Willis: rear wing rules not tight enough

The matter of flexing rear wings has been on the agenda for the past week, after claims at Bahrain that Ferrari's rear wing could be flexing at high speed even though it was found to be fully legal when stationary in the garage.

Following the close examination of the Ferrari rear wing in Bahrain, FIA technical delegate Charlie Whiting conducted further examination of the Renault and Honda Racing wings in Sepang on Friday.

Willis claims, however, that the existing tests may not be sufficient to prevent such flexing from happening.

"The issue about the flexibility of rear wings is a difficult one, because clearly all engineering structures do deflect," the Honda technical director said.

"The question is whether you are allowed to make performance benefit from that, and the FIA has clarified on several occasions that you are not.

"The difficulty is what sort of a test you can come up with that is safe to perform in parc ferme conditions. The rear wings do have very significant loads on them, which you probably wouldn't want to place on the car in parc ferme - in case they fell off and hurt somebody."   

The focus on rear wings is believed to revolve around the possibility that careful designs could allow the gap between the two top elements of the wing to close-up at high speed - therefore greatly reducing drag. 

Willis believes that new regulations may be needed to ensure teams do not get around the regulations in this manner.