Strict new F1 rule forecast to impact McLaren

Former F1 driver Johnny Herbert has predicted McLaren will lose its advantage over the F1 field through the stricter rear wing tests in place from this weekend.

The Woking-based squad enjoyed a strong season-opening round from Australia, locking out the front row of the grid in qualifying with a notable advantage over the rest of the competition.

It displayed strong pace throughout the grand prix with a 1-2 finish undone by difficult weather conditions that caused Oscar Piastri to slip off the road before Lando Norris managed to hold off Max Verstappen for the victory.

As the paddock descends on China for round two of the campaign, teams will be subject to stricter tests over rear wing flexing following FIA scrutiny in Melbourne.

The tolerance of 2mm on rear wing movement tests enforced at the start of the year has been reduced to 0.5mm, with a slight discrepancy in place for Shanghai due to how quickly the changes have been enforced.

Herbert believes that McLaren's pace will take a knock as a result of the new rules as the team has been at the forefront of the controversy after onboard images of its rear wing flexing in Azerbaijan last year came to light.

“McLaren had a lot of issues with the rear wing falling backwards,” Herbert told CasinoAppsThatPayRealMoney.com.

“It's a very thin edge at the back of the back of the wing, which is called the trailing edge and it's that that is obviously flexing around. What that does is the DRS flap goes from three millimetres and then it opens up to about 50 millimetres or whatever. There's a big gain.

“There's a gain with this, but it's probably much, much smaller, but it's still a gain and it's a flex that I would presume everybody's starting to work on, which goes back to what happened in Azerbaijan with McLaren last year.”

Effort to stop advantage a 'typical situation' for F1

With the current cycle of technical regulations in their final year, Herbert detailed any sort of advantage over rival cars could go a long way.

“It could be giving a kilometre gain, for example, and a kilometre is a kilometre, and if it's in a racing situation it's harder to pass something that's going one kilometre faster than you are because it's more efficient, it's less drag that it's creating.

“So it will go faster in a straight line than someone else would be able to potentially achieve, better than others.

“There’s always going to be a team that all the other teams are going to be looking at, they’re always looking at each other and saying, 'well, they've got an advantage'.”

A recent report suggested that it was Red Bull who sought clarification from the FIA over the rear wings during pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Despite his theory surrounding McLaren, Norris has refuted the claim that the rule change will impact the squad and asserted it did not have to make any alterations to its rear wing after Australia.

Herbert labelled the circumstance a “typical situation” of one team attempting to curtail an advantage of a rival and has no concerns over the clampdown from the FIA.

“Does it make any difference to the show? Potentially it can. because one team may be able to benefit more than another so the other teams will also try and close that loophole to stop that team from gaining an advantage with the car that is the one that is everyone is racing against.

“This time around it’s the McLaren, so it’s a typical situation. Other teams are trying to stop someone having an advantage over them, full stop. Is it the right thing? I don't have a problem with it being tightened up.

“Are McLaren doing things that the other teams haven't done at the moment or are they pushing the limits? No, this is just part of what F1 is always about and they've done the better job.”