After Mercedes raised awareness of the behavior of Red Bull’s flexible rear wings at the Spanish Grand Prix, the FIA moved quickly to crack down on any tricks the teams played by running more stringent pull-back tests.
But tightening the tests forced a number of other teams – including Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Alpine – to change their rear wings to make sure they were also legal.
Alpine managing director Marcin Budkowski has made it clear how frustrated his team was about the additional costs and the work of the change, while his team was already juggling preparations for the brand new cars in 2022 in one season.
“We’re still untangling some rear wing modifications from the famous technical guideline, which, to be honest, makes us bitter,” said Budkowski at the Austrian GP.
“It costs us a lot of effort and money because we are talking about several rear wings, several output levels that have to be changed.
“We feel a bit like the collateral damage of the guys who are fighting for the championship at the top and trying to throw banana peels under each other’s feet by looking for problems with other people’s cars.”
Fernando Alonso, Alps A521
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
The frustration at Alpine is based on the fact that the rear wing used in the early stages of the season was completely designed for the previous tests – and therefore found it unfair that the test requirements suddenly changed.
“We designed our wings according to the regulations,” adds Budkowski. “They were completely legal. We passed all FIA tests, all homologation preparations and all previous events.
“We’re now spending huge amounts of resources and money upgrading the rear wings to new tests that were introduced during the season that are effectively changing the performance of our car very little.
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“It costs us money and resources that we could invest in next year’s car. We understand that the FIA can change these tests in the regulations at any time, but the impact on a team of our size is very big. “
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