Williams is facing a trip to the stewards over a failure to produce footage related to the monitoring of front and rear wings when required.

The stewards at the Chinese Grand Prix have summoned the Williams team to appear before them over an alleged breach of the Technical Regulations, related to a recent technical directive imposed upon the teams.

Williams summoned by the stewards at the Chinese Grand Prix

90 minutes after the conclusion of Sprint Qualifying in Shanghai, the FIA’s technical delegate Jo Bauer issued a document to say Williams were being referred to the stewards at the racetrack, following an alleged breach of the Technical Regulations.

The article quoted, Article 1.6, states that, “It is the duty of each Competitor to satisfy the FIA technical delegate and the stewards that his Formula 1 Car complies with these regulations in their entirety at all times during a Competition.”

How Williams is alleged to have fallen foul of this is related to the recent imposition of a technical directive, TD034L, which requires all the F1 teams to fit high-resolution cameras facing front and rear onto their cars.

These cameras are mandatory under the directive, with their mandate being to allow the governing body to gather data on the extent of flexibility of the front and rear wings of the entire field – a contentious issue in recent times, as the FIA has sought to clamp down on the level of flexibility it’s uncovered.

After the Australian Grand Prix, the FIA issued a new technical directive, TD055A, to introduce new flexibility limits to the rear wings, while another directive, under TD018, will come into force at the Spanish Grand Prix to dictate new flexibility standards on the front wings.

The monitoring of the wings is done under technical directive TD034L, with the video files recorded by these cameras used to monitor compliance with Article 3.2.2 (governing permitted flexibility of bodywork) of the Technical Regulations.

With Williams failing to provide the video files recorded by their cameras within one hour of the end of the first free practice session, as required under TD034L, Williams is thus allegedly in breach of Article 1.6 and, as a result, has been summoned before the stewards.

The summons reads that Williams has been called up on the grounds of “Alleged breaches of Articles 3.2.2 and 3.15.16 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations – Failing to provide the video files recorded by the wireless forward and rearward-facing cameras in the specified timescale.”

A representative from Williams is required to visit the stewards at 08:30 am local time in Shanghai.

At this point, it is unclear whether the video footage hasn’t been supplied at all, or whether Williams has merely fallen foul of a procedural breach by failing to supply the footage within the one-hour requirement – PlanetF1.com has approached the FIA and Williams for comment.

This is a developing story.

Read Next: Red Bull ‘shouldn’t be on front row’ in Verstappen ‘too slow’ Chinese GP verdict’