Hamilton says new front wing rule ‘waste of money’

Lewis Hamilton calls the introduction of a new front wing flexibility regulation at the Spanish Grand Prix “a waste of money.”

To limit how many teams could use their movement on the track to gain aerodynamic advantage, the governing body, the FIA, imposed a stricter load test on the front wings.

However, Hamilton said, “We just wasted everyone’s money.” Nothing has actually changed.

Everyone had to make new wings and spend more money to make these because everyone’s wings still bend. It’s only half the bending. Simply put, it is illogical.

The Ferrari driver continued, “I didn’t anticipate anything of the change before coming to Spain.”

According to Hamilton, “I drove it on the simulator, and it’s pretty much the same.” A little more oversteer in the high speed, I guess. You know, “Could have given it everything to charity”?

Along with funding for research and development, the new F1 front wing costs about $100,000.

Because it anticipated that the majority of teams would introduce new front wings in Spain anyway as part of their regular development plans, the FIA delayed the implementation until this race, the ninth of the season.

Red Bull’s pressure on the FIA over McLaren’s use of flexi-wings, which were being exploited by all the top teams and the majority of the others, is widely believed to have led to the move in F1.

Red Bull have been contacting the FIA in recent months regarding a number of legal-related aspects of the McLaren car, but nothing has been discovered regarding the design or the procedure.

The impact, according to McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, was “relatively negligible” because, according to Stella, “we always assumed that because of the small numbers that were associated with this change of aero-elastic effect, both in terms of downforce and downforce variation with speed, they would have been fairly minor.”

If we hadn’t told Lando that this wing was a different wing when we tested it in Imola [two races ago], he wouldn’t have noticed it, and when we simulated it, it was almost zero.

We therefore did not anticipate a change in the pecking order in light of the technical directive that was made available for this race.

Because the technical directive has been around for a long time, and we could find effectiveness in terms of how you planned to introduce this modification, we did not have time to consider whether or not to waste the money.

Teams use flexible front wings because they increase cornering and improve cornering without sacrificing straight-line speed. They also increase cornering and improve cornering.

The front wing flaps should bend downwards as the load is reduced, reducing drag, before rising back up to increase corner downforce.

Teams have also discovered that flexi-wings improve their balance at various cornering speeds under the most recent generation of cars.

Low-speed understeer and oversteer (no enough front grip) are common in high-speed corners, which also generate the majority of their downforce from shared underbodies known as venturis.

Hamilton, who starts fifth in Barcelona, stated that his goal was to “try and get to the podium.” I haven’t appeared on a podium in a while.

His most recent podium appearance was in Las Vegas in November, when he was a Mercedes driver.

He made reference to George Russell’s former teammate’s reigning fourth-place finish in Spain last year.

“Long way to turn one,” “” George started with “Hamilton said” last year, which we witnessed. I’ll make every effort possible to get things off to a good start. Then it’s just about managing the tyres here, which is challenging, and then, after that, it’s all about managing the tires.

Piastri warned against “trying to get a good start” because he was worried about the “long run to turn one.”

He continued, “It will still be a fascinating race, and it’s not as straightforward as taking the lead at the beginning and moving on from there.” Managing the tyres and getting your stops right will be difficult. There will be a lot going on.

Verstappen once said, “Yes, turn one is when it’s time to shine.” Make the pictures three [cars] wide. Not, why?

It’s not bad that my long run on Friday practice was bad, but if you consider the difference today, it’ll be difficult to put up a really, really good fight. That doesn’t, however, mean we won’t try.