Ferrari rear wing under investigation

BARCELONA // Ferrari's new rear wing may be illegal and is being closely looked at by Formula One's governing body, Charlie Whiting, the FIA race director, said on Friday.

"We are aware of the development on the Ferrari rear wing and we are currently discussing it with Ferrari," he told reporters at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Asked whether Spaniard Fernando Alonso and Brazilian Felipe Massa would be able to use it for Saturday's final practice and qualifying, Whiting added: "That will depend on what we decide tonight.

"It's a very clever interpretation of the rules and we've got to decide whether we think it's a good interpretation of the rules."

Alonso, the double world champion, is the big crowd-puller at the Circuit de Catalunya and arrived fresh from his first podium of the season in Turkey.

Ferrari's assistant technical director Pat Fry said the Italian team had tried out a lot of new components in Friday practice including assessing "new aerodynamic concepts".

Whiting, who rarely talks to the media on the record, explained that the issue was a possible contravention of article 3.10.3 of the technical regulations which deals with the slot gap separators on the wing.

"They are devices which are normally just vertical, two of them typically on each wing, which keep the distance between the profiles constant," he said.

"These separators can't be more than 200mm apart...it's an alternative interpretation of that rule that we are currently discussing."