Mercedes boss Ross Brawn, one of the figures to have requested clarification over the design of the Red Bull and Ferrari front wings, has said that he hopes the new tests on the wings and floor of the cars will end the flexible parts row.
Mercedes and McLaren have asked for clarification from the FIA as to whether the designs of the new wings were legal, after the devices were seen flexing at speed on video footage and in photographs taken during recent races.
The FIA have responded by increasing the loads of the front wing deflection tests for the Belgian weekend, and from Italy the governing body will also check the floor of the cars for signs of flexing.
The Red Bull car passed the new test on Friday evening in Belgium, and although Red Bull bosses have denied having to make any changes to their design, Brawn suggested that there was now less flexing in the footage of the wings.
"All of us can see that what was visible in the last couple of races didn't seem to be the case here," Brawn was quoted as saying by Autosport.
"I don't know what has happened but it looks visually to me to be different. I think everyone can see that."
He added that he hoped that the new tests would draw a line under the ongoing row, admitting that the whole issue had been a "distraction" for him.
"It has been a bit of a distraction and probably in some ways a bit unfair on the teams who have been doing very well this year because it reflects on them a little bit," Brawn mused.
"I hope there is a line drawn under it and we don't talk about it any more, because it has been a distraction."
He added: "But that is the nature of F1, it happens all the time and you can recall the debates we had last year about the double diffuser.
"We were on the receiving end of that for a large part of last year. It is the nature of our business to push the boundaries of what can be done."
Brawn's opinion that the matter was getting cleared up was echoed by McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh, who had been the most vocal critic of the new wings. He suggested as well that changes appeared to have been made to the designs.
"I wasn't that confident that it would be nailed, but we can all see the wings are in a different stiffness and positional domain than they had been in previous races – for whatever reason," he shrugged smugly.
"The [FIA] requirements for Monza really will end what has been a misnomer: the bodywork is intended to be attached rigidly with no degrees of freedom and when you look at bib stays that hinge, buckle, slide and have dampers, it seems a bit bizarre to me. So I think it should end that particular trend and that is the mission really. That will be good."
He cautioned that: "I think it is a matter of constant vigilance. You have got a situation now where we all know that a millimetre of ride height is a point of downforce in simple terms, so the temptation for people to take liberties there will always remain.
"I think that the FIA has got to absolutely remain vigilant and quickly act when it sees something untoward, because I think there is sometimes a frustration that these things, they go one, two or three races, and that has a material impact on the championship.
"So they have to continue to be vigilant."
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