F1 flexi-wing clampdown ‘a joke’ and will cost Alfa Romeo “a fortune” - Vasseur

The build-up to this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix has been overshadowed by a row over so-called “bendy” wings, with Mercedes and McLaren claiming that rival outfits are gaining an illegal straightline speed advantage through rear wing flexing. 

In response, the FIA has confirmed it is introducing a set of new tests from next month’s French Grand Prix in a bid to clamp down on teams who are exploiting the regulations. 

Vasseur has hit out at the tweak which he has branded as hugely unfair, particularly for smaller teams like his Alfa Romeo squad. 

“It will affect everybody because at the end of the day we had the regulation and even if some teams won’t agree because they don’t want to disclose their own game,” he said. 

“But at the end of the day, we had a regulation with the maximum deformation and the load and I think we [Alfa Romeo] are not more clever than the others.

“Everybody was sticking to the limit and the FIA decided to change the limits. It’s a bit surprising, they changed the load and deformation in the course of the season.

“It’s not the introduction of a new test or a new way to do the test, it’s that they changed the value and this for me is the first time that I remember that we see something like this. If you are the limit, if you did a good job, you have to produce new wings.”

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes teams will have to fork out around $500,000 to change their wings. 

Although Vasseur refused to join Horner in providing an estimation, he admitted the change will ultimately end up costing Alfa Romeo “a fortune”. 

“In terms of cost saving, it’s a huge, huge, huge effort for everybody,” he explained. 

“We will have time to do it [change the wing], but it will cost us a fortune.

“We are all fighting to try to save money, to speak, to reduce having one person at a track, and then we have these kinds of things that... it's just a joke. A joke for me.”

Horner described suggestions the changes could be worth up to six-tenths of lap time gain as “ludicrous”, adding he would be surprised if it was close to a tenth. 

And Vasseur also doubts the changes will make a significant difference to the performance of the cars. 

“Honestly, it will be marginal,” he said. “We did the back-to-back a couple of times, and the difference was not huge. 

“But it's not about this, my concern. It is that why next week we won't change the weight of the car also? Because one team is not able to reach the limit. 

“I am a bit upset with the approach,” Vasseur added. “The introduction of a new test is a different thing, but to change the value of the test, it’s not fair at all. 

“The business of the engineers in F1 and the designers is to design parts at the limit of the regulation.

“If you change the regulation in the course of the season, you will have to design new parts and the teams who are saying that they won't be affected, it's a joke.”