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Formula 1 teams are set to face increased scrutiny of their rear wings from the Australian Grand Prix amid fresh concerns about ‘mini-DRS’ tricks being used again.
The behaviour of some teams’ rear wings came under the spotlight during pre-season testing in Bahrain last week.
The Mercedes wing was captured on rearward facing cameras appearing to flex back on the straights, while some teams said they were intrigued by slot gaps opening up on other cars in what appeared to be a return of so-called mini-DRS antics.
Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache told The Race that, while efforts had been made by the FIA to prevent such flexing over the winter, some teams still appeared to be exploiting this area.
"It is still going on," he said. "I think Ferrari and McLaren are doing the mini-DRS stuff still."
Other teams suggested that observation of flo-vis paint on the rear wings of some cars had also hinted at unusual behaviour taking place in how the rear wings were flexing at speed.
In light of what emerged from the test, the FIA wants to look closer at things and ensure that teams are not playing around in ways that could be outside the regulations.
So now, as first reported by Italian website Autoracer.it, the governing body has opened the door to ramp up its investigation of rear wing behaviour from the season opener in Australia.
Sources have confirmed to The Race that in a technical directive sent by the FIA’s single seater director Nikolas Tombazis this week, a request has been put in for teams to provide housings for FIA cameras to help monitor the rear wings better.
These cameras will deliver high definition footage of the rear wings at high speed and, through the monitoring of reference stickers that are applied in specific locations, will help the FIA better understand what is happening when the cars are out on track.
This process of using extra cameras to monitor flexing is similar to what happened from last year’s Belgian Grand Prix, when the FIA began monitoring the behaviour of front wings.
The FIA has already moved to tighten up teams exploiting aero elasticity this year, with changes made to the regulations for both front and rear wings.
Stricter tests are coming in for front wings from the Spanish Grand Prix, while the move to focus on what is going on at the rear could prompt further action there if the FIA finds anything untoward.
This could take the form of either telling teams individually that their wing could be deemed to be flexing too much, or it could prompt the introduction of tougher tests.
The 2024 mini-DRS affair
The benefits that can be had by opening up the rear wing slot gap to help reduce drag emerged last year when McLaren perfected its mini-DRS.
But, after it helped Oscar Piastri win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the team found itself on the receiving end of complaints from rival squads.
Following discussions between McLaren and the governing body, modifications were made to the wing for subsequent races.
As part of an effort to draw a line under other teams trying to repeat those tricks this year, the FIA made tweaks to the regulations for the start of this season.
Revised regulations stipulated that the slot gap width be reduced from a 10-15mm minimum allowance to 9.4-13mm - with the upper boundary still remaining at 85mm when DRS was open.
Of more significance, however, was a clear regulation that stated the DRS bodywork position could now only either be in the open or closed state - so cannot be flexed to be in states where it moves around.
A new Article 30.10.10 of the F1 technical regulations states: "Except in the event of a DRS failure or the transitioning from one position into the other the DRS bodywork can have only two positions, such that the DRS bodywork position must be the same before and after each state of deployment. The transition time between the two positions must be less than 400ms."
Further revisions have also been made to force teams to stiffen up the rear wing mainplane.
A new Article 3.15.17 states: “The distance between the two sections of RV-RW-PROFILES and RV-RW-TIP inboard of Y=525, must not vary more than 2mm when two loads of [0,0, -750]N each, are applied simultaneously to the rear wing profile forward most section only."
