FIA Boss Confirms: ‘Two or Three F1 Teams Required Rear Wing Adjustments’ – What It Means for the Championship

The rear wing of the McLaren car bent on the straights, causing the angle of the movable flap (the upper part of the rear wing) to decrease significantly. This ensured that when the McLaren driver’s DRS remained closed, the lower edge of the movable flap lifted slightly, creating a gap in the rear wing. In this way, the team from Woking had created a kind of ‘mini-DRS’, which, according to former F1 aerodynamicist Willem Toet, helped the team to victory in Baku.

Despite passing all FIA tests, the part led to much discussion in the Formula 1 paddock, as it was questionable whether the part was legal or not. In any case, the FIA ​​asked McLaren to make adjustments to their low-downforce rear wing. According to the motorsport association, the part was ‘not in the spirit of the technical regulations’.

McLaren has to adjust all rear wings

This seemed to only concern the low-downforce rear wing, but earlier this weekend it turned out that the team from Woking had to adjust all its rear wings by the motorsport federation. In this way, McLaren should be prevented from continuing to use such a ‘mini-DRS system’ on circuits where a rear wing with more downforce is used. The British team can also benefit from the ‘mini-DRS’ on these types of circuits, GPToday.net understands. It will probably be less than on low-downforce circuits, because there are often fewer straights on high-downforce tracks, but such an advantage remains.

“Our position has been consistent”

Nikolas Tombazis, the boss of the single seaters at the FIA, has now responded extensively to the international media about the entire McLaren rear wing situation. How does he look back on it? “Our position has been consistent. We believe that if someone designs something within the rules, we are not going to retroactively disqualify the team or report it to the stewards. If we feel there is something we are not comfortable with feel, we have two options. Either we ask the team to change something, or we do a new test in terms of deflection,” explains the technical man from the motorsport federation.

Other teams also had to adjust the rear wing

However, McLaren was not the only team that had to adjust the rear wing, as the FIA ​​asked several teams if they could adjust the part, Tombazis reveals. “We had some communication after the race in Singapore [met de teams, red.] about the rear wings, in which we indicated what we found acceptable and what was not. Two or three teams had to make some minor adjustments to comply,” the 56-year-old Greek revealed.

According to Tombazis, the new guideline means that teams are no longer allowed to have an opening larger than two millimeters when the DRS is closed. “We don’t want the grand opening at that time [bij een gesloten DRS, red.] than 2 mm,” said the FIA ​​boss. “There is always a natural gap, because of the way the wings are mounted and because the wings deform, but some teams deformed more. We have put a limit on that, so that the teams have to stay within that number.”

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