The FIA's recent crackdown on rear wing flexing has revealed that McLaren is not the only team to have faced scrutiny and modifications to its aerodynamic components.
The issue came to light after last month's Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when footage showed the upper flap on the rear wing of Oscar Piastri's McLaren rotate backward at high speeds, apparently altering the slot gap in a bid to reduce drag and boost top speed—a function similar to DRS but without activation from the driver.
McLaren and the FIA reached an agreement to revise the low-drag specification rear wing, aiming to reduce its flexing and direction concerns expressed by other teams.
However, as it turns out, McLaren wasn't the only one affected by the FIA's tighter controls on rear wing flexing.
According to FIA Single-Seater Director Nikolas Tombazis, the governing body had to issue further guidance to multiple teams following the Singapore Grand Prix.
“We issued after Singapore some communication about rear wings, saying what we would consider acceptable or not acceptable,” Tombazis told Motorsport.com.
“Two or three teams had to make some small tweaks to adjust to that.”
While the regulations allow for some natural flexing due to mounting and deformation under high speeds, the new tolerance limits enforced by the FIA specify that slot gaps should not flex open by more than 2mm.
To monitor compliance more closely, the FIA introduced additional reference dots and utilized more advanced camera technology at last weekend's United States Grand Prix in Austin.
“There's some natural opening, because of the way the wings are mounted and deformed and so on, but some teams were deforming more,” Tombazis explained.
“We just want to make sure that there isn't any sort of continuing trend in a certain direction, but it's not because we have any immediate plans to introduce a new test or anything.”
McLaren, which had proactively adjusted its rear wings earlier in the season after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, complied with the FIA's directives without facing any formal sanctions.
The team took the opportunity to modify its entire range of rear wings ahead of last weekend's event to ensure ongoing compliance.
“As previously mentioned, McLaren proactively offered to make some minor adjustments to our rear wing following the Azerbaijan GP,” commented a McLaren spokesperson, quoted by Motorsport.
“We have made minor adjustments to all our rear wings since Baku to varying extents to ensure no further issues in this area.
“We said, 'Look, we consider that as something you need to change.' If they had ignored us, and they generally don't, then we would have reported them.”
McLaren CEO Zak Brown addressed the issue during the United States GP press conference, emphasizing that McLaren's rear wings had successfully passed every FIA test.
“We've made some small modifications, as have some others,” Brown said. “So that's a non-issue.”
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