Honey, I shrunk the wing!

Formula One teams have decided that if you cannot emblazon the name of a massive tobacco company on the back of your rear wing then there is no justification for it being quite so big. Actually, that is not quite true. The real reason for the drastic change, being sported by a Williams at testing in Jerez above, is to do with new regulations being brought in by the FIA for the 2009 season.

The reduction in wing size is one of a host of initiatives aimed at making overtaking easier for F1 drivers. The theory is that the smaller rear wing would allow drivers to get closer to the car in front without disadvantaging themselves. Nobody likes change and the new look has been criticised by F1 fans.

The small wings have found one fan in the shape of Honda team boss Ross Brawn. “They don’t look bad to me, you get used to them,” Brawn told Autosport. “It is like when we had narrow tyres and grooved tyres, they looked weird when they started but then you adjust. So it is a bit difficult for me to comment completely.

“I think they look okay - and they look in many ways nicer because the bodywork doesn’t have all this furniture, the vortex generators, fins and wings. The bodywork is relatively clean. It is a much bigger front wing and smaller higher rear wing, but we have had things like that in the past.”

What do you think of the smaller, higher rear wing?