Selected Formula 1 teams will have to fit new video cameras for practice at the Belgian Grand Prix as part of an FIA investigation into flexi wings tricks, Autosport can reveal.
The increasing use by teams of flexible front wing designs to better balance their cars has come under the spotlight over recent weeks, with some squads questioning how far rivals are pushing it.
Up until now, the FIA had been satisfied that the behaviour of the front wings was in compliance with the regulations, and felt that current static tests were enough to control it.
But it has emerged that earlier this week the FIA informed teams that it will be taking action to get a better understanding of the situation – with new analysis to be done at next week’s Belgian Grand Prix.
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It is not clear how many teams will be selected for the FIA checks, but frontrunners including Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren are all believed to be exploiting such concepts to a greater or lesser degree.
In a technical directive sent to all competitors from FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis, the teams were notified that the Friday practice sessions at Spa-Francorchamps will be used by the governing body to capture detailed video footage of what some front wings are doing.
In the note, a copy of which has been seen by Autosport, Tombazis has said that “selected teams will be required to fit their cars with additional wireless recording cameras”.
The location of these cameras has been specified by the FIA and will be “focused on the inboard facing nominally vertical surfaces…to track the translation and rotation of target dots”.
It goes on to specify where these dots - which must be 20mm across, of a single colour and stand out from the bodywork - must be positioned.
A series of dots will be placed on the inside of the endplate, to help check on any rotation of the front wing itself.
Further dots will be placed at the edges of the flaps - both towards the endplate and by the nose section, to check on any flexibility of these elements.
The tests will take place on the opening day of running at Spa-Francorchamps, with cars reverting to their more traditional location of cameras for FP3 onwards.
The gathering of the information from teams will allow the FIA to better understand how the front wings of selected squads are behaving and whether or not changes need to be made to the regulations.
To ensure teams do not get around the checks by running specific wings when the cameras are on, the FIA has required that the cameras are fitted for more than 50% of the timed laps in a session, unless there are force majeure circumstances that prevent them doing so, such as an accident or a session being cut short.
The use of flexi wings in F1 has long been a grey area, with the nature of aerodynamic parts meaning they cannot be totally rigid when exposed to the forces that are experienced at high speed.
The FIA has ramped up static tests, where loads are applied to the wings in the pits, to check that teams are not going to extreme lengths by using too flexible components.
But with a flexi front wing especially useful for helping teams better balance the new generation of ground effect cars, teams have been making increasing use of designs.
Mercedes was quite open that having a degree of flexibility with its new front wing that first arrived at the Monaco Grand Prix was beneficial to car balance – while being within what was allowed by the regulations.
The team’s technical director James Allison said after its arrival: “I think that all of us are trying to ensure that we pass the FIA's flexibility test. They put loads on, and you've got to not move by more than an amount.
“But provided you can do that and provided your wing is just bending like a thing bends when it has load on it, then there's no drama to be faced with the governing body.”
While the FIA does not anticipate the need for revised load tests right now, if its analysis of the front wings from Belgium shows that teams are pushing the boundaries of what should be allowed, then the door could be open for a change in how it is policed.
