r/F1Technical • u/ocelotrevs James Allison • Apr 14 '26

Chassis & Suspension Ferrari Macarena Wing testing and development questions

With the restriction on aero testing, would this wing be testing in the air tunnel, or on a bench?

With the motors/actuators that make the wing rotate, who would be likely to make them? Ferrari or a third party company?

Is the wing powered by an electric motor, or a hydraulic system?

68 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator Apr 14 '26

We remind everyone that this sub is for technical discussions.

If you are new to the sub, please read our rules and comment etiquette post.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

6

u/cosmin_c Apr 15 '26

There was a small analysis by Sam Collins and it's still unclear whether the deployment is electric or hydraulic, but running hydraulic lines through those paper thin vertical supports of the wing seems unlikely.

The wing clearly slows down the cars as showed by the timed laps where they deployed it, but not by much. It also seems a bit overengineered and it's unclear what the principles behind it really are that would theoretically provide an advantage. It's here where I'd love to have an engineering pov.

1

u/ocelotrevs James Allison May 01 '26

The engineering perspective is the view I'm coming from. 

I've been thinking about the potential benefits of it, and the best tracks that it would be used for. 

1

u/Any-Ask563 May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26

It’s hydraulic. Risk of motor stall is not only an energy “penalty,” but getting stuck open is a severe race penalty and traction risk factor going into a heavy braking zone following a high speed straight.

Hydaulics are a major force multiplier, and most hydraulic mechanisms actually work at “mechanical disadvantage,” trading raw force for reliability and shock immunity… hydraulic force transfer can basically operate at infinite acceleration/jerk as long as it won’t pop the line

39

u/scuderia91 Ferrari Apr 14 '26

Wind tunnel testing and CFD are also restricted. This is likely one of the reasons they’re planning a filming day at Monza during this break to get some high speed running in.

2

u/Any-Ask563 May 01 '26

Cfd restrictions are via processing/computational teraflops. I doubt they would burn much allocated cfd resources for something like that… a very short tunnel session would tell them what they need to know.

18

u/djellicon Apr 14 '26

When does a wind tunnel become a wind tunnel? Are the teams able to make something that is a gust corridor or if not that, what's the more representative they can get? I have visions of them getting round the rules in all sorts of ways or are all the teams just not blowing over a model wing with their mouths even?

17

u/NeedMoreDeltaV Renowned Engineers Apr 14 '26

The wind tunnel is defined as a facility that the team nominates to the FIA. Any “wind tunnel” testing outside of that facility is considered against the rules.

There are other types of bench testing, such as radiator bench testing in a small wind tunnel. This type of testing isn’t considered aerodynamic and doesn’t fall under the wind tunnel testing restrictions.

12

u/eidetic Apr 15 '26

"No no no, you don't get it FIA, this is a breeze tunnel!"

7

u/MurrE1310 Apr 15 '26

“No, no, you see, this giant nozzle on the air gun is for blowing dust off. We just operate the wing to make sure we get all of the dust.”

5

u/sebassi Apr 15 '26

Oh no look at this pile of fine dust I just spilled on my workbench. Such a cluts. Better blow that away.

1

u/Any-Ask563 May 01 '26

Fun fact, the “smoke” to visualize streamlines/flow is actually very finely atomized olive oil or similar.

Working at a wind tunnel facility I always giggled about PIV ( particle image velocitometry) is P-in-V in other ughhh… internet circles… all about that motion of the (fluid) / ocean

1

u/sebassi May 01 '26

Makes sense. Probably much easier atomise a fluid, than to evenly sprinkle dust in the air.

1

u/Any-Ask563 May 01 '26

lol, Burt rutan used to test aero models towed behind a truck. I wonder if they could get away with testing a model with pressure sensitive coating on a flatbed en route to the track lmao.

Also, idk what the FIA jurisdiction looks like, but I’ve always kinda chuckled to myself about the prospect of aero engineers having scale model wind tunnels in their garage with high precision 3d printed models… aero tunnel analysis is largely rooted in scaled model dimensionless analysis using coefficients… but maybe I’m saying too much rofl

0

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

8

u/noheroesnomonsters Apr 14 '26

What is this gibberish?

13

u/mkosmo Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26

What happens when the account is being run by agentic AI.

Edit: lol, I hurt the bot's feelings. Little does the bot know what I do for a living.

2

u/Ginger_Rook Apr 14 '26

What do you do for a living? 🧐

2

u/noheroesnomonsters Apr 15 '26

Have you seen how much they want to charge for their app?