Flexi Wings

Well I'm glad that I wasn't the only person to notice the flexing front wings of Ferrari, McLaren and Renault at the last race, and the fact that nothing has been said, or done, about these and Ferrari's rear wings by the FIA - even though they are technically illegal - means that both Williams and Mclaren are supposedly going to introduce their own, possibly at the next race in Monaco.

Back in the old days, the FIA would have done something about this situation, such as stripping points or suspending teams - see BAR Honda last season - but apart from asking a few teams to change their wings earlier this season, the FIA have done nothing. The FIA's Technical regulations 2006 state that:

Bodywork may deflect no more than 5mm vertically when a 500N load is applied vertically to it 700mm
forward of the front wheel centre line and 625mm from the car centre line.

and

Bodywork may deflect no more than 10mm vertically when a 500N load is applied vertically to it 450mm
forward of the rear wheel centre line and 650mm from the car centre line.

so by doing nothing they have, in theory at least, declared these banned devices as legal and their own technical regulations as meaningless.

Indeed McLaren were one of the teams advised to change it's front wing design, however, it was clear that their front wings were moving just as much as before they changed them, and that was definitely more than the 5mm stated by the Technical Rgulations.

Apparently, Ferrari have got around the ruling on the rear wing because as their wing flexes, it closes the gap between the elememts of the rear wing. The top element rests upon the lower element, and by doing so does not flex more than the permitted 10mm for rear wings. An intelligent interpretation of the rules, however, I would say that this then makes the wing effectively one element and therefore against the regulations that stipulate a rear wing must consist of two separate elements.

But then the car is red, and has a prancing horse on the front.......