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The genius of the late Formula 1 commentator Murray Walker lay in his ability to distil a hugely complex sport into simple, memorable statements. Take his observation that “catching is one thing, passing is quite another”. What sounds like a truism is in fact a very neat description of something that has dogged F1 for decades: the lack of overtaking.
This is one of several long-discussed issues that the sport hopes to tackle next year through a major shakeup of its rules. The changes include a complete overhaul of the technical regulations which will visibly alter the way the cars look and, it is hoped, allow for much closer racing between them. The project has been led by Pat Symonds, who after a long career working with a variety of teams became Formula 1's chief technical officer in 2017.
“I spent 40 years as a competitor and I know perfectly well that your ambition is to produce the fastest car you can, put it on pole position, lead every lap of the race and not bother about anything behind you,” says Symonds, a key figure in the Benetton/Renault team that won world titles with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso. “You're not worrying about the aerodynamic wake of the cars.”
'The wake' is the crux of the overtaking issue. When running at speed, F1 cars create turbulent air, which is dispersed outwards so as not to disturb the rear wing. The resulting wake affects the following car by significantly reducing its downforce (which ‘sticks’ cars to the road) and causing vital systems to overheat. It is therefore very difficult to get close enough to attempt an overtaking manoeuvre or even follow another car through corners.
The solution was for Symonds and his team to re-write the technical rules. From an aerodynamic perspective, he explains, there were two crucial objectives: “One was to produce a more benign wake; the other was to produce a car that would [be less affected by] the wake. When you look at the current cars, they're very sophisticated: they've got all kinds of vortex generators to control the air flow. These work very well in clean air, but they don't work very well in turbulent air.”
Originally planned for 2021, the new regulations were postponed by a year when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. They are considerably longer and more prescriptive than what came before, but should result in simpler cars that create less turbulence. Many of the aerodynamic appendages that are dotted across the bodywork of this year’s cars will disappear in 2022. Even to the untrained eye, the change will be plain to see.
“I think people will notice that it's a much cleaner car,” Symonds says. “They'll see that the front wings look a little bit different and the rear wing looks substantially different. We've also gone from 13-inch wheels to 18-inch wheels. People may say that's a styling thing, but there's more to it than that.”
While synonymous with the aesthetic of a Formula 1 car, outboard wheels are also a major impediment to close racing. The turbulent air they produce is especially chaotic and must be directed away from the rear wing at all costs. As Symonds explains, the new-for-2022 design should help to counter this. “You see, particularly in the slow-motion shots on television, just how much the tyre moves and vibrates,” he says. “So going to a larger wheel – with essentially the same diameter tyre – means you have much stiffer tyres, which will therefore have less effect on the aerodynamics.”
Work on the 2022 cars was paused during 2020 but resumed in January of this year and is now running at full speed. One of those involved on the competitive side is James Allison, who has recently moved into the senior role of chief technical officer at Mercedes after four immensely successful seasons as the team’s technical director.
Like Symonds, Allison is a veteran of several previous F1 rules changes. He believes that this is the biggest overhaul yet and, while supportive of the intent, retains a degree of scepticism as to whether the new regulations will succeed. “It's a very big change with noble aims behind it; exactly how it pans out will be really interesting,” Allison says.
“The aerodynamic aim of making it easier to overtake has been achieved, in layout terms, by doing a whole heap of things that you wouldn't wish to do from a performance point of view.
“The wit and skill of [Formula 1], in creating this quite restrictive layout, is now pitted against the wit and skill of the combined mass of aerodynamicists in the pit lane. While they are supportive of the noble aim, once it gets down to the task of trying to make your car better than everyone else's, lap time is all that counts.”
Allison alludes to the possibility that teams will find a way around the new regulations and nullify the intended improvements. When the sport’s rules were overhauled in 2009 with the aim of significantly reducing downforce, three teams discovered and exploited a loophole. This allowed Brawn GP and Jenson Button to dominate the early part of the season and ultimately clinch the world championship.
“We've learned from that,” says Symonds, who was technical director for Renault at the time. “We learned that we needed to be very rigorous in trying to break these regulations. I can't give any guarantees, but I can say that a lot more effort has been put into trying to close loopholes than ever before.”
For the first time, there has also been a concerted effort to legislate the look of the cars. This is perhaps a reaction to past instances when rules changes have spawned objectively unattractive machines, such as the bizarre 'platypus nose' cars that appeared in 2012.
“We want kids to put pictures of this car up on their bedroom wall; that's important to us,” says Symonds, adding the organisation employed a stylist to work on the design. “As the aerodynamicists and engineers developed the car he would just tidy it up a little; we'd take his tidied version and run it again and if it had no adverse effect we'd adopt it. I think the result is that we've got a much nicer looking car. The style is driven by aerodynamics, but equally we wanted it to look good.”
However, Allison is not sold on the 2022 car’s appearance. “[But] if we're lucky enough to make a good one, I will be deeply in love with it and think it was the most beautiful thing that was ever spawned by man,” he says, adding that “the aesthetics of these things is hugely subjective and very far from constant.”
Ultimately, the look of the car will be secondary to how it performs on-track. If the new breed of F1 machines can run in close quarters and produce entertaining racing, they will be loved; if they fail to do so, the clean sweeping lines and aggressive styling will not save them from censure. Symonds remains confident that the 2022 rules will achieve their aims.
“For any set of regulations, there is ultimately one perfect answer,” Symonds says. Over time the rules slowly get closer to what is ideal. “If you have very stable regulations you tend to get convergence of performance and when you disrupt there is always a danger that you will destroy that convergence,” he says.
“That can't be taken lightly. You have to think you're really going to achieve something, not just make the cars look nicer. So I’m aware that there may be slightly less convergence. But what I really hope, and what I'm reasonably convinced will happen, is that at the end of the first race drivers will say: 'Wow, I could really follow the car in front a lot closer; I could challenge; I was racing again.' If they say that, I will be a very happy man.”
F1 will introduce additional changes next year, including a cost cap, in an effort to level the competitive playing field. We won't know whether the technical shakeup has been a success until the first race of 2022 at the very earliest. What can be said for certain is that the teams will leave no stone unturned in their pursuit of speed, even if it is to the detriment of close racing.
“It will be interesting to see how much of the good of the original concept remains after the aerodynamicists get their grubby hands on it,” says Allison. “It's notoriously difficult to actually change technical regulations with a predictable outcome. It is really, really hard to do.”
The 2022 technical regulations represent the most concerted effort to stimulate on-track competition in the 70-year history of Formula 1 racing. But, as has so often been the case in the past, the changes will also lead to a very different contest: between those who write the rules and those whose job it is to exploit them.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
