In practice for the season-opener in Australia, we saw Romain Grosjean’s shark fin shaking like mad and giving his extra aero wing a hard time. But it managed to stay on the car.
The same can’t be said for Valtteri Bottas and the T-wing on his Mercedes W08 in Chinese GP practice. Friday’s practice disaster meant little running had been completed but the cars racked up the laps in the dry FP3.
Perhaps these new cars are so quick in China, it was all too much for Bottas’ T-wing, because it simply fell off as he tackled the Turn 11/12 chicane mid-way through FP3.
Even more puzzling was the fact it Mercedes runs a double T-wing, but it only had one element rather than two as he entered the corner.
So, we have no clue where the other T-wing element went, but the device clearly couldn’t handle more than a few laps and decided to just get out of there.
The FIA will probably be looking into it, as they don’t want T-wings flying around everywhere.
