Andrea Stella sees the McLaren rear wing lookout as a win of sorts since its F1 rivals were busy checking them rather than focusing on bettering themselves.
The ‘mini-DRS’ that F1 teams complained about with the FIA, will need alteration after some success for the McLaren rivals post Azerbaijan GP. The low downforce rear wing was a topic of debate post race in Baku after videos of unusual activity surfaced online.
It was about the small gap that opened up in non-DRS zones, thereby McLaren gaining few tenths as they were alleged to. The FIA, in general, has been on the lookout for flexing especially on the front wing but found nothing as such to deem them illegal for everyone.
The rear wing came under scrutiny too and over the Singapore GP weekend, they requested McLaren to make alterations and stop the small gap from opening, despite it having passed all the FIA checks. McLaren, while they obliged to it, they pushed their own complaint about rival F1 teams.
Stella didn’t wish to reveal what they complained about, but assured that the FIA knows about it and will act accordingly, especially of the things which can’t be readily seen on the car. The Italian took the situation as a ‘win’ considering that its rivals were more focused on McLaren than themselves.
Stella stressed that their approach and dialogue remains to happen as per the McLaren ethics and they wish to be as transparent as possible. Most of its F1 rivals from Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and Williams, took the FIA decision sportingly, but stressed that loopholes should be closed off.
Headspace after ruling, FIA talks –
Stella: “My headspace is that, once the legality of the wing is unconvertible, it is a fact. Personally, in principal of McLaren, I find that so much attention on our rear wing is just good news, because it means that opponents are not focusing on themselves. And Formula 1 is such a marginal game. It’s so complicated. I keep repeating to my team: ‘Focus on yourself’. So for me, when I see that there’s so much attention from other teams, it means that they will be doing work, they will be doing analysis, they will be talking to the FIA. There’s limited time and limited energy. They’re using this time and energy to chase something that I think is a red herring. So for me, as McLaren, that’s just good news. We try to stay focused on ourselves, we want to come with technical solutions that may be challenging, but totally sound from a legality point of view. If others want to get destructive, keep doing that. Because for us, it’s just good news.
“We want to proactively have conversations with the FIA but it looks like this story has become big. For us, making changes is pretty much transparent, so we may as well do it, as it won’t be a big consequence from a performance point of view. This also gave us the opportunity to [remind] the FIA that, we also do some due diligence in terms of studying other people. We don’t want to spend so much energy and time with journalists and trying to create big stories. We just told the FIA what we think is happening. We trust, and we are confident, that they will talk to the other teams and make sure that they fix their own issues, which may be less visible, but definitely they do exist.”
Watch out for rivals too –
Stella: “I think when I say about focussing on yourself, this is not that you don’t look at the competitors. This is how big a story it is that you create around competitors. And I don’t want my people at McLaren to go racing and think, ‘Oh, of course they won, because they have this solution.’ It’s just such a distraction from a mindset point of view. When you go racing, you think and you focus on yourself. This doesn’t mean that you don’t look at the competitors, and you don’t study how the formation happens on competitors, and you don’t go to the FIA and say, have you looked at that? That’s technical due diligence, that’s tough competition that we do have at McLaren. Having done that, now we focus on ourselves. And everyone go racing, thinking about maximising what we have. Not creating and pumping these kind of stories which become such a distraction for your own team, because they will be thinking, ‘Oh, McLaren, they are fast because they have that.’ We are in Singapore. Personally, I haven’t seen a lot of a slot gap opening. Have you? We are two-tenths with a pole position. That’s where I want people to focus. In this sense, I think this is a distraction, and it’s good news, not in the sense that we don’t look and study competitors, because this is part of total competition in F1.”
Made any complaints and what –
Stella: “I will not be precise, because I would be disclosing information that I think fits within a confidentiality range. For some reasons, this slot gap seems to have become something that dominates F1. There’s many ways in which other cars are exploiting aerodynamic pressure on surfaces – actually, based on our analysis, some of them are just quite a lot more effective. But we do trust the FIA. They are very competent people from a technical point of view. To be honest, when we have conversations with them, not only do we see that they understand mechanisms, but they also understand what is going on with our competitors. They always seem to be pretty equipped in terms of understanding whether some of the tests are suitable – to limit some mechanisms or ways of aerodynamic pressure. I think we are in good hands from a policy point of view, with the FIA, and I think we should have all parties – teams, journalists, everyone – [give] a little bit more respect for the FIA and their technical department, because they do a very good job. It’s not a simple job. Sometimes we should praise what they do. And I don’t see this being done very much.”
Approach, dialogue –
Stella: “I think every kind of process if you approach it with an analytical mindset…if you approach it even in a collaborative way, lets say between the technical side of the FIA, and even the political side and the teams, then there is some learning that you can embed. And then you can embed them in the regulation, in the tests, you can embed it with the philosophy, as to how you are racing because you may even want to have a philosophy in which you leave some space for exploration or if you want to have a philosophy in which you absolutely…there must be no space for any kind of activity. Definitely we approach things in this way, collaborative with some serenity and we don’t go over there and create unnecessary big stories which don’t seem to have a foundation.”
What other bosses say –
Toto Wolff: “We were so into our own issues to solve them that we didn’t have it on the radar. Now, you can say that’s naive or not, but for sure, in Monza and in Baku, it might have had an effect, especially when you see the close racing at the front that happened. But we weren’t part of this game, so it was a second priority to us.”
Frederic Vasseur: “No, I think they agreed that they won’t use anymore the wing, as far as I understand, but I’m not sure that this will be again a question, but I don’t know. Worried, I’m not sure that is the right word. I think there is a kind of confusion between what’s happened with the front wing and the rear wing. The front wing… We all agree that it could be a grey area because in the TD, the first paragraph of the TD is saying that you can’t design part of the car with the intention of the deformation. Intention is difficult to manage. The rear wing story is completely different because on the article you have also a maximum deflection. And this is black or white. It’s no grey, no dark grey, no light grey. It’s black and black. And for me, it’s clear. This is true. And so far, we had a look on the previous event, and it was only on the low-downforce track.
“I’m not sure that they could, or they want to use the same trick in Singapore or in Zandvoort, for example. But again, we have to give the responsibility to the scrutineering, to the FIA. It’s not my job to do it. It’s not James’ job or whatever. They have to do it and we have to trust them, honestly. I’m not complaining about this. I think it’s more than borderline. We all saw the video and the picture of this. And it’s a bit frustrating when, if you remember perfectly the situation in Monza, we had five cars in 200th of a second. And you move from P1, P2 to P5, P6 for 200th of a second. In Baku, we arrive 10 laps in a row, side by side, Turn 1. But you can imagine that we have a bit of frustration.”
James Vowles: “I have bigger worries than McLaren’s rear wing, if I’m honest. But I think Fred summarised it well, which is, first and foremost, the front wing, there is an element of understanding up and down the pit lane. On the rear wing, I’ve seen various images. I can’t personally assess what it is or is not doing at that point. All we have to do is rely on the FIA doing their checks in the correct way. But there’s an intention behind how we’re working the cars aerodynamically.”
Christian Horner: “Obviously it passed the test. As long as the FIA are happy…well, it sets a precedent. We don’t want to rush to design wings that deform like that. If it’s deemed okay then everybody will do the same. I’d be surprised if we saw it again.”
Here’s Oscar Piastri taking Singapore GP recovery well
Here’s Lando Norris, Andrea Stella on fastest lap drama
Here’s drama about McLaren rear wing
Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact