OO7 wrote: ↑13 Apr 2022, 06:39
ringo wrote: ↑13 Apr 2022, 06:19
AR3-GP wrote: ↑12 Apr 2022, 19:18
I also felt that it was hot metal, but the Mark Hughes article does change things. Mark usually gets his information from the horse's mouth and if it's being published on Formula1.com, it's likely been vetted. He's probably just asked the Mercedes engineers what it is and they've told him. It might actually be a sensor.
With that said, the placement is a bit strange. Given that the front of the t-tray showers sparks down the floor of the car as it scrapes the ground, it would ruin any optical measurements.
It is a sensor and its been used for years. Not the first time i am seeing it.
It may well be a camera with a lamp. That camera can be IR to detect track temperature, it can be recording the roughness of the track to help with their flow analysis, it can be recording ground speed and yaw of the car relative to the track. Who knows. But it's something i have seen in testing for years.
I do not think it is metal glowing. The air would cool it really fast. also if this is not a steel part, i dont think white metal would glow so much.
So the sensor coincidentally only happened to be turn on while the car was heavily sparking, for very short period of time on lap 31 and was not used at any other point during the entire Grand Prix....! Nah, I don't think so. The Red Bull has done the same at other events as well, with the glow only visible after significant and prolonged contact with the track surface.
My theory here is that if this is a sensor that can be turned on or off, they are probably turning it on when porpoising happens. And this generally happens down the straight when the car is at the lowest ride height. So the sparks are not the cause of the glow, but rather the sensor is being used at a time sparks are occurring.