Hamilton says new front wing rule 'waste of money'

Lewis Hamilton says the introduction of a new rule clamping down on front wing flexibility at the Spanish Grand Prix was "a waste of money".

Governing body the FIA imposed a stiffer load test on front wings to try to limit the amount teams could exploit their movement on track for aerodynamic advantage.

But Hamilton said: "Just wasted everyone's money. It's literally changed nothing.

"Everyone's wings still bend, it's just half the bending, and everyone's had to make new wings and spend more money to make these. It just doesn't make sense."

The Ferrari driver added that he "wasn't expecting" anything of the change before coming to Spain.

"I drove it on the simulator, and it's pretty much exactly the same, Hamilton said. "A little bit more oversteer in the high speed. Could have given it all to charity, you know?"

A new front wing in F1 costs about £100,000, in addition to research and development resources.

The FIA delayed the introduction of the rule until this race, the ninth of the season, because it expected that the vast majority of teams would be introducing new front wings in Spain anyway as part of their normal development programmes.

A spokesperson for the FIA declined to comment specifically on Hamilton's remarks.

The move is widely perceived within F1 to have come after pressure from Red Bull on the FIA over McLaren's use of flexi-wings, which were being exploited by all the top teams and most of the others.

Red Bull have been raising questions with the FIA in recent months about a number of aspects of the McLaren car on the grounds of legality but no issue has been found with its design and no action has been taken.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: "We always thought that the impact would have been relatively negligible because when we saw the numbers associated to this change of aero-elastic effect, they were small numbers in terms of downforce and in terms of variation of downforce with speed.

"When we tested this wing in Imola [two races ago], if we hadn't told Lando that it was a different wing, he wouldn't have spotted it, and when we simulated it, it was almost zero.

"So we were not expecting a change of the pecking order as a function of the technical directive that was released for this race.

"In terms of wasting the money or not, this is not a point of view that we actually reflected on, because the technical directive has been there for a long time, so this was long-planned and we could find efficiency as well in terms of how you planned to introduce this modification."

Stella added that the "economics" behind the rule changes "must have been slightly inefficient", but he said: "I don't think this is a major factor."

Flexible front wings are employed by teams because they allow them to gain straight-line speed for the same cornering performance, or improve cornering while not sacrificing speed on the straights.

The idea is for the flaps of the front wing to bend downwards under load at speed, reducing drag, before moving back up to increase downforce for corners.

Under the current generation of cars, teams have also found that flexi-wings improve their balance across a range of cornering speeds.

The cars, which produce most of their downforce from shared underbodies known as venturis, are prone to oversteer (too little rear grip compared to front) in high-speed corners, and low-speed understeer (not enough front grip).

The flexi wings allow teams to improve the low-speed performance while not making the cars too nervous in high speed.

Hamilton, who starts fifth in Barcelona, said his target was to "try and get to the podium. I haven't been on a podium for a long time".

His last podium was in Las Vegas last November, when he was driving for Mercedes.

He referred to former team-mate George Russell taking the lead from fourth on the grid in Spain last year.

"Long way down to turn one. We saw the start George got last year," Hamilton said. "So, I will be trying my best to try and get a good start. And then otherwise, after that, it's just about managing the tyres here, which is challenging."

Piastri said he was wary about "the long run to turn one, so I've got to make sure we try and get a good start".

He added: "It will be an interesting race still and it's not as simple as take the lead at the start and cruise from there. It's going to be a challenge to manage the tyres, timing your stops right. There's going to be a lot going on."

Verstappen said: "It's time to shine in turn one, yeah. Make it three [cars] wide for the pictures. Why not?

"My long run [in Friday practice] wasn't bad, but if you look at the difference today, it will be tough to put up a really, really good fight. But that doesn't mean that we're not going try.

"Like Oscar said, it's not all about the start and turn one. You need to be good on tyres. It's a long race. A lot can happen. So, I'll just try to maximise what I got."