The Chinese Grand Prix proved to be a watershed moment in this season’s Formula one championship. The McLaren 1-2 on Sunday confirmed the Woking based squad are strong favourites to win the constructors’ title race and Ferrari have once again become shambolic.
A double disqualification for both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc from the Grand Prix demonstrated the weakness in the Scuderia’s risk assessment processes. Leclerc’s car was underweight come the chequered flag due to poor analysis of tyre wear, according to Ferrari and Hamilton’s ride height was too low despite the team raising it after the Sprint.
Liam Lawson confirmed the Red Bull car is a pig to drive, with only Max Verstappen currently able to extract some kind of front running performance from the RB21. Yet behind the drama, the FIA had introduced a radical overhaul of its flexi bodywork tests, slashing the tolerance for movement the rear wing by 75% before handing back 0.25mm additional allowance just for the weekend in Shanghai.
Half the F1 grid, illegal wings
They now reveal that half the grid were running wings now deemed illegal in Australia having cut the flex tolerance from the static load tests from 2mm to 0.5mm. Alpine had openly admitted they had been forced to change their rear wing between Albert Park and the Shanghai International circuit, while Haas made claims their original wing down under was just inside the new FIA regulated fixing tolerances.
In addition to slashing the allowance for the rear wing to flex, the FIA fitted rear facing cameras to the cars with reference points in the form of circular stickers on the rear wing to analysis whether any of the components were flexing excessively under load while the cars were on track, something the static load test wold fail to spot.
Of course the rear wing faces different loads when hurtling around a circuit from almost from a 180 degree radius from the moving air. This is something the FIA static test cannot replicate as head of single seater performance official Nicholas Tombazis has stated previously.
Speaking in December, the FIA head of day to day F1 affairs said of the tests they had undertaken: “The front wing has been a challenging area throughout the years because the aerodynamic loading patterns between different competitors vary and it is therefore difficult to find a load vector which will cover all types of front-wing construction,” and at that time Tombazis stated there would be no new regulations over flexi-bodywork until 2026.
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FIA change of mind
However this all changed come January when the FIA issued a technical directive to the teams informing them of a change in the regulations for the front wings was coming at the Spanish Grand Prix. Yet such were the squabbles in Australia over who was benefitting from illegal rear wing “mini-DRS” components again that the FIA decided to act swiftly and enforce new tests and rules in China.
None of the front running teams admitted to changing their rear wings in Shanghai yet now the FIA reveals that up to half the field did in fact swap out their wing design used in Australia for one with a more robust structure in China.
“I’m hopeful it’ll be enough this time,” said Tombazis reports Motorspoert-Total regarding the new directive. “I think four or five weren’t [compliant], and they had to make changes [for China].”
The FIA had made it clear that in Melbourne, all the teams had passed the original test margins which were set for the season. Yet having made drastic cuts to the new tolerances allowed we now know that half the field would have been using illegal rear wings.
Monitoring cameras set to continue
Tombazis confirmed the new load bearing tests will continue to be used as the benchmark by the FIA although admits they alone may not be enough to prevent the teams from circumventing the intention of the regulations. And so “we continue to use cameras, simply to be safe,” Tombazis adds, “but ‘safe’ is actually a word I want to avoid, because it’s a rather complex phenomenon that causes this effect. Basically, we mainly use the results of the load tests and combine that with the camera data.
“That way we ensure we don’t miss any tricks. Camera images alone would not only lead us to involve the stewards. They’re more likely to initiate a more detailed investigation, where we might discover that a team is using non-linear characteristics or a mechanism. Then we’d have reason to report it.”
The FIA official began his conclusion by stating F1’s governing body is reasonably satisfied with the field over the team’s approach to rear wing stability, but warns he and his team will remain vigilant and have the right to introduce any further tests they deem appropriate.
Cars passing the FIA tests will in general be deemed legal, although if there are some “hidden mechanisms or things based on non-linear properties, temperatures, or similar things. In such cases, we intervene,” added the FIA official.
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McLaren pioneered ‘mini-DRS’
“In principle, we would never report a team that has passed the tests to the stewards. But specifically on this issue, and for precisely these reasons, the rules give us the right to conduct additional stiffness tests,” he concluded.
McLaren pioneered the “mini-DRS” last season as part of their first big upgrade in Miami and the Ferrari boss complained that the FIA took too long before declaring they would take no further action and other teams could then devise their own versions of the McLaren rear wing.
The clever trick the Woking based team deployed on their MCL38 was to make the tolerance of the DRS flap which opens flexible enough that a gap would open when the flap was loaded sufficiently by air pressure but not necessarily in a DRS zone.
Whilst the FIA declared the wing legal, McLaren did make some subtle changes after the FIA’s investigation. Of course they claim these alterations were design led but a number of tech experts in the paddock believe the team was leant on by the FIA.
FIA approach less confrontational
In days of yore, F1 teams were forced to ‘protest’ athge legality of a competitors car before the FIA would take action. This of course created animosity amongst the teams and so the FIA now police the regulations themselves.
Another change in the way the FIA polices the design rules is that rather than throwing a team out of a session for non-compliance, they are mostly given a short amount of time to rectify the flaw in the car’s architecture. Of course this doesn’t apply to breaches of weight or ride hide rules as Ferrari found to their cost at the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix.
Come 2026, the teams will be allowed moveable front and rear wings which will almost make the need for flexible body work redundant. This is why the FIA originally revealed its intentions were to not to address flexi/moveable matters this year.
Yet such was the fuss from team’s like Red Bull Racing, the F1 policemen were woken from their slumber and forced to act quickly to prevent another growing row in the paddock.
Lawson dumped as Red Bull make millions
Liam Lawson out as Red Bull make strategic driver switch with lucrative Honda deal in play – The F1 paddock has been abuzz with speculation for weeks, but now it seems official: Liam Lawson is out and Yuki Tsunoda is in. This website was one of the first in the world to break this story two days ago but now the move is confirmed that Red Bull will dump their rookie Liam Lawson after just two races.
Red Bull Racing is said to be finalising a mid-season driver swap that will not only reshape the team’s roster, but could also add millions to the team’s coffers thanks to a lucrative deal with engine partner and long-time backer of Tsunoda, Honda.
Lawson’s departure, rumoured since the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, is said to have been confirmed following high-level talks in Dubai. While Red Bull have yet to make an official announcement, several media outlets in the Netherlands, including De Telegraaf and De Limburger, have reported that Lawson’s time in the Red Bull cockpit is over just two races into the 2025 Formula One season…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
