diffuser wrote: ↑09 Aug 2023, 23:19
issey wrote: ↑09 Aug 2023, 18:51
That makes a lot of sense to me
Typically, when teams do something that is in the "grey area" of the rules, they ask the FIA in advance. I wonder if this is one of those times where the FIA initially gave a thumbs up that later got challenges from other teams and reversed their decision?
The same Aston Martin news twitter account explained it:


| Was the Aston Martin front wing illegal or why did Aston Martin allegedly have to change it?

Already at the beginning of the season, the FIA began to closely observe the evolutions of the teams, especially in the front wings and their different specific compositions.

The front wings had no problem in passing all the technical controls in static, something that changed completely in full action on the track.

The FIA began to receive images of some of those elements that were flexible, especially the flaps, and that were able to change up to their angle of incidence depending on the speed they carried and of course the established downforce.

It is even said that the teams received an official notification signed by Nikolas Tombazis himself (A FIA single-seater director) in which they were asked to remove those flexible flaps and quickly correct the solution they had found. Among the teams that received the letter was Aston Martin.

The FIA could not declare those flexible AMR23 and other single-seaters "illegal", since they all perfectly complied with the rules established in the technical checks prior to each Grand Prix.

But they found a point at which to set their request for change. Article 3.2.2 of the technical regulations of the F1 World Championship:
"All aerodynamic or body components that affect the aerodynamic performance of the car must be fixed and immobile with respect to their reference defined in article 3.3. In addition, these components must have a uniform, solid, hard, continuous and impermeable surface in all circumstances.“

Regulation in hand, the FIA began to act, and that directly affected Aston Martin. With this, the advantage generated perhaps in all the hours worked in the wind tunnel was lost throughout the first months of the season. A time when the Silverstone team had more hours than its rivals because of the seventh final position in the 2022 constructors' world championship.