Red Bull and Ferrari discuss flexi wing concerns ahead of Singapore clampdown

Christian Horner has dismissed the FIA’s flexi wing clampdown as a concern for Red Bull but hopes rivals’ “rubbery nose boxes” will become a thing of the past in Singapore.

Flexi wings have been a challenge for the FIA for many years as teams chase performance through trickery that allows them to skirt the FIA’s load-bearing tests.

However, Article 3.2.2 of the Technical Regulations clearly bans flexi wings as it states that “all aerodynamic components or bodywork influencing the car’s aerodynamic performance must be rigidly secured and immobile with respect to their frame of reference.”

FIA have issued TD018 in flexi wing clampdown

As such the FIA has issued a new Technical Directive, TD018, to the teams letting them know that from the Singapore Grand Prix onwards, trickery with flexible wings will be more closely scrutinised and punished accordingly.

The FIA explained to The Race: “There has been a draft TD on the subject of bodywork flexibility issued in response to observations across several cars, and ensures that the FIA and teams all have a common understanding of the way we should interpret the regulations.”

That means the Italian Grand Prix was the last time that any teams testing the boundaries were able to use their current designs.

Red Bull team boss Horner isn’t at all worried that his team will fall foul of the new TD.

“It’s not something that affects us,” he insisted to the media including PlanetF1.com. “We’ve seen a few rubbery nose boxes, shall we say, so we’ll see those get addressed, I guess, in Singapore.”

Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur also doesn’t seem concerned about the new TD, saying all a technical directive does is clarify a regulation that the teams should already be adhering to.

He did, however, concede that perhaps the regulation wasn’t quite clear to everyone.

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“By definition, a TD is a clarification of the regulation,” said the Frenchman. “It means that there was already a regulation in place.

“And we have to trust the FIA that if they consider that they have to do the TD it’s probably that the regulation was not clear enough and we trust the FIA in this direction to do that.”

That’s a sentiment echoed by McLaren team boss Andrea Stella, who said: “The FIA they have a lot of information, they can see things that other teams can’t see in terms of respecting cars. So they are very competent.

“So we 100% trust their judgement and their approach and if they thought that it was the time to release a Technical Directive then it means that there is a reason for that.

“We are not very concerned about that, to be honest, so we take the positive that if the FIA felt it was needed, it means that there is something to clamp down and for us I think is good news.”

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