Free up wing rules, says Brawn

That is the view of Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn, who believes that the lessons of traction control and brake duct regulations in the sport prove that the only way to end innuendo is to free up regulations rather than try and tighten them up.

He believes that even if wing supports were made mandatory, as is believed to be favoured by the FIA, to prove teams were not running flexible wings then suspicion would just shift to another area.

"This round of disagreement is about the slot gaps of the wings, so maybe we need to have some physical devices that control the slot gaps," he said. "But there will then be something else.

"Maybe the wing endplates will be moving in or something, or there will be a materials dispute, and that will just be the next dispute that comes along. So I can't see how we can resolve the current issue to most people's satisfaction. It will just go on and on."

Brawn believes that examples of brake ducts and traction control, where the only way to end suspicions about the action of teams was to completely free up the rules, should be heeded for wing flexibility.

"We had years of dispute over traction control and now nobody talks about it," he said. "You may question whether it's good for F1 to have traction control, but you have to admit we got rid of all the innuendo.

"Everyone who went quickly was said to have had a secret traction control system and that was no good for F1. There is a strong argument for throwing it open. The cars would go a bit quicker but I don't really see the problem."

He added: "We had the issue with the brake ducts for a long time because people were doing things with them...in the end we agreed that here was a box and you had to put your brake duct in it and then you could do what you like.

"With the wings we are getting to the same stage. We should just say these are the limits, do as you please. Problems will re-occur because the rules are very difficult to define."

Brawn has also publicly confirmed for the first time that Ferrari were asked to modify their wings by the FIA in Malaysia following the threat of a protest from rival teams.

"They made some requests and we complied with them, really to avoid the necessity of introducing another series of tests," he said. "There have been so many tests already.

"We always try to cooperate. What we have done is an interim solution until they can introduce a regulation that controls the slot gap. When they do that, then people can do what they want to comply with that regulation.

"We've got, I think, three load tests on the rear wing already. It just goes on and on and on. We need a regulation to work to, because the people at the factory are aggrieved.

"They stuck a pin in space and thought they were correct, but somebody else stuck it somewhere else and they don't like that. You can't blame anyone because there's no absolute definition of what should or shouldn't be done."