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Jonathan Noble

Wolff not expecting flexi-wing F1 crackdown to slow Red Bull down

The FIA is introducing new measures for this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix aimed at stopping teams from playing around with flexi-wing tricks.

While it is unclear just how much impact the changes are going to have on each individual team, the prospects of a dramatic shake-up in the order have been played down by leading figures.

Amid suggestions that Aston Martin has already this season had to row back on some of its aggressive wing flexibility, Wolff is intrigued to see what the impact will be.

"It's going to be interesting," said Wolff. "I think with the Aston Martin you've seen that they made a step backwards with their wing moving less, but I don't know the details. Let's wait and see.

"I don't know who is exploiting them to a bigger degree than others, but it's maybe Red Bull [if it] is half a second slower suddenly.

"That would be nice, but I don't think that will be the case."

The FIA's single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis does not expect there to be a huge impact on the competitive order.

"I don't think we'll see huge changes," he said. "Compared to other interventions done in the past, I don't expect revolutions.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes-AMG (Photo by: Michael Potts / Motorsport Images)

"These are medium-low level interventions and, for this reason, the teams are not shouting and have taken the changes quite well."

Williams head of vehicle performance Dave Robson said the scale of the demands from the FIA would likely trigger work from all teams, as he hoped there would be some impact on teams ahead.

"I think the way the TDs are written, they're clearly aimed at quite specific things that the FIA have seen, so they must be affecting some people," he explained.

"On the whole we don't think it affects us very much. There is a little bit we need to do on our floors, but on the wing side of things not a big deal. So yeah, hopefully it will slow some people down."

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