F1 News: All teams are free to use cheater flexi-front wings for ’25

No changes will be made to front wing flex tests used in Formula 1 despite some teams clearly having flexing (flexi) front wings that were against the spirit of the rules in 2024, FIA head of single-seater matters Nikolas Tombazis told Autosport.

The FIA placed cameras on the front wings and it was clear to anyone watching on TV that the McLaren car wings were flexing the most under full aerodynamic wind load, and therefore, against the spirit of the regulations.

The FIA had declared that it had no issue with the McLaren and Mercedes cheater front wings; as long as they passed the static flex tests, then the governing body was happy.

Tombazis told Autosport that the difference in loading between each front wing on the grid made it difficult for the FIA to create a one-size-fits-all test to clamp down on any exploitation of aeroelasticity.

“We are pretty happy with what we’ve seen,” Tombazis explained in an exclusive interview with Autosport. “I hasten to say that it’s not a question always of being happy or not.

“It’s also a question of whether you feel that a meaningful test can be made.

“One of the challenges in the front wing is that, compared to other parts of the car, the front wing loading is much more varied between cars in a given location and so on.

“So most tests relate to the load of a certain direction, certain position of application, certain magnitude must not produce a [certain] deformation.

“The most successful such tests imitate as much as possible what happens in real life with loads and, on the earlier wing for example, it’s reasonably successful. On the front wing, the variety between cars would make that quite difficult.”

“Obviously, there was a lot of hoo-hah about it during the summer and early autumn,” Tombazis added.

“We had made it quite clear to teams since 2022 at least, that we were not planning to introduce any further tests on the front wing and we stuck to that.”

So now all the teams will have to come up with their version of flexi-wings if they want to have any chance of being competitive.

The challenge? Who can design the best cheater Flexi-Wings.