AutoRacer revealed last Friday that the FIA will tighten the rules on front wing flexing from the Spanish GP onwards. Specifically, the FIA will reduce the tolerance for front wing flexibility by around 33%.
Engineers’ concerns ahead of new TD18 entry
The FIA has essentially confirmed that the famous Technical Directive No. 18 will be adjusted. This is not a safety-related change, but has instead been described as a move to level out performance.
However, returning to old flex gauges could cause some surprises. Some engineers have revealed to AutoRacer they are worried about the possible return of porpoising.
This could create huge risk in developing major interventions on the new floors. Teams might have to take counter-measures to increase floor clearance – which could slow down the cars.
As is already known, porpoising is not predictable in the wind tunnel or simulator tools. Fundamentally, this is because there is easy way of simulating this behavior above 200 km/h.
On-track data is the main resource to combat this problem. Over the last few years, greater front wing flexibility has been shown to improve performance in slow and fast corners – greatly reducing the risk of harmful bouncing in high-speed corners.
What is worrying F1’s technicians, especially of smaller teams, is having search for more downforce to keep up with rivals. Concerns about how to limit porpoising whilst pushing on with continuous development have resurfaced.
The greater overall stiffness on the front axle, without having a coherent correlation available, could lead to a significant step backwards in terms of performance.
Considering the incoming FIA directive, teams might be forced into changes that harm performance.
A Technical Directive born to bring performance closer: Here’s why the opposite could happen
Top teams can contain the disruption of this new technical directive relatively quickly. They will be able to develop in other areas to compensate for their losses. Meanwhile, those with inferior tools could suffer if they do not have adequate front wings.
This is a notable risk that increases the gaps between teams – especially in the second half of the season.
Some engineers believe that having stiffer front wings will limit the top teams and bring them together (as the FIA wants).
However, this equalization might only be temporary. Meanwhile, this TD takes away significant resources from the smaller teams on their 2026 car – since they will have to re-allocate time and money to working around the new FIA Directive.
The real question is: why was the push-ups theme not defined in October, after having stopped the embarrassing mini-drs saga?
This was surely the better solution – instead of confirming the front wings were legal before making a u-turn at the beginning of 2025.
It is also said that in the corridors of the FIA, certain ‘elements of pressure’ emerged during the winter to cut the margin of operation of the push-ups.
