Did F1 win the battle but lose the war with its new rules era?

As Formula 1 stares down the barrel of another season of single-team dominance, it was inevitable that questions would begin to be asked about whether the latest rules era has failed.

After some notable drops in F1 television viewing figures (ESPN had a 40% year-on-year reduction for Saudi), and wider social media engagement appearing to be well down (a 40% decrease in mentions on monitored channels according to one report), the lack of on-track excitement is not something that can simply be brushed under the carpet as an inconsequential blip.

On the one hand, the likes of Mercedes boss Toto Wolff are absolutely correct when they say that Red Bull having things entirely its own way at the front is the fault of rivals – not regulations. “I don't want to fall in the trap of a fellow team principal from next door in 2014/15, who said we should change the regs because it's too dominant,” Wolff says, in a sly dig at Christian Horner’s response when Mercedes was alone at the front.

But, equally, there is a growing view that there are some core elements of F1’s regulatory framework that have contributed to a situation where the spectacle is lacking both in terms of the fight at the front and the action further back, where overtaking has become so difficult once again. Some of this is because of the car concept because, as teams have got better at exploiting outwash to bring back a return of dirty air, so in turn the cars become harder to follow one another.

Add in that F1’s current tyres don’t like the consequential sliding – as they quickly overheat and fall out of their ideal operating window – and it’s a perfect storm to produce situations where drivers are forced to back off and run smoothly in clear air, rather than attack and go for a move. Nothing showed this better than last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix, when Lando Norris called off a second overtake attempt on race leader Max Verstappen despite clearly having some good pace. “I didn't want to compromise my own race by having one more attempt,” Norris said at the time.

This element of aero disturbance combined with thermally sensitive tyres is something that Mercedes technical director James Allison referenced recently regarding why the current ruleset had not worked: “I think the idea that you get good racing by controlling wakes, while ignoring tyres… The whole idea of controlling wakes, being something of a tilting-at-windmills type of challenge, I think that side of things has been tested to destruction fairly evidently.”

Catching Red Bull and Verstappen in 2024 is one thing, overtaking them is quite another

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The rules did seem better for close racing in 2022, when drivers talked about being able to follow more closely, and that opening up improved prospects of overtaking manoeuvres. But, as outwash returned, and the dirty air became a factor again, the situation has reverted to being close to where they were with the 2021 generation of cars and far from the original intention of the rules, which was to make the racing better and bring the grid closer together.

As F1’s chief technical officer Pat Symonds said at the time the new cars were launched: “We started this project in 2017, looked at a range of things across both sporting and technical regulations, and decided to focus on engineering a solution that would create cars capable of racing closer together, and also bring the grid together. There’s typically three seconds between the front and back of the grid. We thought halving that gap to 1.5s, while having cars capable of running in close proximity, was likely to give us very interesting racing.”

In some senses, F1 did indeed achieve its aim in closing up the grid.

What F1’s current formbook shows us – with one team dominant, cars that are struggling to follow each other for aero and tyre reasons, and a grid that is so close it doesn’t make for good racing – is that there is no single ingredient that will unleash something brilliant

Throw the cost cap into the mix, which has prevented the big money teams spending their way to an ever-bigger advantage, and the pack has really closed up. Qualifying these days has perhaps never been as consistently tight, with such fine margins between the front and the back.

Comparing this year’s Bahrain Grand Prix to the final year of the old ruleset highlights the way things have shifted in F1. This year there was a 1.039s gap between the quickest and slowest cars in Q1. Back in 2021, the difference was 2.774s – although admittedly Haas did underperform that year.

But, while closer grids are a great feelgood thing for a series to be happy about, there is no direct correlation between a compact field and the racing spectacle being better. Indeed, if there is no speed variability between cars, then it means that there is no overtaking – because there is no delta of performance.

As Norris said recently: “When you are half a tenth quicker or one tenth quicker, that's nowhere near enough to get into DRS and just pass someone. I think for certain cars that we are racing against, the gaps are smaller than previous years. Therefore, it’s harder to make some decent time gains, and therefore it is harder to race.”

Red Bull aside, the F1 pack has got closer but racing has not improved

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

So, while F1 won the war with delivering a closer grid, it lost the battle in that not actually being the route to a better spectacle.

What F1’s current formbook shows us – with one team dominant, cars that are struggling to follow each other for aero and tyre reasons, and a grid that is so close it doesn’t make for good racing – is that there is no single ingredient that will unleash something brilliant. Instead, it is very much about an entire package coming together to work in unison and produce a great spectacle. You need car rules that aren’t simply reliant on mastering rear ride height as being the key to success.

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Perhaps it is time for some bold ideas, like fan cars, that ensure chasing cars have as much downforce as those ahead, because there is no way to bend the laws of physics to realistically get rid of the dirty air problem without some artificial stimulus. Then tyres that deliver performance and strategy variability where drivers can push without fear of wrecking their afternoon, and there are speed deltas at various stages of the race that deliver passing opportunities. Add on top of that the cost cap to ensure there is no spending war (and it being policed rigidly to ensure no-one is gaining an unfair advantage) so it becomes a battle of brainpower.

Getting one of those elements spot on isn’t enough. It needs everything all at once. For only then will the war be won.

F1 needs radical ideas, more suitable tyres and the cost cap to deliver on its better racing target

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