Championship leader Oscar Piastri believes the new flexi-wing regulations for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix are “overhyped” but Ferrari think there will be an impact.

More stringent tests will take place on front wings from Spain onwards in a bid to stop flexing, an area which McLaren and other teams have appeared to exploit.

McLaren have won six of the eight races so far this season and lead the Constructors’ Championship by 172 points from Mercedes, with Red Bull 176 points behind them.

“I think the biggest problem is going to be how overhyped it is, probably,” said Piastri, who is three points ahead of McLaren team-mate Lando Norris in the Drivers’ Championship standings.

“We know what’s different. I think everyone will have to change, at least to an extent. I’ve not run the front wing but Lando has already run the front wing before, this year.

“We’re confident that’s not our magic bullet… we don’t have a magic bullet, but that’s not our main strength.”

Max Verstappen is 25 points behind Piastri in the title race and thinks Red Bull need to improve their own car, rather than hoping McLaren lose performance from the flexi-wings change.

“It will change the balance of the car a bit. I don’t expect massive time gains or losses between the teams,” said Verstappen.

“The wings never gave us a massive performance gain. I don’t know if we got it wrong or didn’t extract the most from it.

“Even for the other teams, I’m sure it’s manageable. If you have a good car, you have a good car. Okay the front wing bends a bit less but you can tune it around.”

Hamilton: Flexi-wing changes will be interesting

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff suggested Ferrari have the most to gain from the regulation changes as their front wing has flexed the least out of the top teams.

Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur has previously called the new tests a “gamechanger” and could provide a “reset”. Lewis Hamilton, though, has “zero clue” about which teams will lose out from the new tests.

“The flexi-wing was a band-aid for quality design I would say – getting the set-up and creating devices and mechanisms on the car mechanically, all the engineers are able to do it,” he said.

“It’s still not that easy to get the load that you need on the front end at a low speed, or just rely solely on mechanical grip. So far everyone has been managing, some people better than others.

“This weekend is going to be interesting because we’ve got less flex at the front wing. You have a lot of front end at high-speed corners and less at low speed.

“It will be interesting to see how that affects different teams. Some teams probably did a better job than others, so I have no idea how it will affect us.”

Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc added: “As a driver it will change the balance a bit. Before, every team was pushing in that direction because it had benefits for the driver and how it felt at high speed.

“However, I don’t know how much it will change the pecking order. We know how much it will affect us, not a lot. We don’t know how much it will affect the others.

“Whether it will change who is the fastest team, I don’t think so. Will it change a little bit, yes I think so. What we lose with the flexi-wing, you can reproduce a similar thing with other things.”

Albon: Regulation change suits Williams but Barcelona track does not

Williams have been on the tail of the front-runners this season with Alex Albon finishing fifth in Miami and Imola.

Should there be a pecking-order shift, Williams are close enough to capitalise, if they are not negatively impacted.

“The regulation change suits us but the track doesn’t,” said Albon, who is eighth in the Drivers’ Championship.

“You will likely see us fall a bit backwards in general this weekend but not because of the flexi-wings. At the same time, I’m quite optimistic. We haven’t exploited the rules the same as the other teams, so it should benefit us in the longer term.”

Carlos Sainz said: “I don’t think it will affect teams as much as people think. It’s still a front wing and it will still just be run a bit stiffer and not flex as much as it did.

“I wouldn’t expect more than one tenth swing up and down the field, depending on how much you were flexing or not. I don’t think there will be much in it.

“We have a lot of tools nowadays mechanically and aerodynamically to tune the cars. Even if it’s more of a challenge, we still have three practice sessions to see where the car is at and take steps to finetune it.

“As you can imagine, the teams have been in the simulator and running endless laps with the new [front] wing. Nowadays, teams are well prepared to counter these kind of changes.”

Sky Sports F1’s Spanish GP schedule

Friday May 30
8.50am: F3 Practice
10am: F2 Practice
12pm: Spanish GP Practice One (session starts at 12.30pm)
1.55pm: F3 Qualifying
2.50pm: F2 Qualifying
3.35pm: Spanish GP Practice Two (session starts at 4pm)
5.15pm: The F1 Show

Saturday May 31
9am: F3 Sprint
11.15am: Spanish GP Practice Three (session starts at 11.30am)
1.10pm: F2 Sprint
2.10pm: Spanish GP Qualifying build-up*
3pm: SPANISH GP QUALIFYING*

Sunday June 1
7.25am: F3 Feature Race
8.55am: F2 Feature Race
12.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Spanish GP build-up*
2pm: The SPANISH GRAND PRIX*
4pm: Chequered Flag: Spanish GP reaction

*also live on Sky Sports Main Event

F1’s European triple header concludes with the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona this weekend, with live coverage starting from Friday on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime