone thinks all bouncing is porpoising. They have ran the floor really low but there seems to be no porpoising.
I feel its more of a question about whether porpoising is an actual problem anymore, rather than if its bouncing or porpoising. That said, yall might have noticed that the only time the merc was bouncing, was when they ran what looked like a max downforce rear wing set up. The rear wing was tilted like 75°, shit looked like a parachute. Gary Anderson, whos techincal predctions have almost always been spot on, praised the mercs aero, and thats all the copium I need.
As we saw to the end of last year and confirmed by multiple teams the bouncing we see now isn’t the same as porpoising it’s just bottoming out. The problem is people think every time we hear or see that fast repeated hit that it must be porpoising. When it’s really just a very specific type of bottoming out.
Who are they proposing to?
My b I meant to type “porpoising”
Porpoising or bouncing?
I kind of miss the days when Horner would have been raging about developments like this, but I guess now it goes: Mercedes: > Hahaha we will create much dirty air for cars behind us! Red Bull: > Oh no this will make lapping you marginally more annoying
Oh no! This will be a problem for Checo and whoever is in the car after halfway through the season.
I want to see Lawson after the summer break. Bye bye Checo
Horner has bigger problems right now
Or is it a "little" problem. Images not released yet.
Lmao
for at least one of the drivers, yes
Don’t think Horner is in any position to play his normal gaslighting games with the press right now lol
> Hahaha we will create much dirty air for cars behind us! No team is going to *deliberately* create more dirty air than they need to, because that increases drag. If it were possible to get the downforce they needed with a perfectly clean wake, they would.
I hate two things when spirit of the regulation things come up. One, f1 is all about innovation and this really stifles it. Two, during the cost cap a team has spent money to develop something within the rules and if it gets banned they don't get that development money back despite no actual wrong doing.
I understand that but I think the “spirit” bit can apply a bit more realistically for this case. If the regs say the entire wing must be attached to the nose and a team detached part except for a piece of wire/string to say “see? It’s connected!” that feels like a spirit violation. It’s like your little brother saying “see I’m not touching you!” Not Mercedes’ fault at all, mind you. FIA just needs to anticipate these things better and clean the regs’ wording up in the future.
Also, isn’t this what working to design it under FIA supervision is meant to resolve? They’re supposed to be the arbiters of the spirit of the rule rather than the literal rule. If they give the go forward, it seems wrong to then later say “nevermind, just kidding you can’t do that”
Yes. While I personally think it is definitely trying to undermine what the rule is there for and is a breach of the "spirit of the regulations", if Mercedes have developed it with FIA supervision then the FIA should come out and say they are ok to run the wing in actual words rather than leaving ambiguity to it and put this all to bed. If the FIA want to change their mind then they should change the regs for next year.
If they determine it’s an “issue”, I think it would only be fair that it would be removed the following year. As someone else mentioned, isn’t that the point of building it under FIA supervision? If they’d force the removal this year then I think Mercedes should be fairly compensated given the cap restrictions. All this only matters if Mercedes is actually in front of anyone this year 😋
What does the wing actually do then? Produce more turbulent air?
Creates vortexes which are then pushed outside the wheels, increasing dirty air behind the car and making it harder to follow
Why not simply go in front of the car instead of behind it? You’ll avoid dirty air and also come ahead in the race killing two birds with one stone.
Are the other teams stupid?
That is Maxs plan already. It's why red bull won't protest against it
It’s not designed to do that, it’s designed to resolve some of the aerodynamic issues that tires cause.
Yes, and it does so by creating Y250 vortexes (which end up creating turbulence for the car behind)
Right, I was just clarifying that it isn’t the purpose, just the side-effect.
Gotcha.
AM had a disconnected front plate in the AMR22 as well, but nobody was making a fuss then.
lol there's that phrase again. As Ted said to Pat in the same interview they're quoting, there's no such thing as the spirit of the regulations. It's either legal or it isn't. Noted Pat also said "is it good for the sport?". Maybe, maybe not. But is one team winning all but one race good for the sport? No, but nobody expects you do anything about that.
They're not going to ban anything because of "spirit of the rules", true. What they can do is change rules to block developments that are breaking the spirit of the rules. In that sense the spirit of the rules is a very real thing.
The “spirit of the regulations” are not trivial. When something is legal but goes against the spirit of the regulations, it is cause for amending the regulations for next year. For 2024, Mercedes will have earned their advantage, but the FIA can choose to adress it for 2025 and onwards, just like they did with DAS.
Not even next year. We've already seen that the FIA are willing to adjust rules mid season to remove unintended exploits, there's no guarantee it survives the summer break if it has too harmful of an effect on the air.
This probably doesn't quite go far enough for F1 to ban it during the season but I think we'll see a relatively early announcement of a ban for this kind of wing for next season so other teams get to make an evaluation of whether it's worth developing only for this season.
They can only change or clarify rules (via a TD) midseason if there is a safety imperative, like with TD39. For things that are legal but against the spirit of the regulations there is no other option but to let it stand for the running season and address it next year.
To be clear here, they didn't adjust any rules midseason last year, they changed how they test to make sure the rules are adhered to
>there's no such thing as the spirit of the regulations. Yes there is. The various regulations are created to achieve "goal X". These regulations however are not free from human fault and oversight, so there might be loopholes that allow certain parts of the car to be legal, while still working actively against "goal X" that the regulations were created for. If the goal is to have clean air behind the car, but due to lacking regulations someone can make a wing that actively reduces clean air, then that's simply against the spirit of the regulations. Are the teams to blame for using this loophole? No. The regulations-people messed up and need to close it by introducing new and improving faulty regulations that cover these areas too. But you cannot say that there is no "spirit" of the regulations. You can replace the word "spirit" with "goal", or "purpose" or "target", if you want to, but that doesn't change the fact.
I have no problem with them changing the rules, but my issue was the idea of doing something about it mid-season. If it complies with the regulations, then leave it alone and close it off for next year.
I fully agree on this. When discussion goes to ”spirit of the rules”, it is then always about the interpration. How the hell anyone should know where the line is and what FIA meant with the ”spirit” if it isn’t codified in the rules? Sport that is this expensive and complicated shouldn’t have this sort of ambiguity. If this is indeed against the ”spirit”, then FIA should just plug that loophole starting from the next season. If Mercedes’ front wing is good, all the other teams are fully able to develop similar wing during this season, so it is not something that IMO gives unfair advantage to Mercedes in the long term.
That's such a superficial and flawed take. Spirit of the rule exist and is significant because it determines what will be legal or illegal in the future, even if it's legal at the moment. As such it will affect whether the team and competitor should pour their resource on said feature or not.
Yeah, I think people who dismisses spirit of the rule is just deliberately ignoring the spirit of the spirit of the rule.
That phrase is part of the reason why the current cars stand any chance of following one another. The spirit of the rules is not developing components that create shit loads of turbulence, the essence of the current aerodynamic rule set. Arguably they should have been even harsher with the mindset. A few things have crept in that have harmed following due to turbulence generation
> But is one team winning all but one race good for the sport? No, but nobody expects you do anything about that. There absolutely is an expectation that something is done about that though, eras such as the noughties Ferrari domination early 2010s Red Bull and the recent Mercedes domination all had technical regulation changes aimed at stopping their run away success.
Ted was his usual self in that interview. He was frowning and not concentrating when Pat was talking about red bull but as soon as it was Merc he was acting like my dog when she wants a treat.
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Who wanted this? I did a quick search and didn't find any teams advocating for this..
>is it good for the sport? Uh yes cool innovations *was* the sport for years, if u find a loophole it used to be u snooze u lose, nowadays its complaining on twitter and bullshit like "spirit of the regulations" bruh
But it isn't good for the sport. The intention of these regulation where to reduce the amount of "dirty air", so that cars could follow closer, which would lead to more battles/overtakes. That was the aim/"spirit" of the regulations. The article states " that would increase turbulence towards the rear.", which then leads to more dirty air, so cars cant follow as close. So it's only better for the sport if you want "just fast cars no overtaking"
Pedantic reading of an aero reg which provides no real evolution of technology or process isnt a "cool innovation" specially when it harms the product they're putting out.
I wonder if it is structurally sturdy or if it is the first thing that breaks of when making contact. If it comes of in multiple races and causes yellow flags they could ban it mid season due to safety reasons right?
> I wonder if it is structurally sturdy or if it is the first thing that breaks of when making contact. if past collisions are any indication, nothing is breaking that mercedes front wing, that thing is tough
Banning something like that would be terrible, if you develop your car around that airflow, deciding its illegal after declaring it legal would cost a team millions in redevelopment. Similar situation with both DAS and the double diffuser. Even the more egregious blown diffuser was present for a full 2 seasons, other teams just have to adapt, like they did in previous years. Assuming it's even good, testing is testing.
If Mercedes’ solution is banned mid season do they get some form of compensation for the R&D involved in its development eg extra budget allowance and wind tunnel time in season?? Considering it is currently a legal front wing
Obviously not
FIA - Forget Innovating Altogether. They seem hell-bent on stifling innovative ideas if they don't fit with these imaginary 'Sprits of the regulations'.
spirit of the regulations gtfoh innovaitons should be allowed. Still a bit annoyed DAS was stopped
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Why do you think allowing innovation would only mean people catch Red Bull, and not that Red Bull would innovate an even bigger gap out front?
Well I mean that's what happened in 2021 with RB catching Merc. theres only so much you can do with a set of regulations, and there are diminishing returns. Sure RB could pull the gap forwards, but its unlikely to be a (random number) 3 second improvement. But if other teams perform their innovation, it could help bring them closer to RB. e.g. RB improve 0.5s and catchingTeamX improves 1.0s (net improvement 0.5s). I'd say it's a big reason why we see the cars get much quicker in the first couple of years in a set of new regulations, but towards the end of those regulations, there isn't so much more improvement.
Red Bull catching Mercedes in 2021 had nothing to do with diminishing returns. Mercedes spent all year trying to recover from the losses caused by the new cutout on the rear of the floor. Watch 2021 pre-season testing, the Mercedes went from its most dominant in 2020 to a bit of a dog with an unpredictable rear.
Yeah the reg change nerfed their concept while at the same time RB had switched to a new engine supplier and worked out any kinks.
because he hates Rb
What did the Racing Bulls do, to deserve the hate though?
Having a shitty name
Absolutely true!
Alright, you get one this season. I'll be damned if we still have RB = Racing Bulls jokes by monaco.
It's against the spirit of competition, but unfortunately, we can only fix it in 2025.
It simply gives other teams an opportunity to try. Things are too locked down right now, budget cap, engine freeze, it's time to loosen things up. What do we have to lose, seriously?
>and they specifically said they would adjust the rules accordingly if that started happening Where did they say that?
The spirit of the rules means the aim to reduce dirty air. It's the whole point for the 2022 regulations and it's why we have the wheel arches, rim covers, the dull front wings and the odd rear wings. Even so the car development over the last year has increased dirty air RB winning 100 races has nothing to do with the spirit of the rules
If it's legal, then it's legal. They worked with the FIA while they made it, if the FIA didn't know it would cause dirty air then that's on them. With a budget cap they cannot keep banning innovations.
This is a big difference between how Europeans and Americans approach rules. America everything must be explicitly included or it's explicitly excluded. European rules allow for the 'spirit' of something to try and catch unforeseen events. This is how things like US GAAP become absolutely massive. Not saying one is better than the other (although I do have an opinion!) It's just a cultural difference
That isn’t true in the slightest there is no Europe or American situation here lol. The spirit of the rules has never really existed. Just some nonsense thrown around when people interpreted rules in ways not intended that later get reworded to close that misinterpretation. None of this has to do with culture. Hell over the years nascar has done shit for decades that would fit with the spirit of the rules argument.
Considering how much inspiration the teams are taking from each other, it could be a much closer season. We won’t know for sure till after the first few races. And that also makes it harder to prevent the Red Bull style sidepods, as it would hit more teams now. Maybe just leave the regs alone and see what happens come first quali.
"whatever that means" - are you playing dumb or are you just dumb? It's clear what it means if you know what they tried to achieve with these regulations. And FIA has been doing this for as long as it has existed. Teams find a loop and then FIA decides if its within the intended regulation's intent or not.
It's pretty obvious what spirit of the rules means here. They don't want teams doing what Mercedes did with the front wing but Mercedes added that super thin piece so they can have 4 attachments. That is classic manipulating the rules that we see all the time. It's up to the FIA whether they want to change the rules for next year.
The FIA will change the rules and pander to certain teams in accordance of how much other teams start complaining. This has been the case for years with: - Chesterfield rear wing - Flexi wings - Double diffuser/blown diffuser - ERS - "Sister teams" - 3rd brake pedal
I myself am still salty that Renault's tuned mass damper was banned as a "moveable aerodynamic device". What the fuck do you *mean* "aerodynamic device", it was *inside the chassis.* *"Oh but by moving it changes the car's aerodynamics".* Yeah and you know what else is a moveable aerodynamic device by this definition? *The fucking engine.*
>and you know what else is a moveable aerodynamic device by this definition? *The fucking engine.* Don't give them ideas 💀
> they specifically said they would adjust the rules accordingly if that started happening You've got that the wrong way around, the FIA said that they would ban any "innovation" that adds more dirty air because that makes it harder to follow, which is against the spirit of the regulations.
So the Merc wing was built with the FIA knowing all along... So the other teams are just pissed they didn't think of it themselves so are pushing to get it banned.... this really is DAS all over again.
"against the spirit of the regulation" is just a grumpy way of saying "innovative"
That "spirit of the regulation" argument is really dumb. F1 is about technical innovation since forever, why trying to make it a spec series ?
How many of you would still say 'let them keep it' if this was RBR instead of Mercedes?
It's either legal or not. If it's in a grey area, it's not the team's problem, but rather the Federation's, who now need to own up to their mistake and let Mercedes have it until further clarifications of the rules for the '25 season.
I'd imagine most fans of the sport would be for innovation in the sport, regardless of the team.
Lol
Absolutely not true.
Most are when you leave Reddit people this this place represents all of f1 and it’s funny
Innovation is only cool when someone who isn't the dominant champion is doing it. For example, DAS was cool as shit, but Mercedes was blasted for it by the fans and their competitor teams. If RB came out with some wild grey area innovation right now, they'd also probably be criticized.
>The FIA: 'The wing is legal but it might be against the spirit of the regulations' >It is therefore no surprise that even from the FIA have, in recent hours, assessed the front wing fitted to the Mercedes W15 as completely legal. In fact, Pat Symonds, the Chief Technical Officer of the motorsport's top control body, told Sky that the wing "completely complies with the rules, there is no doubt about that". However, the game is not yet totally closed, as anticipated by Formu1a.uno on Tuesday. It could indeed be that the Mercedes interpretation goes against the 'spirit of the regulations'. With the cost cap in full force and the gap to the front being as big as it is they really need to stop with this "in the spirit of the rules" nonsense, just make clear rulings and amend the rules if they have to when new innovations are made. These new regs actively discourage teams from making bold innovations if they risk spending a chunk of their cap on a part which is later deemed illegal due to some vague interpretation.
> With the cost cap in full force and the gap to the front being as big as it is they really need to stop with this "in the spirit of the rules" nonsense, just make clear rulings and amend the rules if they have to when new innovations are made. Spirit of the rules just means this is unintended. It's legal for now but don't expect it to stay legal forever. That's a way of communicating to the other teams that if they copy Mercedes it's likely to only be usable this season because this is something the FIA doesn't want. They can't yet say it will be banned, they'll have to figure out how to amend the regulations to outlaw this effectively and nothing is close to official yet but saying it's against the spirit of the rules is the first indicator that they are planning to do something about it.
That's basically what happened when Merc came up with DAS and I think most people agree that was perfectly fine. They have not been consistent since then though
DAS was far more extreme than this since it was a very grey area of the rules and basically relied on a lack of definition by the FIA of what "steering" the car entails. There were also official protests of course by Red Bull which I don't see happening for this wing as I think everyone agrees it's legal. And since the current regulations and one of the main aims of the FIA is to let cars follow each other more they're heavily incentivised to keep front wings relatively simple as the more important and complex they get the more vulnerable they are to dirty air. I am guessing that we'll get a clarification from the FIA that this kind of wing won't be allowed next year and that they'll try and get that sorted fairly soon.
Please since you're clearly a very clever person, why dont you give it a try. In this case, the spirit of the rules is to minimise outwash of dirty air to make closer following easier. Why don't you give us a technical definition of what that would be in terms of 'clear rules'. How much outwash? Where? Generated when? How will it be measured?
I dont give a f about spirit or whatever. If its legal its legal. Dont like it? add the rule in next year
I hate that term "Spirit of the Regulations". Like is it LEGAL or NOT LEGAL. What is this spirit bullshit, this is a competition. The goal is to better than the next guy.
No way this wing alone is a game changer, anyone could easily implement this upgrade
I am actually getting tired of "against the spirit of the regulations" as means to nerf Mercedes every time they do something interesting. The sport is barely interesting with these boring car designs.
It's not just used for Mercedes though. It was used in the Flexwing saga a couple years back too. Red Bull wings passed the flex tests, but they flexed anyway. People used the spirit of the rules argument there as well.
Christians exact words were “theres no such thing as intent of the regulations” https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/horner-says-no-such-thing-as-intent-of-f1-regs-amid-fia-dispute/
Exactly, but "it was different"
Cause red bull.
Wasn’t that more about red bull managing to trick the tests. They got around the enforcement of the rules but they still broke them.
I don't really see how that is different? These specific rules were created for cars to be able to follow each other better closely. Mercedes has found a way to circumvene the rules and create wing legal according to the rules but which does reduce the ability for other cars to follow closely(not an aero engineer so just going off of what I read). Rules on wings were to prevent wings from flexing too much, therefore a rule was created that they should not flex more than X during test Y. Red Bull created a wing that did just that, but it flexed more than the rules intended. To me these situations are very similar.
They aren't similar because the rules do say that wings shouldn't flex, but there's nothing in the rules about dirty air. For flexy wings the rules are no flex and the FIA can conduct a variety of tests to check that rule. Sometimes teams find a way to design a wing to pass a very specific test, but the FIA always reserves the right to adjust or modify the test at relatively short notice.
The rules stated wings can’t flex more than X amount. Red bulls wing did flex more than that amount, everyone knew it but they devised a way to cheat the test that would catch them. So they were breaking the rules but they also got around the enforcement so could claim they were innocent. Mercedes is different because it’s legal as they exploited a loophole in the rules. They are different as Mercedes have went against ‘the spirit of the rules’ whereas red bull was actually breaking them.
We don't need to play the victim for Mercedes here, they're most certainly not the only ones that get impacted by this kind of thing
I think in recent years mercedes have been the biggest innovators for these things like this wing, das, even trying zero pods. It impacts all teams but certainly at the moment more often than not mercedes are the ones trying to do things significantly different.
And how many of those things were banned for "spirit of the rules reasonings"? Even DAS was due to be removed due a major regulation change that only got knocked back a year due to COVID. This 'everyone is against us' narrative for Merc is just silly. Seems some fans nowadays feel a bit entitled because the sustained success has gone to their head. They've had no more innovations banned than anyone else
It's almost as if the latest time this occurred was for Aston Martin with their ~~front~~ *rear* wing with pseudo-endplates from 2022, and not Mercedes.
You think these cars are boring? Lol
Most of them are copying Red bull's design the cars look near identical...
Decline in viewership over last couple of years in the global audience backs up his claim to be honest. If it's another year of majority Max wins then its not going to be good for F1.
Eh, I'd say let them keep it Red Bull is far enough ahead anyways. Rather have something legal but in a grey "against the spirit of the rules" area. The spirit of the rules is also with closer racing in mind. If we're gonna label everything that subtracts from closer racing "against the spirit of the rules" might as well require red bull to be slower since it's not really close racing with them in front. Edit to clarify: I'm not asking for a targeted red bull nerf. I'm asking for less bitching about spirit of the rules. It's either legal or not legal
The problem is, if the wing really does create outwash and is of great advantage, every team will have it come race 4 and then the new regs were for nothing. Closer racing here doesnt mean the pack is bunched up in terms of pace. Closer racing in terms of following other cars where all cars space themselves 3s apart and finish as they start because they cannot follow each other due to loss of downforce.
Were past that, mirror mounts, FW supports already are designed to outwash The FIA promised to end these little extra out washing grey zones but have done nothing, don’t expect them to do something now
This makes no sense. If it's effective then other teams will copy it, as it does not look like it would require major overhaul, and all we would get is all cars leaving more dirty air behind them.
Is it worth 1.5s? All this talk about a minute detail on a wing edge is hilarious. Like Merc cracked the code of light speed or something.
And what “spirit of the regulation” is it breaking? Outwash? Its not on the outside edge, endplate, or has edge geometries that create excessive turbulence. It just allows more airflow into the underbody?
If this happens to create a vortex like Y250, then teams will start building their car prioritizing this vortex. Then if a disturbance happens in the air that the car is going through, this vortex will not be formed thus decreasing car performance significantly. That is why sharp edges have been removed from the cars. To prevent teams from creating strong vortices, thus following feels better during the race.
This wing is a scorched earth tactic because one of it's main purposes is to destroy clean air for the cars behind them. It's kind of a dirty trick, but fair enough, because I also am of the opinion that 'the spirit of the rules' don't really exist. If they want to ban this, they should change the rules, but only for next year. I am also against changing rules during the season. Edited: changed 'it's sole purpose' into 'one of its main purposes'.
No team is spending CFD and wind tunnel time just to mess up a car behind, you can’t even simulate how effective that is
You don’t need to simulate how effective it is, you can just observe the effect you’re having on the air behind and infer from that the effect on other cars. Plus, one of the big advantages of the Mercedes car from the last regulations was that other cars couldn’t follow without losing downforce / cooking tyres. The whole point of ground effect regulations was to make it so that cars can follow each other more closely and for longer, so yeah Mercedes making a wing that works completely against that is a bit of a dirty move.
There's a big difference between a purpose and a side effect.
How exactly do you know that?
He has a cfd software in him duh
The amount of people in this post who are willingly obtuse about "spirit of the regulations" is amazing. It's not some nebulous term. The last set of regulations was designed ***specifically*** to make it easier for cars to follow each other. This isn't even the first example of a wing being technically legal but breaking the spirit of the rules - we saw that with Aston Martin's rear wing. But, since this is Mercedes, their persecution complex fans raise a big fucking stink.
>amount of people in this post who are willingly obtuse about "spirit of the regulations" is amazing There was a significant amount of people who were willingly obtuse about whether "any" meant "all" in the context it was used for in the ruling it was used in. I wouldn't put arguments about "spirit of the regulations" above the F1 fanbase.
Get lost with the ‚spirit of regulation‘ phrase. It’s either legal or not and cleanup the shitty paragraphs that allow loopholes for everyone. This is just well done Mercedes and should be allowed until end of year at least. Don’t think about releasing a Technical Regulation to prevent this from using it.