Wheel tether rules?

[RJB_666]

Have these changed? Today was the second time this season wheels have detached from the car. I thought these had to be chained onto the car, or was it that the impact was so bad the tethers had no chance?

[NeilBeforeZod]

I'm not aware of any major changes, but I doubt they would reduce their effectiveness. They can't always keep the wheel tied to the car, sometimes the forces involved are just too great. What they do in those cases is massively reduce the energy involved so the wheels don't fly off into the crowd and cause chaos.

[RJB_666]

But i'd say there were incidents last season with high impact but wheels stayed on. Surely the car would fail a crash test if they came off so easy.

[LocoBlade]

There's so many variations in the way an impact occurs that what looks like a heavy impact might not actually put lots of forces through the wheel tether, and likewise a relatively benign looking impact can actually put a lot of force through that particular part, causing it to fail.

I dont believe the main crash tests involve the wheel tethers, I think the only stipulation is they resist a certain breaking force which I suspect just involves a test rig trying to pull it off the tub.

Edited by LocoBlade on Sunday 10th May 21:07

[tmk2]

http://www.f1technical.net/articles/64

it says they can break if the suspension damages the tether.