McLaren’s low drag wing was seen to move on the straights in Baku

McLaren has agreed with the FIA to change the controversial flexing rear wing of the MCL38 – and has urged the governing body to talk to other teams about what they are doing.

McLaren has been talking to the FIA about the wing for a while, but those conversations ramped off after videos from Baku showing the movement of the wing appeared on social media.

The wing concerned is the low drag version used at Spa, Monza and Baku, and does not affect this weekend’s Singapore GP. It won’t be used again until Las Vegas.

In response to the changes McLaren said: “Whilst our Baku rear wing complies with the regulations and passes all FIA deflection tests, McLaren have proactively offered to make some minor adjustments to the wing following our conversations with the FIA.

“We would also expect the FIA to have similar conversations with other teams in relation to the compliance of their rear wings.”

Speaking earlier and before the need for a change became public McLaren chief designer Rob Marshall insisted that there was no issue with the wing.

“It’s very flattering,” he said of complaints from rival teams. “Obviously, the nearer the front you are, the more scrutiny you come under. But I mean, all teams scrutinise their own cars as well as other people’s.

“We scrutinise our car. We work with the FIA to understand the grey areas of whatever element of the car it is, and move forward accordingly really.

“I guess they’ve all got their opinions. We work with FIA to establish the legality of our cars. As long as the FIA happy, that’s the only opinion we need to worry about.

Asked if McLaren had simply exploited the rules better than others he said: “”I wouldn’t say they’re exploiting it less than McLaren. I wouldn’t say McLaren is exploiting it.

“I would say that everyone’s approaching their wing design the way they think. Obviously, everyone for whatever reason is talking about ours at the moment. But everyone can see everyone else’s, and I don’t think we’re the only people under scrutiny.”

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur made it clear that he wasn’t happy with the McLaren wing.

“I think there is a kind of confusion between what’s happened with the front wing and the rear wing,” he said. “The front wing, we all agree that it could be a grey area because in the TD the first paragraph of the TD is saying that you can’t design part of the car with the intention of deformation. Intention is difficult to manage.

“The rear wing story, it’s completely different, because in the article, you have also a maximum deflection. And this is black or white. It’s not no grey, no dark grey, no light grey. It’s black and black. But for me, it’s clear.”

Vasseur admitted that Ferrari has been looking at video evidence.

“So far, we had a look on the previous events, and it was only on the lowdown force tracks,” he said. “I’m not sure that they could, or they want to use the same trick in Singapore, or in Zandvoort, for example.

“But again, we have to give the responsibility to the scrutineering, to the FIA, it’s not my job to do it. I’m not complaining about this. I think it’s more than borderline.

“We all saw the video and the picture of this, and it’s a bit frustrating when, if you remember perfectly the situation in Monza, we had five cars in two-hundredths of a second, and you move from P1/P2 to P5/P6 for two-hundredths of a second in Baku, and we arrived 10 laps in a row, side-by-side in Turn 1. You can imagine that we have a bit of frustration.”