Williams to explore flexi-wings options

After Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg failed to score a point in the Spanish Grand Prix, team boss Frank Williams has hinted that the team now need to look into the advantages that could come from running more flexible wings.

Recent clarifications from the FIA about the amount of flexibility that they believe is allowed in Formula One means some teams, like Williams, can push themselves in this area more than they previously thought they could.

"We are disappointed with our performance," said Williams. "It is clear that our car isn't fast enough, and it's possible that some of our lack of performance is because to date we have not done something other teams are doing - thinking it would be stopped.

"We thought that something appearing on one team's car after another, that the FIA might not be too happy about it, but clearly they are quite relaxed. Draw your own conclusions, I'm going to make no further comment about it."

Technical director Sam Michael added: "We know where we are fast and slow. We've got some work to do on reducing drag so we can be more competitive on the straights.

"The chassis itself is really good, and at the moment we need to work on top end efficiency and drag and make sure we can shed some because on some of these tracks we've seen that we don't have the same top speed as Ferrari. We are 10-12 km/h down and that's hurting us.

"If you look at the Q2 sector times on low fuel, Mark was six tenths down on Michael [Schumacher] in the first sector, only a tenth down in the second and he was slightly quicker in sector three.

"Most of the straights are in sector one. There's a few in sector two but a lot of corners, and the last one is all corners, so the main thing we need to do is reduce drag."

The team's concerns about their straight-line speed was borne out in yesterday's race at Barcelona. While Ferrari's Felipe Massa topped the speed trap at 317.1 km/h, Rosberg was eighth fastest on 307.4km/h, while Webber was down in 17th on 304.5km/h.

Michael made it clear that any work the team would do on reducing drag to, improve straight-line speed, would be done completely within the regulations - and that the team would not simply adopt a flexi-wing that contravened the rules.

"We are looking at ways to improve efficiency and reduce drag," he said. "All I know is that movable aerodynamic devices are banned, and I'm sure that no one's doing that.

"But everyone is trying to reduce drag, that makes the car go faster. That's always everyone's target, and people are doing it in different ways."