Max Verstappen angrily SPOKE OUT McLaren’s ‘very clever’ regulation exploit that made Red Bull unhappy shown off at Singapore

The spotlight was on McLaren heading into the Singapore Grand Prix after the FIA outlawed their ‘Mini DRS’ seen on Oscar Piastri’s car during the race in Baku.

Footage from the onboard camera that showed the rear of Piastri’s McLaren exposed a trick with their DRS flap, whereby the slot gap was flexing and raised slightly when on a straight.

Red Bull and Ferrari protested the design and the FIA investigated the rear wing during practice for the Singapore GP, subsequently ruling that it had to be removed and reverted to an older specification.

FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis said the governing body stopped short of disqualifying McLaren because they felt it ‘didn’t seem appropriate’ given their rear wing passed all required tests.

While the attention was on the rear wing, journalist Alex Kalinauckas spotted something else on the MCL38 that could turn heads in the F1 paddock next when speaking on the Flat Chat with Codders podcast.

McLaren’s ‘very clever’ flexible front wing design
Flexible wings are banned in F1 but it is accepted that some do deform at high speed. The challenge for teams is to make them flex enough, but also pass the deflection tests set out by the FIA to be deemed safe enough to run without the risk of them breaking.

While the teams agree that the rear wing should not experience any deflections, there is a bit of ambiguity over the front wing and some teams can exploit it better than others.

McLaren has done so with the MCL38 and Kalinauckas explained why it is a key area of performance for F1 teams with the current ground effect cars.