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FORMULA 1Formula 1 teams have been urged to put aside
frustrations they may have about more restrictive
design regulations for 2021 and instead embrace
the benefi ts that new rules will bring.
With the FIA and F1 owner Liberty Media having
outlined their concept for a new 2021 car last week,
F1 managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn
says the move to clamp down on design freedom
is essential to make the championship a success.
The 2021 car will feature much simpler
aerodynamics, with the majority of the
downforce created by ground-eff ect through
the use of full-length Venturi tunnels that
will feed a tall diff user at the rear of the car.
The plans have received some push-back
from teams, which claim that cars will end up
looking too similar, but Brawn says that F1 needs
to think diff erently. “Undoubtedly from the relative
freedom that the teams have had so far, it is going
to be frustrating,” said Brawn. “But if they can take
the approach of, ‘These regulations are the same
for everyone and they will do a better job thananyone else, we just won’t be two seconds
faster, we will be two tenths faster’, then
that’s what we want in F1.”
The 2021 car is the result of an extensive
development programme by the FIA and FOM, and
has been created with the specifi c aim of allowing
cars to follow each other much more closely.
The current generation of F1 cars lose around
45% of their downforce when they are two car
lengths behind a rival. The latest simulation
data of the 2021 concept puts the loss at 5-10%.
The FIA’s head of single-seater technical matters,
Nikolas Tombazis, said: “We want to make it more
possible for cars to race each other and follow each
other and to have more exciting battles.
“We want to have tyres that enable people to
fi ght each other without degrading or only giving
a short interval for the person attacking to attack.
“They are simpler than the current cars
because a lot of the small components have been
removed, especially in front of the sidepods –
the front wings are simpler.
“There is a diff user going right under the car –
a Venturi channel type. There are tunnels underTAKES A STEP CLOSER
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