From the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix, tougher load tests on front wings will be imposed by Formula 1’s governing body, the FIA. But why are the changes being made? Why are they being introduced now? And how will the tests be conducted? F1.com has the lowdown…
In short, the FIA is introducing a further tightening of the load tests applied to F1 cars’ front wings, attempting to address concerns around flexibility and performance that teams might gain through the use of wings that flex under load.
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Concerns were raised throughout the 2024 season that teams had been pursuing designs to potentially reduce drag at high speed or change the aerodynamic balance of the car from low-speed to high-speed situations.
Thus, ahead of the 2025 campaign, the FIA announced that they would bring in “either new or more challenging load-deflection tests for the front wing (at the ninth round), the upper rear wing, and the beam rear wing”.
Front wings will be an area of interest over the Spanish Grand Prix weekend
“When championship battles become intense, teams tend to focus on each other’s cars a lot, and naturally they raise concerns and over the latter half of the season we came to the conclusion that we needed to toughen a bit more the tests for 2025,” explains FIA Single Seater Nikolas Tombazis.
But why wasn’t this Technical Directive implemented at the start of the season?
Tombazis adds: “Over a sequence of races at and following the [2024] Belgian Grand Prix, we installed cameras on the front wings of all cars and again we concluded that the tests would need to be toughened.
“That conclusion was arrived at quite late in the year, however, and we felt that if we had introduced extra tests at the start of this season, it would have been tough on teams and may have led to existing front wings being scrapped, and extra expense.
“Therefore, we felt that deferred introduction was more sensible.”
A look at how front wing load tests are carried out by the FIA
It has. As touched on above, Article 3.15.17 of the 2025 Technical Regulations originally specified that under 75kg of vertical load on either extremity of the rear wing mainplane, the distance between the mainplane and the flap or ‘slot gap’ should not vary by more than 2mm.
To monitor the effectiveness of this test, cameras were mounted on cars during Free Practice sessions at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and, having analysed that footage, the FIA concluded that even tougher tests were needed.
Therefore, from the Chinese Grand Prix, the rear wing mainplane tolerance was reduced to 0.75mm. At the following race in Japan, this was reduced again to 0.5mm.
“The 2025 regulations were designed to counteract the so-called ‘mini-DRS effect’ that became quite a talking point in the autumn of last year,” says Tombazis. “That test was applied from the start of the season, but it soon became apparent it was insufficient.”
The FIA introduced tougher rear wing load tests earlier in the 2025 season
Revisions to Article 3.15.4 and 3.15.5 of the 2025 Technical Regulations, which govern ‘Front Wing Bodywork Flexibility’ and ‘Front Wing Flap Flexibility’ respectively, define the parameters of the tighter tests.
Article 3.15.4 originally stated that when 100kg of load is applied symmetrically to both sides of the car, the vertical deflection must be no more than 15mm, and when the load is applied to only one side of the car, the vertical deflection must be no more than 20mm.
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From the Spanish Grand Prix onwards, when the load is applied symmetrically to both sides of the car, the vertical deflection must be no more than 10mm, and when applied to only one side of the car, the vertical deflection must be no more than 15mm.
In terms of ‘Front Wing Flap Flexibility’, the regulations originally stated that “any part of the trailing edge of any front wing flap may deflect no more than 5mm, when measured along the loading axis, when a 6kg point load is applied normal to the flap”, but from this weekend the amount of permitted deflection drops to 3mm.
A look at what goes into the FIA’s rear wing load tests
The FIA will carry out component testing “on a regular basis” to ensure that there are no breaches of the Technical Regulations, as Tombazis outlines.
“We check the teams at various points across the season and we ask them to bring certain components along and we’ll check them in isolation and sometimes test them on the whole car,” he says.
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“We frequently test in parc ferme conditions – either on Saturday after Qualifying or Sunday morning, as obviously in parc ferme teams cannot make changes to their car. That ensures that they’re not fitting a stiff wing for the test and running something else in the race.
“We also occasionally conduct checks after a race if we feel there is a reason to do so. Those tests would be static load tests, as defined in Article 3.15 of the Technical Regulations.”
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