Webber voices concerns over rear wing

Red Bull driver Mark Webber has voiced his concerns over the current regulations regarding the new for 2011 driver enabled moveable rear wing.

The Australian is somewhat bemused about why there are different regulations for its use in practice and qualifying and the race itself.

In the race the regulations have been written so that the wing can only be used to aid overtaking, the wing can only be used in certain areas of the track and once a car is within one second of the car it is following, the idea behind this is so that while it is used as an overtaking aid, it doesn’t make overtaking too easy.

However in practice and qualifying the use of the wing is unregulated and Webber believes this could prove to be a safety concern.

'I don’t quite understand why we have to use the wing all through qualifying,'

'For qualifying, it is an added distraction and loading which we don’t really need. It is not helping the show – it is another session where you want to do the ultimate lap time but everyone has the same tools to get that lap time, so why overload the driver? There is no real gain for doing it.' Webber is quoted by Autosport Magazine following a Red Bull media event in Melbourne.

His real concerns over the use of the wing are on tracks such as Silverstone and Spa when drivers could be forced to push the car beyond the point of safety: 'If you look at Eau Rouge at Spa – that is why I am saying for qualifying – why not just have it at the same points we have it for the race? On the straight. Everyone does it, it is easy. If you take Eau Rouge, Copse, or Becketts – it is not improving the situation. For us, it is making it a little bit more sketchy.

'We know the teams are pushing us completely to the limit and it is not nice to open the door up for them. It was for racing, so I don’t see why we need to be trying to get through Eau Rouge with an open rear wing. We tried that with the F-duct, it was a little on the edge and Charlie [Whiting F1 race director] wasn’t too happy with that…'

It looks likely that we could see a tweak in regulations regarding the moveable rear wing as Webber is not the only driver to have voiced these concerns and driver safety should never be compromised.