How F1’s upcoming rule changes are presenting headaches for teams

The August break has been a crucial opportunity for F1 personnel to draw breath and recentre before it all goes bonkers again. For those heading to the tracks, we’re about to see an incredibly intense period of racing, with travel and jetlag becoming a huge factor in the decisive part of the 2021 season.

Back at base, the staff working in factories may avoid jetlag but the challenge of piecing together the all-new aspects of technical rule changes for 2022 is an ongoing maelstrom. Engineers have been flat-out since the first day of January, when the teams were allowed to begin windtunnel and computer studies of the all-new aerodynamic regulations, but it’s not only the aero departments that have been working to an accelerated level.

According to senior F1 technical experts who have been involved in big rule shifts over the years, the changes have never been this ambitious. Much of the knowledge that has built up around the current cars in the design and engineering departments has effectively been wiped off the board and everyone is starting from a fresh viewpoint. As one of the veterans said to me, “ambitious is brave; let’s see where it ends up”.

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While the aerodynamic work is centred on strict parameters which aim to allow far better opportunities for cars to overtake, the changes in many other departments are creating huge workloads. And every item must be approved by steely-eyed accountants, thanks to the budget cap that is already in place and which will be further reduced over the next few years.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12, and Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12, leave the garage

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

It’s not just the financial side that is changing engineers’ perspectives. Imagine that your passion for technical brilliance has lifted you to a senior position in the department that studies and creates the remarkable braking system on an F1 car. Under the new rules, all of your inspirational discoveries and subtle tweaks combining mechanical, hydraulic and electronic brake-by-wire technology must now be drawn up and handed over to the FIA where access will be given to every other team.

It is no longer your secret, despite all that effort, and I wonder what Colin Chapman, the genius designer and originator of Lotus, would say...

We are heading into a fascinating period of excitement both on track and behind the scenes. The close battle between Red Bull and Mercedes this year has been something we have all enjoyed, and in theory the new rules will bring the entire grid closer together

The braking system is deemed to be an ‘open-source’ component in the revised regulations, as is the fuel system, so it will be easy to see what your rivals are up to in those areas. Yet much of the car is still secret and while there are tight rules in certain areas, there’s still a wide field of opportunity in terms of gaining performance.

One area is in maximising the use of new 18-inch tyres and the many consequences of bigger, heavier wheels. New suspension regulations ban the use of gas springs and inerters – the specialist dampers that have been a part of F1 since the early 2000s – but there is still freedom in wishbone design and spring/damper activation. As viewers, we might enjoy the sight of some cars on pushrods while others use pullrods to activate their steel torsion springs.

One of the biggest previous regulation shifts took place in the early 1980s when ground effect was banned. The science of using air flow beneath the car to create a vacuum effect against the track surface was severely limited, yet now we are seeing that element coming back in a much more defined manner. By using floor-generated downforce, the opportunity to reduce the volume of disturbed air from external wings will hopefully lead to closer racing.

Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari with 2022 18-inch Pirelli Zero

Photo by: Pirelli

Yet there are some caveats. Since 1994, the lower edge of every car’s sidepod has been 50mm higher than the base of the car beneath the cockpit.

When watching fast laps, we often see cars run wide over sausage kerbs on corner exits; if the sidepod area skims over the top it usually continues unhindered, but if the central floor of the car rides over the kerb, the driver’s spine not only takes a hefty thump, but the floor tray often takes damage. Under the new regulations, the floor will be completely level and, from what I’m hearing, the use of raised rear rideheight, known as ‘rake’, is also going to be less common.

So the outer edges of the floor, which will have become an even more powerful aero tool, are going to be susceptible to damage. Arguments about track limits will no doubt centre on those sausage kerbs, especially as the loss of several floors through a season will have a big impact on budgets.

We are heading into a fascinating period of excitement both on track and behind the scenes. The close battle between Red Bull and Mercedes this year has been something we have all enjoyed, and in theory the new rules will bring the entire grid closer together.

There are varied opinions on whether that will happen in the first season. With such defined regulations, some believe there’s  little chance of going off at a tangent and coming up with something either brilliant or utterly hopeless that will spread out the grid. Others see plenty of potential traps as well as positive opportunities that will create differences in performance.

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None of us will have any idea until the cars go wheel to wheel for the first time in 2022. In the meantime, it’s the donkey work executed away from the spotlight that, as ever, will determine the outcome.

Drivers group photo with the 2022 F1 car

Photo by: Liberty Media