The FIA’s Single-Seater Director Nikolas Tombazis has explained why the clampdown on the so-called flexi-wings is beginning from this weekend’s Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix.
From this weekend, teams will be adhering to a new technical directive, which sees front wings’ loads decrease to a minimum of 10mm or 15mm, depending on how it is applied.
The TD has opened up a plethora of theories as to which teams will benefit and which ones will suffer under its order.
Stringent rules have already been applied to the rear wings, with a maximum of 2mm size of the ‘slot gap’ through a 75kg vertical load applied, and then reduced further to 0.75mm in China, and 0.5 from Japan.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s race, Tombazis detailed the reasons for the TD being introduced from this weekend, despite concluding its findings last year.
“Over a sequence of races at and following the Belgian Grand Prix we installed cameras on the front wings of all cars and again we concluded that the tests would need to be toughened,” he said.
“That conclusion was arrived at quite late in the year, however, and we felt that if we had introduced extra tests at the start of this season, it would have been tough on teams and may have led to existing front wings being scrapped, and extra expense.
“Therefore, we felt that deferred introduction was more sensible.”
‘Tough’ FIA tests hopefully means no more changes in 2025
Tombazis acknowledged the intensity of how rules can be interpreted and exploited amid the peak of a championship battle, hence the FIA’s decision to implement such changes.
“When championship battles become intense, teams tend to focus on each other’s cars a lot, and naturally they raise concerns and over the latter half of the season we came to the conclusion that we needed to toughen a bit more the tests for 2025,” he explained.
However, Tombazis also spoke of his hope that these TDs will be the final changes the FIA will need to make between now and the end of the current campaign.
“Obviously it is fair for the FIA to add more flexibility tests or stiffness tests when it judges that a certain area may be getting exploited a bit too much, but yes, we hope it will be the last time we’ll do anything for this year.”
But teams should now start to feel easy with the new regulations in place, as the FIA will be conducting its due diligence on cars at race weekends.
“We check the teams at various points across the season and we ask them to bring certain components along and we’ll check them in isolation and sometimes test them on the whole car,” Tombazis expanded.
“We frequently test in parc fermé conditions—either on Saturday after qualifying or Sunday morning, as obviously, in parc fermé teams cannot make changes to their car. That ensures that they’re not fitting a stiff wing for the test and running something else in the race.
“We also occasionally conduct checks after a race if we feel there is a reason to do so. Those tests would be static load tests, as defined in Article 3.15 of the Technical Regulations.”
And with a brand-new set of regulations set to come in 2026, Tombazis also said that this gives teams the opportunity to exploit loopholes in new rules, hence continuity on checks.
“There are areas where the propensity to have flexible components is less pronounced, because of the straight-line mode, for example and therefore in some areas it may be that at some point we choose to ease the toughness of the tests,” he added.
“But fundamentally the philosophy is the same. We need to be vigilant, and we need to keep testing.
“In fact, we are defining the loads for next year now. So, we will see how the first evolves and if we need to react to maintain fairness, then we will do so.”
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