This weekend finally hosts the long-awaited and much-debated Spanish GP, where the FIA’s new directive on flexible wings will come into effect. From this race onwards, the FIA has limited, during static compliance tests, the maximum allowed flexing of the front wing profiles. This is an extremely important directive, as it has forced all teams to completely redesign their entire front wing. To give the teams the necessary time to adapt, the FIA chose to postpone the entry into force of the directive precisely to the Spanish GP.
The FIA Single-Seater Director, Nikolas Tombazis, explained the reasons behind this choice and why the directive was not applied immediately.
“During several races, starting from the Belgian GP, we installed cameras on the front wings of all cars and concluded that the tests needed to be tightened,” he said.
“However, this conclusion came quite late in the year and we thought that introducing stricter tests at the beginning of this season would have been too burdensome for the teams and could have led to the rejection of existing front wings and additional expenses. For this reason, we thought a delayed introduction was more sensible.” – he pointed out.
Rivalries Between Teams
Nikolas Tombazis also pointed out how it is precisely the rivalries between teams that push them to seek out and report any technical irregularities of their rivals, forcing the FIA to intervene accordingly.
“When the championship fight gets intense, teams tend to focus heavily on rival cars, naturally raising concerns. In the second half of the season, we therefore decided it was necessary to make the tests even stricter in preparation for 2025.”
“It is right that the FIA introduces further flexibility or stiffness tests when it believes an area is being exploited too much, but yes, we hope this will be the last change for this year.”
“We check teams at various points throughout the season. Sometimes we ask them to bring specific components, which we inspect separately, and other times we test them directly on the car,” Nikolas Tombazis added.
“We frequently conduct checks under parc fermé conditions, both on Saturday after qualifying and Sunday morning, because at that time teams cannot make changes to the cars. This ensures they do not fit a stiff wing only for the test and then use another one in the race.
Sometimes we also conduct checks after the race if we believe there are valid reasons. These are static load tests, as defined in article 3.15 of the Technical Regulations.”
The Spanish GP directive will be one of the most relevant technical directives in recent history. It could reduce the advantages of teams that have best exploited flexible wings, but a total reshuffling of the competitive order is not expected.
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