'Red Bull has discovered Mercedes' trick: flexible rear wing too'

Newey has seen it

The battle for the world title is heating up, and in the final stages of the season Mercedes and Red Bull Racing are doing everything they can to beat each other. If they can't do it on track, they'll attack each other off it. Red Bull has its eye on Mercedes' rear wing at the moment.

According to the German media Adrian Newey and chief engineer, Paul Monaghan, flew into the office of the technical boss at the FIA: Nikolas Tombazis, half an hour before the start of the race. With a book of details about probably the rear wing, the Red Bull top brass hopes to raise with the FIA what is going on with Mercedes.

Mercedes now has a flexible wing

Whereas until the French Grand Prix, Red Bull and others used a rear wing that moved backwards on the straight to reduce drag, Mercedes made sure the FIA introduced a new test to counter this. The six teams that did this created a stiffer rear wing, but now it appears that Mercedes itself has a flexible rear wing.

Mercedes would do the opposite of the earlier flexible wings. Where those tilted backwards at the top, with Mercedes it is the bottom of the wing that tilts downwards, making the gap bigger and thus less drag. This is hardly noticeable because the bottom of the wing is covered from the side by the wing itself.

'You have to know exactly where to look to really see something', a Mercedes employee is reported to have said behind the scenes. Verstappen was well aware of this theory, because he touched the underside of the Mercedes rear wing instead of the top. This investigation is separate from the DRS violation Mercedes committed early in Brazil. This would have been the result of two loose screws, causing the wing to open too much on one side.