P1racenews AI automatic summary:
Did the impact of F1’s flexi-wing changes justify the hype? Gary Anderson takes an early look after the first day of running
“It’s only the end of the first day of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, but it offers a glimpse of which Formula 1 teams may have benefitted, and which appear to have suffered most, from the flexi-wing technical directive. I have often said that sometimes you can out-trick yourself and when you are relying on front wing deflection between slow and high-speed corners to help balance the car it will be very difficult to get the optimum from it for all corner speeds. That means that for some less flexibility could even be a good thing. Here’s my impression of how every team has been impacted by the change:
1. McLaren: I see no big difference. It’s still the class of the field and it looks like it will be down to the drivers to not beat themselves by making mistakes.
2. Mercedes: This is definitely an improvement from Imola and Monaco, but they were bad weekends for the team. Today, it produced not-dissimilar Friday performance to the earlier races this season.
3. Red Bull: The problem is Max Verstappen could drive a shopping cart quickly, and Yuki Tsunoda was complaining, as usual. But both of those are fairly normal, meaning Red Bull is in much the same situation as it was.
4. Ferrari: As Nico Rosberg said on the Sky TV coverage, the Ferrari looks a handful for both drivers and Lewis Hamilton is still playing catch-up. The rear looks nervous in the fast corners and that points to a front wing that isn’t backing off as it did previously.
5. Williams: It looks to have suffered the most because normally Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz are right up there on Fridays but sometimes fall away a little come Saturday. It looks like more of a struggle here.
6. Haas: Haas didn’t have a great day, but like Williams it looks like the changes might be affecting it. Ollie Bearman’s spin in Turn 3 could just be because the front wing is stiffer and Haas hasn’t found the sweet spot yet.
7. Racing Bulls: To me, Racing Bulls looks like it’s where it normally is so no big deal adapting to these new regulations. Liam Lawson looks like he is back to where he was before his so-called ‘promotion’ to Red Bull, so that’s good for him and the team.”
