Lewis Hamilton says he “does not know” where Toto Wolff is coming from after his former team boss talked up Ferrari’s prospects ahead of F1’s revised flexi-wing technical directive.

Nine races into the F1 2025 championship, the long-awaited front wing flexibility technical directive will be in play at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

TD018 is aimed at tackling the issue of front wing flexibility, with the teams having to comply with stricter front wing static load tests.

Although the FIA made the decision during the off-season to introduce more stringent tests, they delayed it until round nine of the championship, the Spanish Grand Prix.

Wolff believes Ferrari could be the big winners.

“I think what we have seen is that Ferrari was probably most conservative on flexi-wings,” he told the media in Monaco.

“What it’s going to do on the pecking order is something we need to look at. I’m not sure it will [change], but another angle of curiosity and I don’t know how it’s going to go.”

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Hamilton, however, is perplexed by his former team boss’s claim, as having put Ferrari’s Spanish Grand Prix front wing through its paces in the Maranello sim, he didn’t notice much difference.

“I don’t know where it’s coming from,” Hamilton told the media, including PlanetF1.com, when quizzed on Wolff’s claim. “I don’t know what gives him that impression.

“I mean, I hope he’s right.

“But I have zero clue who it’s gonna affect and who it’s not. [It] didn’t make much difference in the sim.”

Ferrari were in fact one of two in the leading quartet in the F1 2025 championship who declared they’d changed their front wing in accordance with TD018. Neither McLaren nor Mercedes made changes, at least not in Spain.

Pressed on the new front wing technical directive and the FIA’s more stringent testing, which includes putting added load on the wing while the car sits in the pit lane, the seven-time World Champion revealed having a flexible front wing made his 2015 Mercedes W15 “nicer to drive”.

He, however, did not go into the impact that it had on the Ferrari.

“I mean, I don’t know why this came about,” he said. “If I’m really honest, I’ve not really spent much time thinking about it.

“So it’s probably for someone else in the team. You might not be wrong.

“But yeah, I don’t know what to say. The flexi wing was a positive when it came about. Some teams were quick to adapt it, some teams were very slow to adapt it.

“It’s been a positive. When I was at Mercedes, and we got it last year around this time, and it was a positive for us. And some people had it earlier, some people had it later. Made this generation of car much nicer to drive.

“So it’s going in the wrong direction, that’s for sure, but I guess it’s more about policing it, making sure that it’s, I don’t know better, policed, I guess, moving forwards and hopefully it brings everyone closer.”

Ferrari are fourth in the Constructors’ Championship on 142 points to McLaren’s 319.

Fred Vasseur, though, believes TD018 could be a gamechanger in the championship race.

“I think Barcelona is on the calendar of everybody in the paddock with the new regulation for the front wing,” Vasseur said in Imola.

“At least we are working on it for ages now and this can be a gamechanger for everybody, because we don’t know the impact on every single team of the new regulation.

“We’ll stick to this (at Barcelona), be focused on this, to have the better explanation of the new front wing.”

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