Following one of the crucial intense championship battles in Formula 1’s historical past this yr, ending on Sunday with Max Verstappen of Red Bull winning the drivers’ championship, the game will enter a brand new period in 2022 in an try to additional enhance the present.
The vehicles will look strikingly totally different after a serious rule change governing aerodynamics to assist one automotive comply with one other extra intently and support overtaking.
“There has long been this suspicion the cars were not very friendly when they were racing each other,” Ross Brawn, Formula 1’s managing director motorsports, stated in an interview.
“The performance of the following car was affected very badly by being in the wake of the car in front. It starts to lose performance the closer it gets, and that doesn’t aid good racing.”
When Brawn — a former technical director at Ferrari and staff principal at Mercedes who received the drivers’ and constructors’ titles along with his personal staff, Brawn GP, in 2009 — joined the Formula 1 Group in 2017, he arrange a analysis group “to chase raceability.”
The takeover of Formula 1 by Liberty Media Corporation in 2017 ensured that there was a finances to deal with the difficulty.
“There’d been no resource committed to this area,” Brawn stated. “The rules had been developed by the teams who had all the knowledge, the expertise and the funding.
“The regulations evolve through proposals and suggestions from the teams. They never made it a priority to make the cars friendly to race each other. Suddenly there was resource made available.”
The analysis group, working with the F.I.A., the game’s governing physique, set about attempting to perceive the explanations for the lack of aerodynamic efficiency and designing a automotive that will enable the drivers to race wheel to wheel on a extra common foundation.
The group first constructed a pc mannequin of 1 automotive following one other to assess the issue. Once that was understood, fashions had been constructed and examined in a wind tunnel.
The automotive, which was the creation of Formula 1’s interpretation of the foundations, was unveiled at this yr’s British Grand Prix. The 2022 vehicles can even have Pirelli’s new 18-inch tires after a long time of the game utilizing 13-inch tires.
The 10 groups will then produce their very own vehicles based mostly on the Formula 1 design. They will take these vehicles to the monitor for the primary time in preseason testing on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain from Feb. 23 to 25. The first race is in Bahrain on March 20.
“Our process won’t stop,” Brawn stated. “Once we see the new cars race, we’ll see the solutions the teams have come up with, and we’ll evaluate them and make sure we’re not losing the momentum on this initiative to make the cars more raceable.”
Formula 1 has improved the best way air flows round a automotive. Recent vehicles have pushed the move out to the aspect, which implies the air stays low and slows the next automotive.
Next yr’s vehicles will channel the air beneath and thru the automotive, main to a really excessive move over its rear.
“To give you an idea of some numbers, this year’s car, when it was two car lengths behind, it lost half of its performance,” Brawn stated.
“The new car only loses 10 or 15 percent of its performance. It’s a massive difference.”
After successful eight consecutive constructors’ titles, Mercedes’ dominance of Formula 1 may finish subsequent yr if a rival staff has discovered higher options in deciphering the foundations.
When new rules are launched, engineers research them within the hope of discovering a silver bullet.
“It’s pretty much possible that teams who didn’t compete for the world championship this year, whether it’s Ferrari, McLaren, Aston Martin or Alpine, come up with intelligent concepts based on more runs than anybody else and just doing it very right,” stated Toto Wolff, the Mercedes staff principal.
“So I think we can expect closer fighting for the championships and in races than we have had before, and that’s exciting.”
Red Bull fought with Mercedes for the constructors’ and drivers’ titles into the final race in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
Although groups stopped the event of this season’s vehicles early within the yr to focus their assets on the 2022 fashions, the depth of the title combat between Mercedes and Red Bull could have had an influence.
“When Ferrari turn up with the fastest car and smash us out of the park at the first race then you’ll have to say that it probably did,” stated Christian Horner, the Red Bull staff principal.
“We’ve all known that big regulation changes were coming for 2022, and we’ve applied our resource accordingly. I’m sure each team has done what they feel is right, but, of course, the battle with Mercedes put pressure on the organization.”
Horner stated there had been “a monumental effort” from his staff to concentrate on the championship problem and the event of subsequent yr’s automotive.
“We will only see, when we come back in a couple of months’ time with completely new cars that will look different, feel different and drive differently, as to who’s got it right and who’s got it wrong,” he stated.
Ferrari completed third within the constructors’ championship, 290 factors behind Mercedes, a major enchancment after it was sixth in 2020.
Laurent Mekies, the Ferrari sporting director, stated subsequent season was “an important opportunity.”
“As much as we would like it to be a turning point for us, it is the case for anybody that has not fought for a win,” Mekies stated. “They will think the same, so we are conscious of that side of the challenge.
“In terms of changing the order, this may happen. I am not saying [the standings] will be upside down, but a few times when we have had a big change in the regulations in the past, it has changed cycles.”
Haas completed final on this yr’s championship and failed to rating some extent. The staff made the choice earlier than the season not to develop its automotive to focus solely on the 2022 automotive.
Günther Steiner, the staff principal, is optimistic the choice will repay.
“I’m cautiously confident we will be in a better position,” he stated. “Hopefully in the midfield fighting for points next year.”
After 5 years with Mercedes, successful 10 Grands Prix, Valtteri Bottas strikes to Alfa Romeo subsequent yr. The staff scored solely 13 factors this season.
Bottas stated “the beauty of the new regulations” meant “anything is possible,” however he’s real looking.
“I don’t think we’re going to be consistently fighting for the wins next year, like with Mercedes,” Bottas stated. “But consistently being in the points in the first year with the team, that is possible.
“There are so many variables and so many things that will eventually affect how it will be.”
Because of his historical past of innovation with Formula 1 groups and his technical information, Brawn is eagerly anticipating the arrival of subsequent yr’s vehicles and seeing how the groups have deciphered the brand new guidelines.
“When the teams first saw the regulations, there were moans and groans about the fact we’d taken so much scope away from them,” Brawn stated. “But as they explored them, they realized there was still plenty of potential.
“I always took the approach, when I was a technical director, that I had to work within the regulations that were there. Given they were the same regulations for everyone, whoever did the best job with them would be the one who would succeed.”
Brawn is proud of the answer Formula 1 has delivered, though it is just “a platform for the future.”
“There may be a little bit of disparity in performance when we start off because everyone’s going to come up with different solutions, but once we’ve settled down, this will be a much better platform for the cars to be designed around.”
The query is, will the racing enhance? “Yes,” Brawn stated. “We will have cars much closer in performance.”
