Since the FIA has been monitoring the levels of flex of the front wings on track, since the Belgian Grand Prix, all the appendages in question have been deemed legal, i.e. within the limits imposed by the regulations.
Several people had indicated the front wings of McLaren and Mercedes as appendages to keep under observation due to the evident flexing of the profiles on the straights, with these then returning to their place once the speed had decreased, therefore capable of providing greater load when cornering.
Red Bull had been among the most active teams in this sense, that is, to raise doubts about the regularity of the wings of the MCL38 and W15 before the FIA’s decision arrived. Now, with all the wings deemed compliant with the regulation, Christian Horner has already made it clear what path Red Bull will take for the next races. That is, to bring a wing capable of flexing on the straights to reduce drag and returning to its seat in the slower parts to give greater load to the front end.
“I think the crucial thing, for any team and as with all these things, is always clarity,” attacked the Red Bull team principal.
“Is something acceptable or not? If you think it is, obviously you are encouraged to pursue similar solutions. So those who regulate these matters have all the information available. They have all the analyses that they have recently carried out on the cameras of many single-seaters.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal, Red Bull Racing
Photo credit: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images
“They’re collecting that data. But yeah, it’s one of those things, like I said, if it’s deemed acceptable, then you go down that road.”
The FIA had previously said it would not seek to ban any designs under the front wing data collection exercise and that any potential regulation changes would be retained for the 2025 season.
Although it is generally believed that a wing is free to flex wildly on the track as long as it passes static load tests, Technical Directive TD34 states that the FIA does not consider legal “designs whose structural characteristics are altered by secondary parameters”.
The FIA will continue to monitor the wings over the weekends in Azerbaijan and Singapore, after saying last week that “this exercise will continue at least until Singapore to ensure that each team has used the FIA camera on different types of tracks (low, medium, high and very high downforce)”.
“This will provide a broad data base that will allow the FIA to paint a more objective picture of the situation and quantify the differences between the various dynamic models observed on track.”
In the meantime, however, the top teams that had not yet created more flexible wings have already started working on it. Red Bull has announced that it will soon take that path and Ferrari should also debut a similar solution in the coming weeks.
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