Sidepod Mirrors: When Aerodynamicists Went So Far Even Drivers Rebelled
Taking advantage of the rules led to a dead end.
The 2010 Australian Grand Prix is mostly remembered as Jenson Button’s great win, showcasing his forte: the ability to make spot on tire choices in mixed conditions. However the McLaren driver’s glory wasn’t the only talking point of the weekend.
The other were outward mounted, sidepod mirrors and the problems they caused. After complaints the FIA took action. The next round, which took place in Malaysia, the governing body announced the concept is banned from the Chinese Grand Prix onwards. Given that there were two weeks between the races at Sepang and Shanghai, some of the six teams that were using sidepod mirrors: Red Bull, Ferrari, Williams, Sauber, Force India and HRT, complained that they need their cars to return to Europe to make the necessary changes, the ban had a one race delay. In Spain every team showed up with “traditionally” mounted rear view items.
What’s All the Fuss?
The first car with sidepod mirrors was the Ferrari 248 F1, the 2006 challenger. But it wasn’t until the next year when Renault came up with mirrors attached to pod wings, when they became a thing. Others started to notice and copy.
Why? Performance, of course. Here is how Craig Scarborough explained the matter in his blog post from 2010:
A wing mirrors on any vehicle is a bluff and unaerodynamic shape, from the attached CFD you can see how its wake is unsteady and turbulent. The FIA demands mirrors are fitted with a reflective surface 150mm x 50mm this creates quite large surface to streamline. In a conventional position this sends the wake directly downstream towards the rear wing, upsetting its efficiency. Placing these outboard places the mirrors in the already turbulent area of the front wheel wake. Thus the impact of the bluff mirror housing is reduced. With the change in Aero rules in 2009, the mirror placement in this area allowed the pod wing to be taller and have a greater aero influence. However even with the ban on the mirror locations the fin-like pod wings will remain, as they sit in a blind spot within the bodywork regulations.
In short the mirrors were a disguise, the pod wings were the real deal. The former simply gave an excuse to buff the latter and squeeze more aero performance out of it.
Rules exist to take advantage of them. F1 in a nutshell.
However the aerodynamicists and designers went too far. Too far even for those whose performance the pod wings were intended to benefit the most: the drivers.
A Weekend of Complaints
An F1 car is not a rigid structure. Its parts bend and move when it’s doing what it’s meant for: driving fast. Wings usually move the most. And so was the story with the pod wings. They were vibrating and the mirrors oscillated with them. As a result, they gave the drivers a shaky view.
Rubens Barrichello summed it up in one sentence:
The problem for me is that we are driven by the aerodynamics, but the mirrors situated on the aero stuff vibrate.
Pedro de la Rosa agreed with the Brazilian:
Everyone has got a problem with mirrors. The reality is that the mirrors on the sidepods, they give you very small vision of what is happening behind and they vibrate a lot so you see very little.
The reason they are out is that they are an aerodynamic device so they give downforce. That is the reality. We have to compromise - this is a safety issue. Most of the drivers agree - it hasn't been an easy weekend for me because of this factor.
The limited, poor quality view led to a lot of impeding during practice and qualifying. One can even speculate that the incident between Fernando Alonso and Button at the start of the race had something to do with those pesky mirrors.
Drivers hadn’t been very fond of them even before the Australian Grand Prix. Scarborough in the quoted post mentioned the Red Bull drivers preferring “traditional” mirrors. He also recalled Frank Dernie had told him, that every driver he had worked with as a Toyota consultant had asked for the same.
FIA to the Rescue
The governing body answered the call and the rest is history. It did it at the request of people who usually are the ones most obsessed with performance. This time the drivers were willing to sacrifice it for the sake of safety.