Revealed: The number of F1 teams forced to make changes after FIA clampdown

The FIA has confirmed that roughly half of the current F1 teams had to alter their rear wings ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.

Stricter rear wing tests were imposed on the teams over the winter break as the FIA looked to clampdown on how much they could flex at high speed.

However, following scrutiny at the season-opening round in Australia, the FIA intervened again for China. It resulted in the allowable movement in the slot gap in the rear wing decreasing further.

There was a slight discrepancy permitted for the Shanghai event. For the third round of the year in Japan, however, the maximum movement allowance will be a strict 0.5mm.

Tombazis detailed that multiple teams were forced to adjust their wings before the event in China.

“Some teams were already okay with the new compliance tests in Australia,” he told media including RacingNews365.

“I think four or five were not and had to take some action and we tested them all.” It is known that Alpine and Haas were two of those teams.

While the situation has been a prominent talking point in the early stage of the season, Tombazis is encouraged the matter has been tackled.

“Confident is quite a big word - but I’m hopeful that it will be enough for this time,” he said.

FIA understands teams playing F1 'game'

Tombazis asserted the FIA understands why the teams are pushing the rules to extract performance, with the current field spread immensely tight.

“Teams are always playing the game. I don't think they are there for charitable reasons,” he said. “They will always try to get the maximum advantage.

“We take the view that a car that complies with FIA tests is fundamentally legal, unless there are some hidden mechanisms or things that are relying on non-linear characteristics, temperature, what have you, in which case we would intervene.”

Tombazis added the governing body would prefer to give the teams a chance to rectify a flagged concern rather than go straight to the stewards.

“We also have the right to go to the team sometimes and say ‘Look, you're going a bit too far here'. You need to really do something if you're using, let's say, a rubbery compound to create certain flexibility.

“We sometimes intervene specifically, but fundamentally we would never report a team to the stewards that had passed the tests.

“Fortunately, for this topic, and for those reasons exactly, the rules give us a right to intervene with more stiffness tests.”