Honda clarify role in Ferrari wing argument.

Geoff Willis has clarified Honda's role in the dispute over Ferrari's flexible rear wing dispute, insisting that they have merely suggested to the FIA that their rivals may be flouting the rules.

Honda reportedly filed a complaint against the 'Prancing Horse' last week after providing video evidence of their rear-wing flexing at speed giving them less drag along the straight, something that Ross Brawn responded to by insisting that he can prove all of the cars do that.

Nonetheless, Willis says that the argument has been blown out of proportion and that their complaint has gone no further than getting clarification from race director Charlie Whiting about the legality of the wings.

"I'm not quite sure where it all came from," the Honda chassis technical director said. "The whole issue of flexible wings has come and gone quite a lot over the last two or three years. It's an area which a lot of the teams often talk about to Charlie Whiting, the race director, seeking clarifications, asking what we can do and it's a subject which we discuss in the Technical Working Group from time to time, so I'm not quite sure why this issue became quite so heated this week.

"It is the case that people have been playing around with wings quite a lot. There are two main ways. People either try and get the whole wing to bend off... to twist off, reduce the drag at high speed, or play around with mechanisms that close or open the flap gap and I have to say that what we've discovered over the last year or so, is quite impressive, the amount of innovation out there.

"It's something where, if we hear something or we have an idea, then it's all part of the regular business of making technical inquiries to Charlie Whiting, asking whether we can do it. It's a little bit of a game generally with technical advances in Formula One, when you have a clever idea, or you think somebody else has got a clever idea, you either try and do it yourself or if you think it's close enough to a grey area you ask the right sort of question to the FIA, so it either gets stopped for everybody or permitted for everybody."

Willis however stopped short of admitting that no complaint had been made and insisted that this is part of the regular dialogue between the teams and the FIA.

"We're quite regularly in communication with the FIA through Charlie Whiting," he continued. "I think we've probably had eleven or twelve communications this year alone; that's on top of the general technical directives.

"It's a difficult area because there are clear regulations about the way we measure the flexibility of wings but the other issue was something that came up in a technical directive that was circulated in the middle of last year where it was made quite clear that we are not allowed to take aerodynamic advantage so we've got a regulation which we all understand but it's a little bit difficult to determine how exactly you're going to enforce it.

"Now that business of enforcement is entirely the FIA's area but what the teams will tend to do is give information or suggestions to Charlie Whiting and Jo Bauer as to what we think is possible and what we think if it's not going to be permitted by them, where to look for it."