FIA dismisses Red Bull and Ferrari complaints over McLaren wings

McLaren and Mercedes have been given the green light to keep their current front wing designs after concerns around their legality from Red Bull and Ferrari were dismissed.

Motorsport’s world governing body, the FIA, said the wings – which Red Bull and Ferrari believed were flexing excessively – were “currently compliant with the 2024 regulations”.

Neither Red Bull nor Ferrari formally objected to the wings being used by McLaren and Mercedes.

But both Red Bull team principal Christian Horner and motorsport advisor Helmut Marko expressed concerns over the course of the weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, as did Ferrari chief Fred Vasseur.

Onboard camera reveals wing ‘bend’

Horner said: “The regulations are very clear and that’s an FIA issue. Obviously they are tested and they pass, but then you have to look at the wording of the regulations. It’s an FIA issue, so we’ll leave it and trust in them to deal with it.”

Marko said: “The front wing of McLaren and Mercedes must be analysed.”

Ferrari team principal Vasseur added: “This is a discussion that I don’t want to have with you. I will have it with [FIA single-seater director Nikolas] Tombazis.”

The development will come as a blow to Red Bull in particular as they struggle to hang on to both world titles.

It is now seven races since Max Verstappen won a grand prix, in Barcelona, and while the Dutch driver has managed to maintain a healthy lead in the drivers’ championship, he has only made the podium once in the past four races.

Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Pérez finished sixth and eighth in Monza on Sunday, after which Verstappen said: “At the moment, both championships are not realistic.”

With eight races of the season remaining, Verstappen leads the drivers’ championship by 62 points from McLaren’s Lando Norris, while Red Bull are just about hanging on to the lead in the constructors’ championship, by just eight points from McLaren.

Red Bull have not yet worked out how to fix the handling issues they are suffering with their car, but they had hoped that they might at least be able to handicap McLaren and Mercedes, who between them have won five of the last six races.

Flex-wings rows in the sport are nothing new, with the FIA changing the rules in 2021 after complaints about the Red Bull front wing.

The FIA does have a habit of erring on the side of making the championship more competitive. Some senior figures in the sport expect the governing body to make changes to the rules over the winter rather than stifle the challenge of the two resurgent teams from Woking and Brackley.

All teams’ wings flex to some degree, but questions increased after an onboard camera at Monza showed McLaren’s front wing bending.

But the FIA said in a statement on Tuesday: “All front wings are currently compliant with the 2024 regulations.” It said: “The FIA has the right to introduce new tests if irregularities are suspected. There are no plans for any short-term measure, but we are evaluating the situation with the medium and long term in mind.”

The FIA said it examined front wings at every event and had been “acquiring additional data since the Belgian race with an FIA-mandated video camera, which captures areas of the front wing which are not visible through the official F1 cameras”.

It added that it would continue to check the wings in Baku and Singapore later this month to gain an “objective” picture, with teams by then having run the mandated FIA camera on different types of track.