McLaren unhappy about BMW's rear wing

Photos of the F1.06 car suggested that the main element of the rear wing was flattening out at speed - which would reduce drag at high speed while maintaining the downforce through the low speed corners.

That evidence was enough to leave Honda Racing on the verge of a protest against BMW-Sauber after the Canadian Grand Prix, although in the end they decided against it because there was no test the FIA could do in the pits to prove the wing was flexing.

But McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh believes that the photos should act as a spur for the FIA to look into the matter further - even though he says his team are not specifically concerned about the BMW-Sauber situation at the moment.

It comes on the same weekend the FIA forced teams to run with slot-gap separators to try and bring an end to a season-long flexi-wing row.

"I have been shown the photographs and they look fairly compelling evidence that there is something not quite right there," explained Whitmarsh.

"I was surprised and disappointed at the beginning of the year with the interpretation of the rules with regards to the rear wing and we made representation at the time to the FIA.

"The FIA then took a position at the beginning of the year that seemed to be lenient with regard to elasticity of the rear wings, which was disappointing but accepted.

"Then, after a lot of people had spent a lot of time and effort on it, in the last 10 days there was a rule clarification issued by the FIA. It was quite clear that across the span you needed a bracket that did not allow the gap between those elements to vary and that is very straightforward and clear to me.

"Therefore if there is fairly clear and unchallenged evidence that the gap between the two elements does vary, then I would have thought that would have been a concern to the FIA.

"But in truth I have not been monitoring it this weekend particularly because those cars were behind. If they were in front then we would have been more concerned. That is how motor racing is, I am afraid."