There is an exclusive interview at ITV with Red Bull’s Adrian Newey regarding their flexi front wing. You can watch the video here. Interesting to note that he feels there is no issue with their wing. The FIA’s goal is to assure that the teams are using a non-linear front wing.
The FIA regulation states they will change the testing parameters and I thought it intriguing that Newey suggested McLaren had complained that the 10mm flex allowance was needed instead of the 5mm originally stated by the FIA. It appears that McLAren now feel that the Red Bull’s front wing is flexing beyond the 10mm they had asked for and received from the FIA.
We’ve often made comments about the regulations in F1 changing so rapidly that it is difficult for teams to stay on top of the machinations of the FIA when is was under previous management. I did find it interesting that Newey suggested that the rate of development was not coming as fast as before because the regulations have been stable for a year and a half now.
This underpins the issue of regulation change and how important it is to the development cycle, cost structure and performance on track to increase the entertainment value of F1. Changing regulations too fast is a disaster as we’ve seen before (KERS) but not changing the regulations enough certainly has its challenges too. Specifically the rate of development and I suspect the cost to find the next flexi wing or dual diffuser is huge with such a venerable technical regulation set.
You can also see a replay of the crash that saw Newey hospitalized with a bruised arm last Sunday.
