F1 ground effect pioneer says McLaren’s wing tricks are beyond FIA control: 'It’s genius and untouchable’

19:40, 09 Jun

Updated: 19:41, 09 Jun

byNorberto Mujica

Peter Wright worked in F1 from the 1960's to the 1990's, in doing so he helped develop the ground effect era whilst at Lotus under the leadership of pioneer Colin Chapman. The British engineer now claims that the F1 teams are focusing on regarding the front wing cannot be policed by the FIA.

Much noise there was surrounding the implementation of TD018 to restraint the flexibility of the front wings, with some believing that the pecking order would be reshuffled even.

In the end it was another McLaren landslide win, an Oscar Piastri led 1-2, after securing a rather comfortable pole the day before. And Wright believes he has just the answer for the impact, or rather the lack thereof, of the flexiwing clampdown revised technical directive.

'FIA can't police what teams are doing'

Speaking on Peter Windsor's podcast, Wright argued: “I think they [McLaren] have achieved, very cleverly, a front wing where you can put on however much you want at speed to get rid of low-speed understeer, and that doesn’t give you a lot of high-speed oversteer. Because it washes out the front wing with [aero] load.”

Meaning McLaren are able to add considerable load to mitigate the understeer at low speed cornering, but at the same time reducing high-speed cornering oversteer, both inherent to this generation of cars.

“It’s exactly what you want. But unfortunately, under the FIA regulations, no one has control of incidents with the wing or the flap, only the bending. I think that is why nothing changed in the Spanish Grand Prix.”

Oscar Piastri won his 7th career Grand Prix overall in Spain

McLaren's wings still flex

According to Wright, McLaren could be using an aircraft principle where when moving more toward a layered component style of structure build, you can therefore direct the deformation parameters, something Wright is 'quite certain' McLaren are doing.

“It’s known in the aircraft industry that as primary structures go more towards composites, the layout of the plies are used to tune the structural deformation of wings. I’m quite sure they are well into that."

“As you sweep the wing [upwards], the centre of downforce is behind the mounting point. Therefore, it must twist the mounting point. It twists nose up on a racing car, and it reduces downforce. So there are some very clever things going on in that wing structure.”