Winglets-Strakes to be outlawed in 2017

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First, I think the wing ban thing is ..........

But, I don't see how you can compare hanging the leg down when setting up for a corner to the wing on the motorcycle.

One is a riding style, and one is a piece of equipment.

If hanging the leg down compares to the wing, why not hanging the ... of the seat? Hanging the knee down?

I see apples to oranges on this one.
 
Jumkie said:
I think it's a feeling for balance and additional managed braking (think parachute). When I ride supermoto I generally dangle the leg like I do for MX, it does feel like it gives me balance. Granted 'sportbike roadracing' isn't SM/MX, and I've never done it on a trackday, but I can understand the parallels.

Had Dovi ran over VR's foot, there would have been hell to pay.
Click to expand...

I get the leg dangle with dirt track racing since it does help.

If you didn't use the leg in supermoto, do you notice a significant difference in stability?

I think Rossi uses it to block more often than not.
 
JPSLotus said:
I get the leg dangle with dirt track racing since it does help.



If you didn't use the leg in supermoto, do you notice a significant difference in stability?



I think Rossi uses it to block more often than not.
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Aren't they all doing it now?

Rossi.. The Duc riders.. Marky Mark? I bet 6 or 7 of the top 10 riders do it. Only two I know for sure don't is George and Pedro (I think).

If that many guys are doing it, it has to have some benefit. From my understanding, it helps to shift your body weight quicker and with less work. But, can't say for sure, just what I have read or seen someplace on the "internet"...
 
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WVMotoGP99 said:
First, I think the wing ban thing is ..........

But, I don't see how you can compare hanging the leg down when setting up for a corner to the wing on the motorcycle.

One is a riding style, and one is a piece of equipment.

If hanging the leg down compares to the wing, why not hanging the ... of the seat? Hanging the knee down?

I see apples to oranges on this one.
Click to expand...
I agree, there is a difference. I think Kurr was just making a parallel in terms of the rationale : that being 'safety'. Which I think can apply. Lets just use an extreme example, let's say a guy want to start waving his arm out on a turn (assuming they could) trying to distract the rider adjacent. Just throwing it out there for sake of discussion.
 
Jumkie said:
I agree, there is a difference. I think Kurr was just making a parallel in terms of the rationale : that being 'safety'. Which I think can apply. Lets just use an extreme example, let's say a guy want to start waving his arm out on a turn (assuming they could) trying to distract the rider adjacent. Just throwing it out there for sake of discussion.
Click to expand...


Gotcha...
 
WVMotoGP99 said:
Gotcha...
Click to expand...
Though yeah, I agree, leg thingy is different. I actually tried it at the track, I immediately felt off balance. Hahaha. Made me almost .... my leathers.

Thinking about it, I think I know why it feels more natural on a SM/MX bike; I think it has to do with ergonomics. On the motobike I'm sitting way up and down. Whereas on sportbike I'm siting reached over the bars. Either way, I can't really compare what I'm doing to what these pros do. One of my fav riders was Tony Elias because his style was so unorthodox. Look up some vids of him about 10 years ago.

643a6964a5649c2a0afd9d22591e3311.jpg
 
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Dr No said:
Depends....how unstable are you when you snap one off?
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My point is: how much do they rely on the winglet. Is it essential for performance or just a little extra?

An A10 warthog can fly with an elevator missing and half a wing blown off. An F117, not so much.
 
Toni Elias' riding style was really interesting to watch...it seems almost like it was a precursor to today's extreme elbow down style. His positioning though with his ... further off than the upper body though is just weird...I would have been afraid to fall off the bike. But hey what the hell, he made it work in GP for many years.
 
JPSLotus said:
Toni Elias' riding style was really interesting to watch...it seems almost like it was a precursor to today's extreme elbow down style. His positioning though with his ... further off than the upper body though is just weird...I would have been afraid to fall off the bike. But hey what the hell, he made it work in GP for many years.
Click to expand...
He was able to exploit his style on Michelins but struggled on Bridgestones. Interesting because the French tires demanded a rear bias where the Japanese tires a front bias.
 
Jumkie said:
He was able to exploit his style on Michelins but struggled on Bridgestones. Interesting because the French tires demanded a rear bias where the Japanese tires a front bias.
Click to expand...

Couldn't that style have been more conducive to rear biased tires?
 
kurre said:
Sorry, coming to this thread very late. Not sure if somebody already mentioned this, but I wanted to say something after reading the article posted in the first comment.

The article talks about the potential dangers of the winglets, and they show the picture I've attached as an example of how they might be dangerous in corners. But nobody ever talks about the dangers of sticking your leg out to the inside of the corner as far as you can like Rossi does....in the same picture. Isn't that dangerous? It looks like the Ducati is more likely to run over his foot than anything.

But to be fair, Dovizioso's got his leg out too. I know they're just trying to balance into the corner, but come on. If there is a realistic concern that another bike might come up the inside and scrape your fairing, isn't there an even greater likelihood that said bike will run over your foot and do who-knows-how-much damage to your foot and leg if you stick it way out into the corner?
Click to expand...



http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=INl3xuYRmiw

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3sxIcCoZu1o

HmmvideoDon'tWorkhttp://m.youtube.com/watch?v=INl3xuYRmiw
 
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Iowegian said:
My point is: how much do they rely on the winglet. Is it essential for performance or just a little extra?

An A10 warthog can fly with an elevator missing and half a wing blown off. An F117, not so much.
Click to expand...

Oh. You wanted a serious answer.
Difficult to say. But I guess it depends on the lift/drag ratio. If each of the winglets produces 10N max (1 kg) of downforce and we assume an L/D of, I dunno, 1:5 Then when you snap one off (messy business) you'll.lose that 10N load off the front tyre and have one side of the bike dragging a whopping 2N of unbalanced force on.one sude of the bike....
So my guess, not much
 
WVMotoGP99 said:
First, I think the wing ban thing is ..........

But, I don't see how you can compare hanging the leg down when setting up for a corner to the wing on the motorcycle.

One is a riding style, and one is a piece of equipment.

If hanging the leg down compares to the wing, why not hanging the ... of the seat? Hanging the knee down?

I see apples to oranges on this one.
Click to expand...

I don't see this as an "apples and oranges" situation, though there is a clear physical difference between a winglet and a leg sticking out. That's obvious. But the whole rationale behind banning the winglets is because they're "dangerous." The rationale behind them being dangerous is "What if this?" and "What if that?" and "What if the other thing?"

This opens the door to the question, "What are the examples of dangerous things on track that can be eliminated?" Hanging the butt off the seat doesn't seem to pose any danger to other riders because that action doesn't make the rider take up any more space on track when going into a corner. Sticking the leg out does increase how much space they take up on track, and by quite a lot. That makes it not only a question about riding style, and more of an issue about a behavior which creates unnecessary risk to other riders. And now we can apply the same formula of "What if this?" and "What if that?" again.

What if Marquez is coming up the inside of Rossi's bike to pass (fairly) and Rossi sticks out his leg just as Marquez comes up beside him. Rossi's foot gets pulled under Marquez's front wheel. The pressure causes several fractures in Rossi's foot as well as fractures to his tibia and fibula. Then the internet goes crazy about how bad Marquez is for not avoiding Rossi's foot, and we have a new ridiculous thing to go crazy about.
 
Good points Kurre.

At the end of the day, I find it odd that there are some people making an issue of the safety of these wings in an accident, but then have defended certain riders who have caused accidents that much more likely could bring a fellow rider to harm.

I do agree though that I don't want to see the bikes starting to sprout wings everywhere.
 
Aesthetic mainly.

I am of course interested in the engineering element (excuse the pun) of wings, but what I would want is it to get crazy and have these damned fugly bikes that use their side fairings as aero skirts when leaned over allowing the rider to pull 3 or 4g when cornering, but then mean the bikes can't follow each other just like F1. What would happen then? Push to Pass? Fake overtakes?

I started watching bike racing when I became dissolusioned with F1 because as a spectaotrs sport it's total boredom, mainly because the cars rely too much on aero. I don't want MGP to go the same way.
 
The bodywork regs won't allow the equivalent of skirts. There's a max. width requirement. Not to mention that downforce, intended to provide grip normal to the track surface is no good when applied at an angle. Wrong direction.

(and yeah, they're fugly...and haven't paid attention to F1 since the Williams active thingy got canned)
 
Crutchlow has chimed in, saying the that Ducati Winglets cause a lot of disturbance (but interestingly says nothing of the Yamaha, maybe because he isn't close enough to them? ;) )

The recent influx of aerodynamic winglets into MotoGP has safety implications not only in terms of a potential 'slicing' injury, but also due to the turbulence created for following riders.

Cal Crutchlow, whose LCR Honda does not yet have the development, admitted:

“Half of me thinks to say nothing, because maybe we need them if they're working. But the way that I see it is, imagine that sliced someone's leg clean open. And they all say that they'll break before that happens, but how do they know? Have they tried, has it happened before?

“When you ride behind the Ducati... The turbulence off the things is unreal. If you see Pedrosa in Phillip Island, I was behind Pedrosa and he was behind Iannone, honestly I thought he was going to come off it in sixth gear. Because he got a shake on, but then he came out of the bubble.”

The Englishman added that contact with Andrea Dovizioso's wing may have caused the Italian's fall in last year Sepang race. “I don't know whether I hit his wing or hit his handlebar, maybe that's the reason he fell off.”

“I'm not going against [winglets]. They're in the rules, so they've done a good job of making them. And if I was riding for Ducati, I'd want them as well.”

Crutchlow was speaking after setting the twelfth fastest lap time in Thursday practice for the season-opening Qatar MotoGP.

“I'm happy enough. I didn't take too many risks tonight, as you'll see from my lap times. I'm not joking, I was losing four tenths every lap in the corner where the bike landed on my balls [at the test]! I'm nearly stone last in the last sector which is that corner. So when I start to push, I'm sure we'll find some lap time.

“We also seem to have some strange things going on with the engine braking and corner entry. The rear keeps coming around for no real reason. I can't use the rear brake at all, when on the Honda, we really need to use it. So we'll investigate that and see tomorrow.”

Nevertheless, Crutchlow was only 1.156s behind fastest man Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) and half-a-second from the quickest Honda rider Dani Pedrosa.

Pedrosa and team-mate Marc Marquez were again experimenting with winglets on their RC213Vs, as already used by Ducati and Yamaha to help reduce wheelies on corner exit.
Read more at MotoGP News - Qatar MotoGP: Crutchlow concerned by wing safety, turbulence
Click to expand...
 
banning the strakes with an argument what Cal does, the turbulence, somehow a bit odd for me.

I think manufactures is responsible to only everything attached in the bike. turbulence is not.
 

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