As Autosport announced last week, the FIA is introducing new stress tests and visual inspections on “pliable” rear wings after suspecting teams have gained an aero advantage.
However, the new tests won’t go into effect until next month at the French Grand Prix – which means teams can continue to use their current designs for the Monaco and Baku races.
That delay made McLaren unhappy as it would appear that giving the teams extra races to run with those trick wings is an unfair advantage.
McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl said: “We welcome the reaction of the FIA with the technical guideline, with which we are pleased with the basic content.
“Where we strongly disagree is when it is implemented because, in our view, there is no reason that many teams still have the advantage of doing things that we believe are clearly against the law.
“They already had the advantage in several races that we are obviously not satisfied with.
“But now it’s clearly something that we disagree with and that we’ll have a chat with the FIA on if we allow them to gain further advantages for a few more races.”
Seidl added: “We just hope that the FIA shows a very strong hand because from our point of view this is simply not acceptable because it puts the teams that comply with the regulations at a great disadvantage.”
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B, Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21, Esteban Ocon, Alpine A521 and the rest of the field at the start
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
While the focus of twisting wing speculation turned to Red Bull, sources in the paddock suggest a number of teams have been spotted running wings that flexed severely on the main straight in Barcelona.
Outfits that seem to be in the spotlight include Ferrari, Alpine, and Alfa Romeo – although all of the teams’ cars have passed the latest tests.
Also read:
Seidl said he did not want to name who would most likely be running Flexi Wings, but said that this can be seen from video footage.
“I’m not interested in putting names on the table at the moment,” he said. “It’s up to the FIA to make sure we have fair competition between teams and enforce the rules.
“But some of your colleagues have already mentioned some names … also a bigger analysis. Just look at the rear wings, the main flaps and how the endplates work. There are already some good videos full of analysis on YouTube.”
McLaren understands that no changes need to be made to the rear wing to comply with the new stress tests.
Although the new FIA tests will only be used at the French GP, the fact that the Board of Directors suspects violations of the rules are taking place means the door is open for a rival to protest one of the outfits at the next events.
When asked if McLaren would consider that, Seidl said, “In principle, I’m not a big fan of protests against other teams and cars and so on.
“As I said earlier, we are in dialogue with the FIA to understand what they are going to set up to ensure that teams that have designed equipment or parts that make things that you saw in Barcelona just don’t make possible can no longer use devices or parts from now on. And then we take it from there. “
The post The delay in the F1 Flexi Wing tests is “unacceptable”. first appeared on monter-une-startup.
