Lewis Hamilton kicked-off a new ‘technical controversy’ in F1 2021, with regards to the use of bendy rear wing from Red Bull, as Toto Wolff and Christian Horner add on.
The action kicked-off on Saturday of F1 Spanish GP, when Mercedes’ Hamilton, when speaking to Sky Sports, talked about the ‘bendy wing’ on Red Bull. The Brit, in fact, stated that the team must be gaining about three-tenths on the straight with that.
“The Red Bulls are really fast on the straights,” said Hamilton. “They have this bendy wing on the back of their car which they put on [Saturday] and they gained at least three tenths from this wing. So they will be quicker down the straights than us, and it will be hard to keep them behind. But that doesn’t mean it will be impossible.”
Hamilton spent a chunk of time behind Max Verstappen in the race too, which helped him, not only to learn the driving style of the Dutchman, but also see the rear of Red Bull more closely. The videos are, though, no available via F1 TV, of the wing in action.
The notion from Hamilton was that Red Bull might be utilising a more flexible wing than their rivals, which rotates down on the straights to help it with top speed. The mechanism is such, that it gets back to the normal position in corners then.
The comments made from Hamilton was relayed to Horner after the race, when the Brit noted that he already had a chat with Wolff about it. “I saw the comments,” he said. “Of course the cars are scrutineered thoroughly and there’s pull back tests, and there’s all kinds of different tests it has to pass.
“The FIA are completely happy with the car, that it has passed all of those tests that are pretty stringent. So I was surprised to see his comments on that. But it’s something that Toto has mentioned to me previously. I doubt it was Lewis’ opinion, so probably came from elsewhere,” summed up Horner.
Interestingly, Wolff didn’t wish to make any comments on the topic. In his post-race media session, he pressed on to media for clear words of Horner, but none – at that moment – had the full transcript, apart from noting that the two team principals had a chat about it.
“Yeah it’s good fun,” said Wolff. “Yeah, we discussed it. But… everybody’s… no, let me not comment. Sorry.” It was only the start of the new ‘technical controversy’, as a FIA directive was revealed by media like BBC, Racefans, Motorsport Network and more.
It implied that the FIA is looking into the rear wing of Red Bull and that there will be checks by mid-June, especially by French GP. That gives the teams two-three races from Monaco onward, to fix it up, and comply with the new technical directive.
The series of tests that the FIA wishes to undertake is to minimise the deflections of the rear wing, when the F1 car is in motion. The idea is to lessen the clever designs by the outfits to utilise the rear wing in a way to gain on straights and keep themselves ahead.
Article 3.9.9 of the 2021 Technical Regulations allows the FIA to undertake these tests: “In order to ensure that the requirements of Article 3.8 are respected, the FIA reserves the right to introduce further load/deflection tests on any part of the bodywork which appears to be (or is suspected of), moving whilst the car is in motion.”
Here’s where you can go through the whole set of rules: https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/2021_formula_1_technical_regulations_-_iss_9_-_2021-03-05.pdf
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