Speaking in a post-season interview with Autosport, Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s head of Single-seater Technical Matters, said:
At the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix, the FIA launched an investigation into the behavior of rear wings on all teams, following accusations from Red Bull against rivals Mercedes. The Milton Keynes-based outfit had claimed that Mercedes were using a flexi wing that could bend beyond the limits allowed by the regulations, allowing the team to gain a straight-line advantage.
Following extensive tests, however, the FIA found no illegal parts on any cars on the grid. Nevertheless, there were concerns that the tests employed by the FIA might not be up to the task. According to Tombazis, one of the main issues with the existing tests was that they failed to expose any aero-elasticity features employed by the teams in their wings, that could allow them to potentially gain a straight-line advantage.
F1 undertook “rule-busting phase” preventing teams finding loopholes in 2022 regulations
F1 reportedly spent a chunk of time anticipating any loopholes that teams might find in the 2022 regulations. F1’s managing director of motorsports, Ross Brawn, has revealed that his team went through a “rule-busting" phase after the initial draft of the regulations to ensure the final draft is as air-tight as possible.
Speaking in a post-season interview with the New York Times, Brawn said:
Brawn said one of the key goals for the team when developing the new regulations was to ensure that no single team can arrive at the start of the 2022 F1 season with a huge performance advantage and then proceed to dominate the field.
Ironically, Brawn himself led his own team — Brawn GP — to championship victory in 2009, after arriving at the start of the season with a huge performance advantage over the rest of the grid.
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