The prevailing technical trends emerging from 2025's F1 launch season

Throw a dart at any era in Formula 1's history and you'll find a technical trend that encompasses a given passage of time. Anyone who believes that F1 cars today all look the same and that the cars of the past at least did something different to each other would be right in some respect, but these were all teams taking ideas from each other and putting their own twist on it - thus beginning certain trends in each era.

Let's not forget the myriad Lotus 72 clones that pervaded through the early 1970s. Or the long-flanked ground-effect cars of the latter half of that era, followed by the dart-like short-sidepodded cars that immediately followed. High noses, extra wings, sculpted sidepods, double diffusers, front wing tips in free air, bargeboard boomerangs, floor fins, and sidepod inlet shapes - F1 might be all about the minutiae these days, but this concatenation of trends over the past 30-odd years simply reflects two simple facts: a) designers copy each other's homework all the time, and b) similarity of modern cars reflects current global homogeneity.

Visually, that many might not be able to see too much difference between the McLaren and the Red Bull could also extend to why every high street looks the same - the Specsavers is next to the Pret A Manger, which is next to Boots, which is next to the Caffe Nero, which is next to either a Leon or a Tortilla or a Nando's. Next to that, Holland & Barrett. Itsu is on the corner. It's always on the corner.

Bleak truths about average British high streets aside; some very clear trends apropos 2025's F1 cars are already emerging. We've only seen four real cars in the flesh, plus some render trickery masquerading as next years' cars, but they do show commonality - and we can also infer what to expect from a handful of other cars that share parts with machinery already unveiled.

Movement between the push-rod/pull-rod camps

We're hoping that, in our technical round-ups of each car, we've been able to illustrate the differences between push-rod and pull-rod suspension for the benefit of those not quite au fait with the quirks in F1 car design. This is also why we've opted to do the annotations this year from a general standpoint, as it's easier to show certain things rather than using vague arrows or in the feature copy.

But if you're not sure, it's like this: push-rods link rockers (which activate springs/torsion bars) sat on the top of the chassis to the bottom of the wheel assembly, and pull-rods link the top of the wheel assembly to rockers situated in the bottom of the chassis.

Williams FW47 and Racing Bulls VCARB 02 technical comparison

Photo by: Autosport

The decision to go with either is largely aerodynamic, but there's other factors too, like centre of gravity, the consequences on vehicle dynamics and set-up, and packaging. Across the last 10-15 years, most have opted for push-rod front suspension and pull-rod rear suspension, with many designers considering suspension layout changes as superfluous. But that's changed with the current regulations; instead, engineers have sought to challenge convention and develop a stable platform for their underbody aero.

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Aha, you might surmise; it is for aerodynamics after all! And that's true; changing rocker position and thus centre of gravity will affect the placement of other suspension members to imbue the car with anti-dive and anti-heave characteristics. Anything that ensures the car's floor remains pretty much the same level across a lap - so long as that level fits in the working window - is of paramount importance.

Now, it's not uncommon to have a reversal on previous convention with the pull-rod front/push-rod rear set-up. McLaren and Red Bull were the only teams to pursue this route at the start of the current regulations and, given their success, it's no surprise to see others follow suit. Bringing the centre of gravity low at the front should ensure that, in theory, the front end gets a little more bite; otherwise, the choice of a pull-rod is largely aerodynamic and the suspension member's location can be more easily moved away from inlets and to set up flow for the front of the floor. But a push-rod has its benefits too, in that spring location is more easy to access and aerodynamic shroudings can be linked with the upper wishbone to bring airflow to a more convenient place.

As pre-season testing week gets into its stride, more technical trends will likely emerge as the final iterations of these current cars continue to shake out in the development room

At the rear, teams are starting to find that a return to push-rods is becoming a much more beneficial change. Prior to the 2009 regulations, push-rods were commonly used at the rear, but Red Bull pioneered the pull-rod rear assembly to lower the centre of gravity and get the diffuser working harder. Everyone followed suit, but the required location of springs and rockers has since become irksome with the current cars as aerodynamics seek to maximise the expansion space within the floor - hence the shift in thinking.

Of the movers and shakers, Ferrari has switched to a pull-rod front suspension package citing no further development room with its push-rod layout, but has stuck with the pull-rod rear with its SF-25. Williams retains the push-rod front, but has moved to a push-rod rear as it takes Mercedes' latest suspension components for 2025. McLaren and Racing Bulls have stuck with the pull-rod front-push-rod rear combination.

Sidepod overbites and overwings

These are easiest to imagine simply by looking at the mouth of a shark in relation to its nose. Red Bull introduced the 'underbite' sidepod geometry with its RB18, and then switched the position of its side impact structure to the top face of the sidepod to switch it to an overbite - where the upper lip of the sidepod inlet extends further forward than the lower lip.

At the start of the current rules era, sidepod variation was one of the biggest visible design differentiators

Photo by: McLaren

This was present in its RB20, but McLaren had also simultaneously introduced this last season and, again, others followed suit. More or less every other team switched from the extruded lower lip to the extended upper. McLaren went for an overwing variant - which not only became used as a platform for mirrors, but also had an exposed wing tip to be used as a device for generating vorticity - in other words, provoking the airflow into circulating at high energy to pass over the top of the sidepod. And that's useful for breaking up any areas of separation if the air loses energy to surface friction.

V-shaped rear wings?

This is something that we've only seen from two teams, at Ferrari and at McLaren. Teams have experimented with spoon-shaped rear wing mainplanes for a little while now, as the central section is known to work hardest to develop downforce - even with endplates, the outer sections at comparable levels of camber (the curvature) and chord length (distance between leading and trailing edges) are not as efficient. As such, it's common to see the outboard parts of the wing get shallower and then curve into a deeper-pan central section.

But the more noticeable V-shape, seen on McLaren's car at the tail end of 2024 and now on Ferrari's SF-25, is an intriguing version of this. Perhaps they've come across a more efficient way of developing downforce for the medium-speed circuits on the calendar, and have been able to reduce the wing size at the outboard sections even further as a result. It's not a new concept by any stretch, but it is certainly an interesting interpretation.