Haas forced to remove flexing T-wing

Haas was told to remove its T-wing from the end of the shark fin on its car after it was moving around too much during first practice at the Australian Grand Prix.

Onboard camera footage showed the team's shark fin – an extension of the engine cover aimed at controlling airflow toward the rear wing – was clearly wobbling from side to side, which in turn caused a lot of movement in the small T-wing attached to the end of it. While the shark fin remained, the additional wing was not seen in FP2 at Melbourne and Haas team principal Guenther Steiner revealed the team was asked to remove it.

"Yes it's working," Steiner said. "On the data we can see the downforce is there. For the long term ... we run this wing in the whole Barcelona test and never had a problem with breaking or anything. You saw maybe in FP2 we had to take it off because of the moving, so we need to see what we do in FP3. It is working, so we want to get it back on. But we need to see if we're allowed to."

Romain Grosjean was eighth in both practice sessions on Friday but Steiner insists Haas could see the impact of having to take the wing off.

"You see it on the data. It's a noticeable [difference]. Everything is important. On this racing car everything is so to the edge. Everything, you know, it helps – and you want to keep it on."

FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer was due to inspect the T-wings during the race weekend in case they flexed too much, and Charlie Whiting believes they may be removed completely in 2018.

"Next year, I think there's quite a strong chance that would be done; there appears to be quite a few people think they're a bit of an unsightly thing," Whiting said. "I personally don't have anything against them. It was something that was always going to be possible, yes. I think the reaction of everybody against them was unexpected, to be honest with you."

With Liberty Media's new technical boss Ross Brawn also keen to remove such additions, Steiner says the wing is not an area that requires extensive development.

"There is not a lot more in it than we've found already, because it's a simplistic wing in free air. Yeah you can do a little bit of work but you don't make big gains. So I don't think that you develop it a lot. You maybe look at it once or twice more in the wind tunnel, and then you're done with it."