Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes most teams now oppose the new front wing rules for the 2019 F1 season, despite some having supported last year’s vote to introduce them.

The wider, simpler front wings are intended to aid overtaking by allowing cars to follow each other more closely. But Horner believes F1 has acted too hastily by bringing in the design, which arose from research commissions by F1 motorsport director Ross Brawn.

“Unfortunately there were some elements of a research project that Ross has been working on that have been cherry-picked by the FIA for application next year,” said Horner, “and unfortunately Mercedes and Ferrari supported it through the Strategy Group and it got voted through.

“Probably with hindsight I think all the teams would recognise now that perhaps it wasn’t the right thing to rush through. But let’s reserve judgement until until we see the first four or five races.”

Horner believes the new wings will have limited effect on the quality of racing but will add to teams’ costs.

“It’s a significant change,” he said. “As everything one thing affects another and obviously it’s been a very costly change.

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“Will it affect the ability for the cars to follow closely? Maybe a little but not tangibly so.

“And inevitably somebody will get it right, some teams will get it wrong. So if anything it’ll put more gap between the teams. The best way to achieve a close grid is stability and then the teams will concertina and converge.”

Speaking at the FIA Gala, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said he expects the change will affect the competitive order in F1 and explained why he supported it.

“First of all we voted in favour because we didn’t want to be dysfunctional,” he said. “The FIA and Liberty put a lot of effort into designing those rules, and where Mercedes stands, we don’t want to be unhelpful. And that’s why we voted in favour.

“We felt it would shake up the grid a little bit, which in itself provides an opportunity and a risk, but we like the opportunity. And then obviously is trying to compensate the loss of downforce as much as possible, and I’m quite curious to see when we hit the tracks by how much we are down or whether we are down.”

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2019 F1 season