21/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Alpine boss, Otmar Szafnauer insists that the wobbly rear wing on Esteban Ocon's car presented no threat and was not in danger of falling off.
Several times over the years we have witnessed the danger should a rear wing fail, leaving the car suddenly uncontrollable as the sudden loss of rear downforce sends it into a violent spin.
During Sunday's Grand Prix, Lando Norris reported that the rear wing on Esteban Ocon's car was wobbling and in danger of falling off, urging his team to report the issue to the stewards.
While the matter was reported to the stewards no further action was taken and Ocon finished 8th, ahead of Norris who was subsequently demoted to 13th for "unsportsmanlike behaviour".
While TV coverage did appear to show the wing wobbling, Szafnauer is adamant that there was no danger of it becoming detached.
"It didn't fail, it stayed on," he said. "We designed that wing, and we manufactured it, so that failure mode was probably most familiar to us. We were happy that it wasn't going to come off.
"We test for that in R&D, we put it through those tests," he continued. "So we're happy that with all the testing that we do, it wasn't going to fail.
"We talked about it, and the FIA came to us as well," he confirmed, "and said it looks like your rear wing's moving, and we looked at it and talked about it. We were confident that with a couple of laps left that it was going to be fine."
Though able to fend off Norris, Stroll, Bottas and Piastri, Ocon was unable to do anything about Alex Albon, who was on older hard tyres, whilst his Alpine was on fresher hards.
"Williams did one less stop than we did," he said. "It was difficult to predict if the tyre was going to make it to the end.
"Williams had nothing to lose," he admitted. "Had they stopped, they wouldn't have been in the points. We did stop.
"In the end, we're probably, I don't know, six-to-seven-tenths of a lap quicker than him, with that seven-tenths and DRS and their strategy of low drag, we couldn't overtake them.
"Looking back at it now and just seeing what they did, we would have done the same and made it, and would have been a couple of places ahead."