Europe: Geoff Willis talks bendy wings in Friday 5

By Phil Huff
May 7 2006

Honda Racing F1's technical chief Geoffrey Willis took part in the Friday Five press conference, discussing rising speeds, Honda's performance and those pesky flexing wings. Here's what he had to say.

Geoff, the last race was a bit disastrous; have you changed anything since then, what have you learned from that race?

I'm not sure I would say disastrous, probably didn't finish as well as we'd wanted. Two issues really: obviously the pit stop problems we had – unusual for us, I think. That's an area where we pride ourselves on being very strong and we've had a look at what went on. We've made some very small changes to what we do. I don't think we're going to have that sort of issue again. Fortunately in this business, everybody is very professional and it was good to get away without any serious incident and without anybody getting seriously injured. It was a reminder to everybody that you've got to be careful in these matters. I think, overall, we're quite happy with the pace over most of the weekend. In the end, we didn't really get the result we were expecting to get. I think we should have got on the podium, but as you say, you have to do it.

What about race pace; that seems to be the thing that's lacking so far this year. Have you made progress on that front, particularly in testing at Silverstone?

We've certainly had a very busy testing programme in the last three or four tests we've done and we've learned a lot about what's causing some of our difficulties, certainly working very much with the car set-up, working together with Michelin to understand what we need to do and I think we're getting steadily better. Again, we will have to see this weekend whether we can put what we've learned into practice but certainly there's a lot of activity going on, and I think we are getting a better understanding of where we need to work.

You've been quoted as saying you're still not happy with the Ferrari wings. Can you just clarify the situation?

I think I'm not quoted at all, actually. I'm not quite sure where it all came from. The whole issue of flexible wings has come and gone quite a lot over the last two or three years. It's an area which a lot of the teams often talk about to Charlie Whiting, the race director, seeking clarifications, asking what we can do and it's a subject which we discuss in the Technical Working Group from time to time, so I'm not quite sure why this issue became quite so heated this week. It is the case that people have been playing around with wings quite a lot. There are two main ways. People either try and get the whole wing to bend off… to twist off, reduce the drag at high speed, or play around with mechanisms that close or open the flap gap and I have to say that what we've discovered over the last year or so, is quite impressive, the amount of innovation out there. We've seen wings that bend in one way, flaps that bend in another way, wings that aren't bonded together. I think we've even seen an inflatable wing, which I must say I was very impressed with. But it's something where, if we hear something or we have an idea, then it's all part of the regular business of making technical inquiries to Charlie Whiting, asking whether we can do it. It's a little bit of a game generally with technical advances in Formula One, when you have a clever idea, or you think somebody else has got a clever idea, you either try and do it yourself or if you think it's close enough to a grey area you ask the right sort of question to the FIA, so it either gets stopped for everybody or permitted for everybody.

So there's been nothing specific from you over the last couple of weeks, since Imola?

We're quite regularly in communication with the FIA through Charlie Whiting. I think we've probably had eleven or twelve communications this year alone; that's on top of the general technical directives. It's a difficult area because there are clear regulations about the way we measure the flexibility of wings but the other issue was something that came up in a technical directive that was circulated in the middle of last year where it was made quite clear that we are not allowed to take aerodynamic advantage so we've got a regulation which we all understand but it's a little bit difficult to determine how exactly you're going to enforce it. Now that business of enforcement is entirely the FIA's area but what the teams will tend to do is give information or suggestions to Charlie Whiting and Jo Bauer as to what we think is possible and what we think if it's not going to be permitted by them, where to look for it.

Is any team using flexible wings or underbodies?

That question is very difficult. There's lots of data you can look at to make an estimate to see if someone is exploiting the regulations to their advantage – and to more than what is strictly permissible. It's hard to say, but what we have to do is make everybody 100% sure of the regulations. If we have a suspicion or an idea on how we might do it, then we would put our ideas to Charlie Whiting and so would all the other teams I think. To answer your question directly, and in terms of what evidence to you would look for, you'd have to look for a speed variation from speeds squared. The cars deflect not as much air at 300 kph as it should be pro rata based on 250 kph. In the past you could see characteristics of cars where the variation was, lets say, non-linear drag characteristics. It's harder to spot now because of entire lap video coverage of the cars. If we thought it was on, we might point it out.

A two part question for you. Firstly, cornering speeds are way up on last year. What, besides tyre development, have been influential in that? Also, with those speeds, do you think the run-off areas are big enough any more?

Well, obviously we are a lot slower on the straights than in 2004 and 2005, so, with the lap times being remarkably close, we've certainly seen some corner speeds creep up, certainly in high-speed corners over last year. I'm sure a lot of the improvement is down to tyres. Our tyre partner has done a fantastic job and it's very impressive that the tyres are more durable and still with more performance than in 2004 or 2005. Just consider that some of the tyres we use now could easily do a full race distance. On the question of safety, I don't think it's so much a point for the teams – it's something for the technical working group to keep an eye on. It's certainly something that the FIA keeps an eye on. We reduced engine power and if the speeds of the lap times fall then speeds will go up. The nature of Formula One is to be competitive and drive speeds up, so every now and then, we have to re-set the levels for what's appropriate to the circuit design.