FIA take camera action with ‘selected’ cars chosen in flexi-wing Technical Directive

Max Verstappen and Lando Norris battling for position at the start of the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix.

The FIA is set to run with extra cameras on ‘selected’ cars during practice for the Belgian Grand Prix, in order to monitor the flexing of front wings.

In a bid to better understand the level of flexing of front wings, the FIA is set to monitor several ‘selected’ teams during practice for the Belgian Grand Prix.

FIA set to introduce new technical directive

While all the current F1 teams have been found to be fully in compliance with the regulations regarding the level of flexibility of their front wings, the FIA is eager to have a closer look at what some of the teams are doing.

To that end, several teams will run with extra cameras fitted to their cars during Friday’s practice sessions in Belgium in order to capture video footage of what their front wings are doing under dynamic loading.

At present, only ‘selected’ teams will run with the extra cameras, with the reason for not running on every car understood to be due to a limited number of cameras being available for the data-gathering exercise.

An FIA spokesperson told PlanetF1.com in a statement that “The FIA has decided, starting from Belgium onward for an indefinite period of time, to measure the overall front wing deformation on track. The FOM forward-facing cameras are unfortunately not capable of capturing the complete front wing as a large outboard part is not covered by the angle.

“The intent will therefore be to measure across several events all front wings with a camera provided by the FIA which will be installed on the nose (in place of current camera housings) offering a sideways view. The collected data will be used to enhance the overall understanding of bodywork flexibility when defining future regulations.

“It is also reiterated that all front wings checked so far this season have passed the existing deflection tests and are deemed legal. This new technical directive is the result of a long-standing desire to better capture front wing behavior under aerodynamic load.”

A technical directive, TD034G, has been sent this week to all competitors from FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis, with teams being notified of the change for the Belgian GP weekend, which states “selected teams will be required to fit their cars with additional wireless recording cameras.”

The cameras will be high-resolution 4K cameras, with the FIA supplying MicroSD cards for use during the two sessions – they must be returned to the governing body no later than one hour following the conclusion of FP2.

The camera positioning has been outlined by Tombazis, and will focus on “the inboard facing nominally vertical surfaces to track the translation and rotation of target dots”.

In the document, which has been seen by PlanetF1.com, the FIA outlines a desire to ensure there are no suspicions that competitors may be exploiting bodywork flexibility in order to gain aero performance. The directive outlines that design philosophies whose structural characteristics, which are altered by secondary parameters, go through a different deflection characteristic than when underdoing static tests are not permitted. Secondary parameters include aerodynamic loads.

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The painted dots will be coloured in contrast to the bodywork of each car, in order to monitor the rotation of the front wing through various speeds. Teams may also be requested to supply additional dimensional information to the FIA, including parameters like front wing flap settings, in order to enable further analysis.

Further dots will also be used on flap edges to check the flexibility of the endplate and nose sections.

Given that Friday practice does not take part under parc ferme regulations, the FIA has also thought of the possibility of teams reverting to a previous spec and headed off that possibility.

A requirement will be that the cameras are fitted for more than 50 percent of a team’s timed laps per session, unless there are demonstrable force majeure circumstances that prevent it – such as damage, or a technical issue preventing running.

Copies of the video files lifted from the cards will be made available to the teams, with the FIA analysing the footage for displacement and rotation in selected axes.

Technical directives are not part of the regulation rulebooks and are usually not made public. These are instructions or clarifications issued by the FIA in order to help tighten up grey areas in the rules, and can lead to rules becoming set in stone for the following year’s regulations.

On this occasion, the use of a directive is merely to help the FIA better understand what is going on with the front wings and, if the need for a change in how static load tests are conducted is identified, could allow for that process to start.

Following Friday’s data-gathering, the selected teams will be permitted to remove the additional cameras and run with cameras in their usual positions.

Up until now, the flexing of front wings had been monitored by static tests – but the topic of flexing wings reared its head earlier this season as several teams began enquiries with the FIA regarding what competitors had been up to.

The teams set to run the additional cameras are yet to be confirmed by the governing body.

The FIA declined to comment on the selected teams at this point, and the criteria under which the teams are selected.

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