Don't let loopholes ruin the 2021 F1 ambition

Visually, the 2021 car concepts released during the Singapore Grand Prix weekend are very sleek. But it's easy to come up with ideas for how you might want grand prix cars to look, what's a lot more challenging is ensuring the teams produce something that is anything like what you want.

Looking at the smaller details, F1 has gone to reasonable lengths to try to understand and correct the problems the current aero flicks and vanes cause to the airflow that is being used by a following car.

It seems the major input is from a stylist rather than an aerodynamicist. But as long as the main downforce producing components - the front wing, underfloor and rear wing - are conceived to allow them to produce their forces as standalone parts as opposed to the current situation where their performance is heavily influenced by vortices produced by other flicks and vanes, then the cars will be more aerodynamically consistent.

From my point of view, looks have always been important. If you are walking down the street you will always take time to look at a Porsche, Ferrari or Lamborghini, but you will not pay too much attention to a Ford Mondeo.

I'm pretty sure having a decent-looking car helps get viewers and enthusiasts on your side, and for the mechanics if it looks good they will give it that extra bit of love and care, as opposed to trying to get the car cover on it as quickly as possible. By doing that, they might just spot something that could let you down the next day.

The proposals look similar to the first-generation of A1GP machinery, but fitted with a halo. That styling was bolted on to what was basically the Lola Formula 3000 car from the previous year because the people financing the series wanted it to look 'swoopy'.

I only hope that Ross Brawn and his team is not being led down the 'swoopy' path by F1's new owner, Liberty Media. These changes need to be engineering-driven and must be properly evaluated.

CFD modelling will not be sufficient - windtunnel models need to be built and windtunnel testing needs to be carried out. This is not the work of a couple of months to fully exploit and understand, and any final proposals will take many months - perhaps even a year or more - of intense testing.

Ross Brawn says the current cars lose around 50% of their downforce when following another car, and that these concepts reduce this loss to something like 20%.

The number doesn't really matter, it is the magnitude of the change that is important and how this effects the balance of the car. A driver will drive a car with differing levels of downforce and be able to push to the maximum, you could do Monaco with Monza downforce levels or Monza with Monaco downforce levels and as long as everyone was the same you would have a competition.

Brawn stated that he felt we were putting our drivers' lives in danger. When someone says something like that it hurts

It is when the balance of the car changes dramatically while following another car that the performance drops away and the tyres overheat on whatever end is sliding.

What's going to be difficult is turning these artistic impressions into written regulations that won't allow the hundreds if not thousands of very intelligent design engineers to drive a double decker bus through them. It is the text that will count - any illustration is only one permutation derived from that text.

This is where the process has all fallen down in the past. If you look back over the last 10 years and more, the regulations have become tighter and tighter but someone will always find a loophole. And while the research that has gone into the current changes is an improvement on the past, it's still unlikely to be comprehensive enough to guarantee the results that are intended.

The double diffuser is an example of that, and, taking it even further, certain regulations led F1 to some of the ugliest cars we have ever seen, which were produced earlier in this decade.

The stepped nose was a good example of this. There was, and still is to an extent, a maximum height for the nose up until a certain point and then a very small distance for the transition to the higher chassis. If there is a performance advantage, the teams don't care if that transition is abrupt and unsightly.

The designers are paid by the teams and their brief is to maximise performance within the regulations. Some teams push that legality understanding further than others, but in general if there is a grey area that is fairly easy to spot then the teams will ask the FIA for a clarification. This clarification goes to all the teams and that is where some of the problems lie.

If I was working with Red Bull and I spotted a genuine loophole that I could exploit, why should I make all the other teams aware of it? I would make sure it was watertight and just get on with it. That is what happens when rule changes are introduced and it is why one or two teams will always forge ahead leaving the others to catch up. The big teams have more people searching for these loopholes.

A very good example of this could be seen in the headrest area on the 1996 cars. The regulations changed to give better head protection, and Benetton and Ferrari built cars where the headrest area looked like a rubbish skip. The Williams team and ourselves at Jordan found other ways, which I have to say were slightly more elegant.

This was actually a major talking point. Before the first race, Brawn, then at Benetton, stated that he felt we were putting our drivers' lives in danger. When someone says something like that it hurts and that comment could have had major consequences.

But Martin Brundle had a major accident on the first lap of the first race of the season in Melbourne when he ran into the back of David Coulthard. He flew through the air, barrel rolled several times and the car basically broke up.

The engine front cover broke and the rest of the engine and gearbox separated from the chassis, but when the dust settled Martin stepped out, dusted himself down and ran off to get in the spare car for the restart.

It could so easily have been a different outcome, and then where would that loose comment of Brawn's have put me for designing a car that was dangerous? The next time I met up with him I reminded him that 'he who lives in a glass house should never throw stones'.

Basically, the designers only care about performance. And if they find a loophole in the regulations it is their responsibility to exploit it to the maximum. If it is something that doesn't matter than you might as well design it to look decent, but if that compromises anything then you will go the 'no performance compromise' route.

The more regulations there are, the less innovation there will be and you will become nearer to a one-make formula. No one really wants that for F1, but I'm afraid that's where we are ultimately heading.

Ross has stated that he has been in contact with the IndyCar guys and commented on Formula 2, both of which are built as a one-make chassis formula by Dallara.

I really hope this does not happen, but perhaps F1 should just bite the bullet now and go down that route, then allow teams to add their own bits from the front wing mounting pillar to nose fixing downwards, the lower 20cm of the underfloor and diffuser, from the chassis floor outwards, and the rear wing from the endplate mountings upwards. At least this would allow teams to put their own identity on the cars.

These technical regulation changes for 2021 seem to be getting somewhat diluted

If that was done, all the teams would be very upset. But at a time when there is lots of talk about budget control it would reduce costs dramatically and it would probably reduce the gap between those that have and those that don't.

You have to remember that even with IndyCar and F2 being one-make formulas, there is still a winner and a loser, strong teams and weak teams, and on many occasions you will see a team or driver dominating.

The proposals and the technical regulation changes introduced by the Overtaking Working Group for 2009 basically didn't achieve what they were set out to do. Overtaking was no better, and any changes introduced since then have made this problem worse.

The introduction of the complex hybrid engines for 2014 has meant that teams can deploy their electrical energy strategically to defend, while the higher downforce and wider cars for '17 decreased braking zones, increased corner speeds and left less track width for overtaking. And increasing the downforce levels of these cars when the loss of downforce following another car is the major problem seems a little strange to me.

So, summing all that up, these technical regulation changes for 2021 need to be tested and evaluated properly. Over the last year they seem to be getting somewhat diluted.

That's OK as long as what is introduced addresses the current problem and allows the cars to race each other with some real driver overtakes as opposed to mirror, signal, manoeuvres using the dreaded DRS.

As for the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, Lewis Hamilton again demonstrated he is the man of the moment in qualifying and the race.

After the early safety car to clear up the mess of the Force India drivers colliding, the race became a very slow procession. If you have ever driven down a motorway in the fast lane in a queue of cars and the lead car is doing 50mph and you have to stay two chevrons apart, that is what the first 15-odd laps of the race were like. It was basically all about looking after the tyres. This situation must be quickly addressed.

Later on it got a little more intense (I didn't say exciting), mainly because of the differing tyre condition on some cars. But the only thing that really spiced it up was a few cars ignoring the blue flags.

This is something that could be addressed immediately. You don't have to completely do away with blue flags, but that would be the best way of throwing a googly into the mix.

Why should cars that are racing hammer and tongs in the midfield suddenly have to abandon their individual battles because someone in a better financed team in a car two or three seconds a lap faster is about to lap them?

Surly it would be better for the show, and indeed the championship, if those top drivers had to show us that they had the car and the talent to pull off a proper overtaking manoeuvre.

If you wanted to be a little more conservative about changing the blue flag rule, perhaps you just need to be within something like two seconds for around three laps. If you haven't got past by then throw the blue flags. Currently, once within 1.2s a driver instantly gets three blue flags before risking a penalty.

Singapore was a typical example of what the new technical rules for 2021 need to address.

I hope the people that can do something about it watched the race from a viewer's perspective. Or perhaps it was better not to. If they did, perhaps they also fell asleep by lap 20?