24/05/2021
NEWS STORY
Due to the nature of the circuit, the 'bendy-wing' saga was on the back burner for much of the Monaco weekend.
That said, at Friday's official press conference, Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff reiterated his threat of protesting the rear wing on the Red Bull car in Baku next month, the track's long straights almost begging for such a device.
Andreas Seidl had previously criticised the FIA for delaying the revised test for wing rigidity until the French Grand Prix, thereby effectively handing those teams running such devices a 'get out of jail' card for the Baku weekend.
Though the McLaren boss effectively ruled out an official protest, Wolff didn't.
"My view is very similar to Andreas," he said. "We have seen in the past that complicated redesigns for teams had a delay. It's clear that, if you have a back-to-back race, or maybe even two weeks, it's too short for everybody to adjust - but we're having four weeks to Baku and it is incomprehensible that, within four weeks you can't stiffen-up a rear wing for the track that is probably the most affected by flexible rear wings.
"That leaves us in no-man's land," he added, "because the Technical Directive says the movement of some rear wings has been judged as excessive - so teams who would run these kinds of wings are prone to being protested and probably this is going to do to the ICA, and nobody needs this messy situation."
Asked about claims that the front wing on the W12 bends, Wolff replied: We will need to modify our wing... we need to soften it!
"Our wing is extremely rigid," he continued, "complying to the famous article 3.8 that it must remain immobile.
"The new test that has been introduced is a half-baked solution," he added, "which is giving us opportunity and the whole thing can soften and can bend more in the future."
Speaking on Sunday however, in the wake of the "disaster" that saw Lewis Hamilton finish seventh and Valtteri Bottas sidelined by an errant wheel nut, Wolff returned to the 'bendy-wing' theme, warning of protests and counter protests in two weeks' time.
"If the 'limbo' wings are on in Baku, with the advantage that we see, it's going to go to the stewards," he told Sky Sports. "And if the stewards are not enough, then it's going to go to the ICA (International Court of Appeal).
"So I guess the FIA is going to clarify things before Baku, because if not, it could be very messy."
Asked about the possibility of Red Bull protesting the front wing on the W12, he replied: "We've analysed the front wings, and they are bending exactly the same way as the Red Bull - so we could be protesting each other on the front wing also.
"But it's clear that the rear wing bends more than it should," he insisted. "Under the rules, it has been classified as non-conformant. But we are left in a vacuum where it's a new test that will be introduced after Baku. So it is what it is. But we are pretty robust in our legal position."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Monaco, here.