Highlights
Series
Explore
This article first appeared in GP Racing magazine.
In last month's F1 Racing we considered some of the philosophy behind the 2021 regulation changes and discussed the implementation of the rules that govern aerodynamics. This month we delve deeper into the aero objectives and look at some of the other technical aspects that were considered - not all of which came to fruition.
Starting with the aerodynamics, it's well known that the primary objective is to allow cars to follow each other closely in the hope that this will lead to more natural overtaking opportunities. But how can we implement this?
Essentially there are two elements that lead to the difficulties experienced by the car behind. The first is that the wake of disturbed air behind the leading car has very low energy which robs the trailing car of downforce, and the second is that the trailing car has aerodynamic surfaces designed to work most effectively in clean air. Unfortunately this low-energy wake is intensely turbulent and therefore anything but clean.
