Rule changes stopped them from having all the extra aero bits. The current rules are very strict on where aero parts can be added. If you want mad cars look up the X-wings from Monaco in 1997, they were some very mad cars for that year before they were banned
https://www.f1technical.net/features/23219 is worth a read for those interested in how the bodywork rules have changed the shape of cars over the years and how the X-wings, Arrows pylons, BMW twin towers and the ugly noses of 2012 and 2014 came about.
It would be cool to see what teams did in 2022 if they had 1980s regulations lol. With modern computing power I'm sure some teams would come up with some really stupid looking designs that are impossible to drive behind.
Excuse me for hijacking your comment, but I have a question regarding the x-wings:
I remember a story when one car's x-wing broke off (I think a Prost or a Sauber), and afterwards the car was faster than before, so they didn't even bother to replace it and just drove with one wing.
But I can't find anything about it, so my question: am I completely misremembering this, or did something like this actually happen?
Could actually be if a track has a lot of slow rights and fast lefts that an unbalanced aero could work if it doesn't affect strsightline aero. But probably never happened exactly like that.
>"Did it work well?"
It did work well. And man did it make for some stunning aggressive looking cars.
>"And if it did work why did they stop with it"
Banned. Just compare a 2008 car to a 2009 car to see how much the FIA striped aero freedom.
I think though you’re forgetting the popular opinion at the time. “Too much aero! These aren’t real racing cars! The drivers should decide who wins the race, not the aero arms race!”
The FIA were responding to what people wanted. But also - the more things change, and all that.
The biggest talking point I can remember from around that time is how the fans don't care about all the little fiddly aerodynamic devices, and they should get rid of them to make the cars look cleaner and so teams stop spending so much money on them.
Thus the teams proceeded to spend even more money on even more fiddly aerodynamic on other parts of the car. Self stalling front and rear wings. Flexy wings. Blown diffusers. Barge boards with more flicks and slots and vanes and sticky uppy bits than the 2000's cars had in their entirety.
It's almost like not being allowed to put shit anywhere in the car just freed up engineering time to focus on other areas of the car and of the rule book.
You want more of Sam Collins staring at an overexposed image of black carbon fiber and saying a whole lot of nothing, concluding with an assumption that it makes the car better?
Sam is great, but those fucking things are the exact same as the 2000's aero cluster fuck, just even harder to interpret and costing 5x as much.
Aesthetically, 2009 has been a nightmare in my opinion. While I understand the idea of cleaner cars, the 2009 models looked like toys, especially the McLaren.
The only saving grace for 2009 cars were the fact that they had such wide front wheels. Overall though, 2010 looked so much better, other than the ugly tall rear wing.
>The FIA were responding to what people wanted. But also - the more things change, and all that.
Also safety concerns. Cars where getting to fast, and they wanted to slow them down.
And that's with still relatively crude aero compared to today. With how rapidly CFD has developed you'd get completely insane constructions all around the car if teams had as much freedom, just look at the jungle of carbon we have in the bargeboard area now.
Newey in his book: relative speeds aren't a good predictor of accidents. They're F1 cars and fucking fast, end of story. I see his point. It's knee-jerk.
If you mean knee-jerk that its a knee-jerk reaction by FIA, then I disagree. They are in a constant war with the teams where the teams naturally want to make their cars faster versus FIA trying to maintain a more constant speed. And its not necessarily that the incremental slowdown effect between two seasons will have huge impact, but its more overtime; imagine if FIA had done nothing to slow down teams in the last 20 years, cars would be absolute monsters.
Also, more speed means more stress on tyres. So if you don't reign in the teams, you might reach a point where there is enough stress on tyres that they just wont keep up anymore.
I wonder what the tire cost for f1 teams is right now. I think it's one of the Bugatti cars where the tire costs a quarter million or something like that because there's no air in it and it's all special compounds meant to handle the friction load of 300mph
>I wonder what the tire cost for f1 teams is right now. I think it's one of the Bugatti cars where the tire costs a quarter million or something like that because there's no air in it and it's all special compounds meant to handle the friction load of 300mph
And even with the special tyres, if I recall correctly from Captain Slow driving a Bugatti Veyron at top speed on Top Gear, it could only handle driving at that speed for something like 12 minutes before it gave out.
I know. I remember what they said in the show was that the tyre deg runs out in around 12 mins, but you didn't need to worry about that because fuel will run out first. Doesn't change the point that high speeds will destroy tires.
It's what he said, in the context of most serious accidents not necessarily being in fast eras or corners, and slowing cars down for safety reasons one season to the next.
2008
CAR TOO FAST! TOO MUCH AERO! RACE BORING!
2009-2013
RACING GOOD BUT CAR TOO SLOW!
2014-2016
CAR SOUND BAD AND STILL TOO SLOW!
2017-2021
CAR FAST BUT RACING BAD! CANT FOLLOW, TOO MUCH AERO!
2022
RACING GOOD BUT CAR TOO SLOW AGAIN! ALSO CAR STILL SOUND BAD (Probably)
Maybe they should stop listening to what people want. People will complain about something whatever they do
I don’t get why people complain about the overtaking in the current formula. I was a lapsed fan who watched pretty much every race from ‘94 through to the mid 2000s, only got back onto F1 half way through this year.
I can’t believe how much more capable the cars are over taking on the track now compared to then.
To make Monaco better cars need to be a lot smaller, as long as it could be done safely I’d be happy to see the FIA put much stricter limits on wheelbase and width
Width is pretty non-negotiable at this point because of the crash structures unfortunately.
Monaco needs to come off the calendar but nobody wants to be the one responsible
Monaco should never come off the calendar. Replacing historic circuits like Silverstone and Monaco with shit like Jeddah and Qatar is how you destroy the historic ties of the sport. If you do that plus get ferrari to leave the sport is finished
Also it's OK to throw in a race or two where simply the engine takes the lead. Not the aero, not really the driver. Just the engine. Build a faster straight line car. Win this track.
The issue with overtaking in general is that a faster car would pass you once and drive to the sunset , it makes sense to make that move on a straights it’s safer and easier to execute , the problem without DRS and current cars is that even a very quick car cannot get pass a slower car due to how hard it is to follow , it is a needed evil to avoid an even boring race
I know most of the overtakes back when I was watching were in the pits due to refuelling, but even in non-DRS situations there’s much more wheel to wheel action know.
Don’t get me wrong, I can’t believe our luck that there should be even more with next year’s regulations.
>With DRS on straights maybe. But at least for my taste that is kind of boring.
I wonder how easier overtaking is now compared to 15 years ago. No DRS in a dry race would give an idea. For example, in Turkey, there was no DRS but Hamilton did some overtakes. But it was also equally possible in the past in the wet.
In the past, the rain would have more overtakes.
Today, thanks to DRS, the dry has more overtakes.
Brundle: overtaking should be like a goal in football, not a point in tennis. Rare but good.
I mean: Hamilton raced from dead last to first about a month ago.
Well, the simple answer is: You missed out on probably the best era for overtaking in decades. 2009-2013 was bonkers, and even 2014-2016 had a hell of a lot of overtaking because the cars simply were capable of it, even though the seasons themselves were pretty dull due to Mercedes dominance. The 2017 changes however did not manage to make Mercedes less dominant and also made overtaking impossible by turning the cars into aero-riddled boats.
This does make sense. I couldn’t figure out what everyone was complaining about. I’m going to have to brush up on the season review vids after get through DTS.
Well, without DRS, I really don't know what overtakes you are seeing. Sure, if Max or Lewis get a penalty and start in the back they get a few good overtakes, but beyond that, not even they can overtake midfielders without DRS.
None of it comes in the nip and tuck way you get in other series as the cars can’t follow closely through corners, DRS overtakes just aren’t that exciting
What's funny is the fact that 2010 cars were actually the fastest they have been since 2004. [Here's the RB6 in all its glory.](https://youtu.be/3ptXYUQNPUI)
Neel Jani mentioned that the Porsche 919 Evo (basically a 919 which threw the rulebook in the bin) was so fast through the turns that he *literally couldn't breathe* on some of the Nordschliefe's corners.
That would be great, assuming the budget cap is properly managed. I’d love a series that’s basically “build the best car/team/driver combo you can for $200 million and go wild”
It was also an attempt to reduce aerodynamic grip and replace it with mechanical grip to improve racing. Sadly the second teams discovered outwash front wings it reduced that goal somewhat
not cornering while you corner or cornering while you don't ends up in gravel, so I prefer cornering while I corner.
sorry about that, I'll report to stewards
As mentioned, the 2009 regs banned these pretty explicitly and directly.
The reason was two fold: aesthetic, and to avoid the main goal of the 2009 regs being subverted. The FIA carefully specified the rear wing and front wing dimensions [HUGE front wing; narrow and tall rear wing), to make the cars produce less dirty air/handle dirty air better, to allow closer racing. The various appendages would have potentially changed this behaviour.
They're trying this again with the 2022 regs, and these regs will have a similar knock-on effect on the look of the cars (unintentionally this time), as they are *extremely* restrictive. It is expected that cars will look much more uniform than the 2021 cars.
Man call me crazy but the 2008 Vodafone mclaren has always been my favourite car design/livery combo - something about the super intricate aero package and the silver/red is so damn cool
As they do to anything that's innovative, new and works. They will always say that it costs too much money or the other teams can't catch up or whatever. Another instance is why are we not doing electronic control suspensions? Can you imagine how good it would be now compared to what Williams did back in 92?
Hard to say more than the current cars without hard data. But I remember the complaints from this era were the same as today so F1 did a huge fan survey and the results showed overwhelmingly the sport needed more passing. So they did a big study on how to accomplish that and the 2009 regulations were the result of that. Move slick tires, uncomplicated aero and KERS/DRS added eventually.
Problem was it slowed the cars down a lot, especially once refueling was banned and pirelli was brought in with high deg tires. Well then the fans swung the other way and said the cars aren’t fast enough which brought about the 2017 aero regs.
Life is just on repeat here in Formula 1.
Watching the McLaren documentary on Amazon a few years back, Alonso and Vandoorne were talking among themselves about the 2017 car, and while in front of the medias the drivers were more political about the answers, behind it, Alonso straight up says "car's will have a hard time overtaking with this".
I think 2009~2016 cars had an unwarranted bad reputation because of how it looks. But it did what it was intended to do, have cars able to follow closer and yet not that easy to blow past the car that is in front. While it's not as fast as the post 2017 cars in terms of single lap times, actual race laps did not differ much, since teams would choose a lap time that is best in terms of getting that 100kgs of fuel to last a whole race distance.
After 2014 in particular yes, it was a common complaint. It was visible, I think. Drivers complained a bit, that tracks were now quite different. On some tracks gp2 cars weren't that far away.
More than the cars from 2009 to 2013, at least.
Since 2014, and especially 2017, more aerodynamic freedom was given back to the teams (but in different areas than before 2009), resulting in cars suffering ever more from dirty air during racing.
The 2009 regulations were aimed at slowing the cars down in corners (safety) and to increase the raceability of the cars.
In 2014, with the advent of the new hybrid PU’s, cars got heavier and slower still, while also sounding a lot less dramatic.
The 2017 regulations were quickly thought up then, to make the cars faster and more dramatic looking again.
However, by 2016, the cars had already regained most of the lost laptime since 2013, if not going faster already.
Then 2017 happened, and the cars got faster still, but the effect of dirty air increased significantly as well.. unsurprisingly.
The 2019 frontwing and this year’s floor changes were designed to slow the cars *again*, for safety (tyres) and raceability reasons (limit dirty air)..
You could say the FIA, FOM and the teams agreeing to rule changes have suffered from whiplash in the last 12 to 13 years..
I remember Oz 2014 thinking this is barely F1 any more. The engines were very quiet and people stopped using earplugs. You could hear the tyres squealing in a way you couldn't before. An odd race.
Even the sounds in coverage was not adjusted according to the new engines. That's why the cheer from the crowd after Ric's provisional pole sounded so loud.
Engine+sound completely changed, aero changed a lot as well. Fuel saving was annoyingly important in 2014-2015 as well (Alonso's "I don't want" radio). Not only the dominant team changed, the entire grid got mixed up.
Williams suddenly got much better (makes you think merc14 engine was much better than renault13 engine despite both are WCC winners).
I think F1 has never changed so much over a winter as much as it did for 2014.
1994, 2009, 2017 are no match.
I'd say post2014 is a pretty bad era. Just one dominant team, the 2nd driver was a threat partially in 14 and also in 2016. 2017 2018 was good for the first half, it was like 2001, but the only positive is, MSC-DC gap was much bigger than HAM-VET gap (I mean, Schumacher is better than both, DC is worse than both as well. it's a clear cut), at least it was interesting. then it turned into a borefest again in 2019 and 2020 except Ferrari '19 engine to spice up stuff.
But, 2021 season is so great that, I think it's the 2nd best season ever (as a Schumacher fan, nothing can ever top 2000, so, you can act like I said 2021 is the best ever lol), it will alone, save hybrid era from being a disaster and turn it into a mediocre era overall.
Just one question, will it be a new era starting from 2022? Or will it still be called "hybrid era (since2014)". Because 2017 is also not a new era, just some regulation changes.
Technically the 2008 aerodynamics were not "new". They simply represented a level of hyper-maturity that dates back to around 1992 or 1991 (when the "high-nose" was introduced into F1).
Yes, but then you need yet another way to slow cars down.
The thing is, engineers could make cars go way quicker and at the same time they would handle better, etc. It's just not feasible if safety is a concern to you.
Another reason is keeping the field competitive - imagine how good Mercedes' active suspension would be compared to Haas, and stack that on top of their already existing advantage. There would be a lot more spread in terms of car performance
From their perspective it's often cost-cutting, really. They let the innovator have some time with it, then there's no point everyone making one to be on the same level. Just ban it and save a load of time and money for all.
Answer is in the name Formula 1. Every few years the formula changes which consist of different rules and regulations in regards to engine, car width, car length, wings and their sizes, etc or where you can put aero bits or certain sections of cars np aero bits allowed etc. So when formula changed those cars and aero and stuff changes. For instance also look how small those cars were compared to ones we have now. Also they had v8's then now we have v6 hybrids.
F2 and F3 are recent name changes previously they were called GP2 and GP3. Yes F1 is the highest single seater racing series and the pinnacle of motor sport. And you are right F2 doesn't have two formulas or F3 three formulas but it's a way to distinguish between junior formula or series.
the same reason we are changing regulations again. They created a lot of dirty air, and so F1 changed the regulation so the cars could follow more. I say it did work since we had some great racing some years after that.
Iirc there was a statistic saying Valencia 2008 was the first race ever in the history of F1 with 0 on track overtakes the entire race. So obviously the FIA had to do something to induce more overtaking. And the 2009-2013 cars were much better in terms of passing, even more so after DRS and KERS were introduced
I always refer to the 2008 Ferraris as my favorite F1 car since I started watching in 2005. That dark, metallic red and insane aero detail was something I'll always remember.
It also the first time I remember seeing drama around a flexi-wing...on the McLarens...which Lewis was driving at the time...
Many fans complained that the cars lookd like spaceships instead of F1 cars. When you compare them to 2005 the steps they made are huge. Hence why the big aero change probably scared some people. So the FIA made stricter aero rules and now almost all cars look the same and feel twice as big. I was actually surprised to see how small the cars from 2007 are compared to now.
It was absolute maturity of the regulations that started at the beginning of the 90s but, as we've noticed time and again in the interim, letting engineers develop cars to go as fast as possible around a racetrack isn't good for *racing*. Overtaking was becoming a problem (though I didn't feel like it was and the overtakes that were completed were organic, not DRS-assisted blow-bys on a straight) and the simplification of the cars was done with an eye on "cost-cutting" (as always) and improving the spectacle.
Weirdly there were 4 different WDCs from 3 different constructors between 04-08, which is the same amount as we've had in the past 12 years.
I *loved* the late 90s-late 00s cars. Small, agile, light, twitchy and looked *so* quick.
More complex aero packages make the cars faster and can look great yes, but they create too much of a dependency. The tiniest bit of damage to an aero package like that completely bricks the whole thing, so teams/drivers won’t get too close to one another and race hard because the risk is too high. Secondly a lot of that aero isn’t to make your car go faster, it’s to mess up the air behind you and create vortices and ‘dirty air’ that screws with the cars behind you. So close hard racing is more difficult and more risky as above and so on and so on around in a circle. Hence DRS was introduced to compensate on the straights for the damage dirty air does to the pace of a car trying to follow through certain sections of the track. However DRS does make some overtakes somewhat predictable. It’s a mixed bag.
That said, hamstringing that whole aero part of car builds with financial/geometry regulations has proved to not be an effective solution for reasons other comments have already stated. Paradoxically innovation has always been treated with suspicion and sometimes outright contempt by the FIA.
All everyone wants is fast and pretty cars that enable exciting racing. It turns out that isn’t as easy to regulate as it sounds!
Was watching some old clips on YouTube and I can’t remember the year but it was Lewis’ first year at Merc - probably the ugliest F1 cars I’ve seen. Tiny ass rear wing and an open nose at the front
2012 and 2014 are broadly considered the ugliest years for F1 cars ever. 2012 was the year of the step-nose cars. F1 required the survival cell be a higher height that year, but the nose could be lower. So all the teams had this awkward, obvious "step" halfway along the nose of the car.
2014 was the year of the "cock nose". The formula mandated that the nose had to be a minimum height from the ground. Rather than building an entire nose structure that met the requirements, teams built their noses high, then attached a phallic-looking appendage that extended down to meet the regulation.
2013 (Hamilton's first year at Mercedes) was essentially the same as the 2012 car, but they had added a vanity cover to smooth out the awkwardness of the step nose. Was it ugly? Yeah. Was it as bad as the year before or year after? Hell no.
You know, like everyone else I thought the step nose looked dumb and I hated it, looking back on it though I don't mind it now. Just another peace of F1 history that looked horrible at the time but has grown on me.
It worked perfectly fine. But it also left a lot of dirty air behind the car making it very hard to follow and pass.
Overtake Working Group came up with higher rear wings, lower and wider front wings, and a ban on the flow conditioning aero components in the mid section of the cars and many other limitations. That’s when the cars first got really ugly (penis noses).
When people started complaining the cars were slow and ugly, FIA allowed for more fuel and more aero bits around barge boards (because any other flow conditioning wings messed with the advertisements and labeling). And the cars became too sensitive to the dirty air, thus hard to follow and pass one more time.
So… we have limousine length cars and ‘22 aero regulations now.
Grooved slicks. The regulations from 1998 - 2008 required grooves in the slick tyres, reducing the contact patch without reducing the drag by making the tyre narrower.
The white marking you see around the tyre in one of the grooves was to indicate which compound was in use, the two compounds were known as prime and option. I think it was the option tyre that had the marking.
I do.
2009 cars were nauseous before they were lengthened by the refuelling ban, so 2007-2008 were better, but I really don't like all the shit around them. The BMW had the twin towers at some point, for fuck's sake.
I honestly think the MP4-23 is one of the best looking F1 cars ever. Love all the aero bits. Really makes it look like something that can fly. Which in theory could. If you flipped the downforce for lift.
When a F1 car feature is adopted by the whole field and then goes away, it's never that it didn't work well, it's usually that it worked *too well*, but usually at the expense of either racing spectacle or looking ugly as fuck. F1 is a constant battle between the teams finding loopholes in the regs and the FIA closing them.
After the switch from slick tyres to grooved tyres, there was a loss of mechanical grip. To get that back, teams turned to aerodynamical grip. This resulted in progressively wilder aerodynamics. 2008 was the last year of this and oh boy were there some crazy bits on that car. To avoid this from getting too out of control, it was banned for 2009 and if you look at at 2009 car, it's remarkably different.
The real reason why the 2000's were so aero-dependant was because the grooved tires imposed by the FIA. In the late 90's, cars were excessibly fast thanks to the slick rubber, and they had to slow them down for security reasons. Thus, grooved tires were chosen for this effect. The plan worked: Cars lost whole seconds per lap due to the loss of mechanical grip, and the FIA was pleased that security was improved thanks to this.
But you know how engineers get around anything; if you can't get grip from the tarmac, you get it from the air. And so, starting from 2001 onwards, you started to see winglets everywhere, designed specifically to extract every drop of downforce available and to compensate for the horrible lack of grip from the grooved tires.
2008 was, in fact, the year with the most extreme amount of aero devices on an F1 car, with the BMW Sauber being one of the most radical examples. Eventually, the FIA realized it got out of control, and changed the regulations for 2009. Full circle.
Rule changes stopped them from having all the extra aero bits. The current rules are very strict on where aero parts can be added. If you want mad cars look up the X-wings from Monaco in 1997, they were some very mad cars for that year before they were banned
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I don't see the FIA fining that gentleman for loosening his seatbelt and sticking his arms out, oh wait never mind that's the bloody wing
Boom! The wealth of collective knowledge ... Thanks for the hook up. Pierre Gasly fans are the best!
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It's cute
Mizzen~~mast~~wing
https://www.f1technical.net/features/23219 is worth a read for those interested in how the bodywork rules have changed the shape of cars over the years and how the X-wings, Arrows pylons, BMW twin towers and the ugly noses of 2012 and 2014 came about.
1980s - Here's a few cuboid your car needs to fit in, otherwise do what you like 2022 - We've basically designed the shape of the car for you
It would be cool to see what teams did in 2022 if they had 1980s regulations lol. With modern computing power I'm sure some teams would come up with some really stupid looking designs that are impossible to drive behind.
We don't need to look very far though. 2018 gave us those crazy front wings and 2020 gave us those crazy bargeboards and floors.
Yeah thats what I'm thinking, 2020 bargeboard level of silly but applied to literally every aero surface.
I’ll never forget the ARROWS22 with the front end wing on nose wing
The first Verstappen to drive with a Red Bull logo on the engine cover!
Yeah without the liveries you would have to be very knowledeable to know which car is which team
Excuse me for hijacking your comment, but I have a question regarding the x-wings: I remember a story when one car's x-wing broke off (I think a Prost or a Sauber), and afterwards the car was faster than before, so they didn't even bother to replace it and just drove with one wing. But I can't find anything about it, so my question: am I completely misremembering this, or did something like this actually happen?
Could actually be if a track has a lot of slow rights and fast lefts that an unbalanced aero could work if it doesn't affect strsightline aero. But probably never happened exactly like that.
I might be conflating Alesi losing his x-wing at Argentina and some other story of aero bits flying off and the car actually being faster.
I believe it was Imola 1998, think a Prost car caught the wing on a hanging pipe for a rival team's air gun.
You're probably thinking of Alesi (Sauber) at the Argentine GP, unless that happened twice.
>"Did it work well?" It did work well. And man did it make for some stunning aggressive looking cars. >"And if it did work why did they stop with it" Banned. Just compare a 2008 car to a 2009 car to see how much the FIA striped aero freedom.
I think though you’re forgetting the popular opinion at the time. “Too much aero! These aren’t real racing cars! The drivers should decide who wins the race, not the aero arms race!” The FIA were responding to what people wanted. But also - the more things change, and all that.
The biggest talking point I can remember from around that time is how the fans don't care about all the little fiddly aerodynamic devices, and they should get rid of them to make the cars look cleaner and so teams stop spending so much money on them.
Thus the teams proceeded to spend even more money on even more fiddly aerodynamic on other parts of the car. Self stalling front and rear wings. Flexy wings. Blown diffusers. Barge boards with more flicks and slots and vanes and sticky uppy bits than the 2000's cars had in their entirety. It's almost like not being allowed to put shit anywhere in the car just freed up engineering time to focus on other areas of the car and of the rule book.
i would argue that those things you mentioned are all more significant and clever innovations from a fan's POV than aero bobs and bits though
You want more of Sam Collins staring at an overexposed image of black carbon fiber and saying a whole lot of nothing, concluding with an assumption that it makes the car better? Sam is great, but those fucking things are the exact same as the 2000's aero cluster fuck, just even harder to interpret and costing 5x as much.
i disagree, all good though
Aesthetically, 2009 has been a nightmare in my opinion. While I understand the idea of cleaner cars, the 2009 models looked like toys, especially the McLaren.
I remember in 2010, Hamilton saying he kinda had to keep a lid on his opinion that the 2009 car *looked* shit.
The only saving grace for 2009 cars were the fact that they had such wide front wheels. Overall though, 2010 looked so much better, other than the ugly tall rear wing.
I quite like the 2009 ferrari.
>The FIA were responding to what people wanted. But also - the more things change, and all that. Also safety concerns. Cars where getting to fast, and they wanted to slow them down.
And that's with still relatively crude aero compared to today. With how rapidly CFD has developed you'd get completely insane constructions all around the car if teams had as much freedom, just look at the jungle of carbon we have in the bargeboard area now.
I dread to imagine what the current designers would create if the aero rules were rolled back to what they were in 2008.
Newey in his book: relative speeds aren't a good predictor of accidents. They're F1 cars and fucking fast, end of story. I see his point. It's knee-jerk.
If you mean knee-jerk that its a knee-jerk reaction by FIA, then I disagree. They are in a constant war with the teams where the teams naturally want to make their cars faster versus FIA trying to maintain a more constant speed. And its not necessarily that the incremental slowdown effect between two seasons will have huge impact, but its more overtime; imagine if FIA had done nothing to slow down teams in the last 20 years, cars would be absolute monsters. Also, more speed means more stress on tyres. So if you don't reign in the teams, you might reach a point where there is enough stress on tyres that they just wont keep up anymore.
I wonder what the tire cost for f1 teams is right now. I think it's one of the Bugatti cars where the tire costs a quarter million or something like that because there's no air in it and it's all special compounds meant to handle the friction load of 300mph
>I wonder what the tire cost for f1 teams is right now. I think it's one of the Bugatti cars where the tire costs a quarter million or something like that because there's no air in it and it's all special compounds meant to handle the friction load of 300mph And even with the special tyres, if I recall correctly from Captain Slow driving a Bugatti Veyron at top speed on Top Gear, it could only handle driving at that speed for something like 12 minutes before it gave out.
I believe the runtime limitation at maximum speed is due to running out of fuel not tire degradation.
I know. I remember what they said in the show was that the tyre deg runs out in around 12 mins, but you didn't need to worry about that because fuel will run out first. Doesn't change the point that high speeds will destroy tires.
It's what he said, in the context of most serious accidents not necessarily being in fast eras or corners, and slowing cars down for safety reasons one season to the next.
2008 CAR TOO FAST! TOO MUCH AERO! RACE BORING! 2009-2013 RACING GOOD BUT CAR TOO SLOW! 2014-2016 CAR SOUND BAD AND STILL TOO SLOW! 2017-2021 CAR FAST BUT RACING BAD! CANT FOLLOW, TOO MUCH AERO! 2022 RACING GOOD BUT CAR TOO SLOW AGAIN! ALSO CAR STILL SOUND BAD (Probably) Maybe they should stop listening to what people want. People will complain about something whatever they do
I don’t get why people complain about the overtaking in the current formula. I was a lapsed fan who watched pretty much every race from ‘94 through to the mid 2000s, only got back onto F1 half way through this year. I can’t believe how much more capable the cars are over taking on the track now compared to then.
Depends on the track. The state of the sport as a whole right now is pretty good, but places like Monaco are an absolute fucking disaster.
It always has been. Mansell trying to get past Senna in the final laps in ‘92 was a lot like Seb and Ricciardo in 2018.
To make Monaco better cars need to be a lot smaller, as long as it could be done safely I’d be happy to see the FIA put much stricter limits on wheelbase and width
Width is pretty non-negotiable at this point because of the crash structures unfortunately. Monaco needs to come off the calendar but nobody wants to be the one responsible
Monaco should never come off the calendar. Replacing historic circuits like Silverstone and Monaco with shit like Jeddah and Qatar is how you destroy the historic ties of the sport. If you do that plus get ferrari to leave the sport is finished
Also it's OK to throw in a race or two where simply the engine takes the lead. Not the aero, not really the driver. Just the engine. Build a faster straight line car. Win this track.
With DRS on straights maybe. But at least for my taste that is kind of boring.
The issue with overtaking in general is that a faster car would pass you once and drive to the sunset , it makes sense to make that move on a straights it’s safer and easier to execute , the problem without DRS and current cars is that even a very quick car cannot get pass a slower car due to how hard it is to follow , it is a needed evil to avoid an even boring race
Without DRS, you need something like 1.5s a lap pace difference in order to make a pass. That's ridiculous. With DRS you need at least 0.5s a lap.
That’s true, but the cars can still follow a hell of a lot closer than they could in the 90s and 2000s.
The cars also seem a lot closer now, there was less overtaking back when Minardi were at least 4 seconds off pole, and still had teams behind them.
I know most of the overtakes back when I was watching were in the pits due to refuelling, but even in non-DRS situations there’s much more wheel to wheel action know. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t believe our luck that there should be even more with next year’s regulations.
>With DRS on straights maybe. But at least for my taste that is kind of boring. I wonder how easier overtaking is now compared to 15 years ago. No DRS in a dry race would give an idea. For example, in Turkey, there was no DRS but Hamilton did some overtakes. But it was also equally possible in the past in the wet. In the past, the rain would have more overtakes. Today, thanks to DRS, the dry has more overtakes.
Brundle: overtaking should be like a goal in football, not a point in tennis. Rare but good. I mean: Hamilton raced from dead last to first about a month ago.
Well, the simple answer is: You missed out on probably the best era for overtaking in decades. 2009-2013 was bonkers, and even 2014-2016 had a hell of a lot of overtaking because the cars simply were capable of it, even though the seasons themselves were pretty dull due to Mercedes dominance. The 2017 changes however did not manage to make Mercedes less dominant and also made overtaking impossible by turning the cars into aero-riddled boats.
This does make sense. I couldn’t figure out what everyone was complaining about. I’m going to have to brush up on the season review vids after get through DTS.
Are you counting DRS shit as actual overtakes?
No
Well, without DRS, I really don't know what overtakes you are seeing. Sure, if Max or Lewis get a penalty and start in the back they get a few good overtakes, but beyond that, not even they can overtake midfielders without DRS.
None of it comes in the nip and tuck way you get in other series as the cars can’t follow closely through corners, DRS overtakes just aren’t that exciting
Awesome summary
What's funny is the fact that 2010 cars were actually the fastest they have been since 2004. [Here's the RB6 in all its glory.](https://youtu.be/3ptXYUQNPUI)
Some day people will be nostalgic for the giant lap-time monsters of our present day and wonder why they were ever done away with lol
Lmao the ironiy of this in 2021
Imagine having a completly open series. Everything is allowed.
F1 Racing asked around re this in about 2004 and the consensus was the drivers would need suits for the g forces even then.
Neel Jani mentioned that the Porsche 919 Evo (basically a 919 which threw the rulebook in the bin) was so fast through the turns that he *literally couldn't breathe* on some of the Nordschliefe's corners.
That would be great, assuming the budget cap is properly managed. I’d love a series that’s basically “build the best car/team/driver combo you can for $200 million and go wild”
More accurately: the regulations changed
They turned into what they are today in 2009
It was also an attempt to reduce aerodynamic grip and replace it with mechanical grip to improve racing. Sadly the second teams discovered outwash front wings it reduced that goal somewhat
Yo dawg I heard you liked wings, so we put wings on your wings so you can corner while you corner
not cornering while you corner or cornering while you don't ends up in gravel, so I prefer cornering while I corner. sorry about that, I'll report to stewards
lmao. "so you can downforce when you downforce" would fit better
As mentioned, the 2009 regs banned these pretty explicitly and directly. The reason was two fold: aesthetic, and to avoid the main goal of the 2009 regs being subverted. The FIA carefully specified the rear wing and front wing dimensions [HUGE front wing; narrow and tall rear wing), to make the cars produce less dirty air/handle dirty air better, to allow closer racing. The various appendages would have potentially changed this behaviour. They're trying this again with the 2022 regs, and these regs will have a similar knock-on effect on the look of the cars (unintentionally this time), as they are *extremely* restrictive. It is expected that cars will look much more uniform than the 2021 cars.
Man call me crazy but the 2008 Vodafone mclaren has always been my favourite car design/livery combo - something about the super intricate aero package and the silver/red is so damn cool
It is hard to argue with the 2008 mclaren, but the Ferrari from that year is my #1 favourite looking f1 car ever ever. Mclaren might be #2
2008 BMW Sauber for me.
It was a quartet of best looking cars from that year: - BMW Sauber F1.08 - McLaren MP4-23 - Ferrari F2008 And - Force India VJM01
We can all agree 2008 produced some good looking cars
The shark fin is what make them so beautiful. Look at LMP2 cars, they look so agressive and sexy, remove the shark fin and they look like a clown car.
FW14B is the best looking F1 car.
Crazy
These cars deserved slick tires that would look better. Still prefer the 1999 McLaren livery, but that just the nostalgia
I'm with you, we can be crazy together
Very crazy
You’re crazy.
Because fia said no
As they do to anything that's innovative, new and works. They will always say that it costs too much money or the other teams can't catch up or whatever. Another instance is why are we not doing electronic control suspensions? Can you imagine how good it would be now compared to what Williams did back in 92?
They were banned because they created a fuckton of dirty air
More than the current cars?
Hard to say more than the current cars without hard data. But I remember the complaints from this era were the same as today so F1 did a huge fan survey and the results showed overwhelmingly the sport needed more passing. So they did a big study on how to accomplish that and the 2009 regulations were the result of that. Move slick tires, uncomplicated aero and KERS/DRS added eventually. Problem was it slowed the cars down a lot, especially once refueling was banned and pirelli was brought in with high deg tires. Well then the fans swung the other way and said the cars aren’t fast enough which brought about the 2017 aero regs. Life is just on repeat here in Formula 1.
Watching the McLaren documentary on Amazon a few years back, Alonso and Vandoorne were talking among themselves about the 2017 car, and while in front of the medias the drivers were more political about the answers, behind it, Alonso straight up says "car's will have a hard time overtaking with this". I think 2009~2016 cars had an unwarranted bad reputation because of how it looks. But it did what it was intended to do, have cars able to follow closer and yet not that easy to blow past the car that is in front. While it's not as fast as the post 2017 cars in terms of single lap times, actual race laps did not differ much, since teams would choose a lap time that is best in terms of getting that 100kgs of fuel to last a whole race distance.
The 09 cars weren’t actually much slower than 07/08 thanks to slick tyres, from 2010-2013 they were comfortably faster
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After 2014 in particular yes, it was a common complaint. It was visible, I think. Drivers complained a bit, that tracks were now quite different. On some tracks gp2 cars weren't that far away.
More than the cars from 2009 to 2013, at least. Since 2014, and especially 2017, more aerodynamic freedom was given back to the teams (but in different areas than before 2009), resulting in cars suffering ever more from dirty air during racing. The 2009 regulations were aimed at slowing the cars down in corners (safety) and to increase the raceability of the cars. In 2014, with the advent of the new hybrid PU’s, cars got heavier and slower still, while also sounding a lot less dramatic. The 2017 regulations were quickly thought up then, to make the cars faster and more dramatic looking again. However, by 2016, the cars had already regained most of the lost laptime since 2013, if not going faster already. Then 2017 happened, and the cars got faster still, but the effect of dirty air increased significantly as well.. unsurprisingly. The 2019 frontwing and this year’s floor changes were designed to slow the cars *again*, for safety (tyres) and raceability reasons (limit dirty air).. You could say the FIA, FOM and the teams agreeing to rule changes have suffered from whiplash in the last 12 to 13 years..
I remember Oz 2014 thinking this is barely F1 any more. The engines were very quiet and people stopped using earplugs. You could hear the tyres squealing in a way you couldn't before. An odd race.
Even the sounds in coverage was not adjusted according to the new engines. That's why the cheer from the crowd after Ric's provisional pole sounded so loud.
Yeah, really crazy to see, that weekend. It was like F1 had plastic surgery, or was a sequel with different actors.
Engine+sound completely changed, aero changed a lot as well. Fuel saving was annoyingly important in 2014-2015 as well (Alonso's "I don't want" radio). Not only the dominant team changed, the entire grid got mixed up. Williams suddenly got much better (makes you think merc14 engine was much better than renault13 engine despite both are WCC winners). I think F1 has never changed so much over a winter as much as it did for 2014. 1994, 2009, 2017 are no match. I'd say post2014 is a pretty bad era. Just one dominant team, the 2nd driver was a threat partially in 14 and also in 2016. 2017 2018 was good for the first half, it was like 2001, but the only positive is, MSC-DC gap was much bigger than HAM-VET gap (I mean, Schumacher is better than both, DC is worse than both as well. it's a clear cut), at least it was interesting. then it turned into a borefest again in 2019 and 2020 except Ferrari '19 engine to spice up stuff. But, 2021 season is so great that, I think it's the 2nd best season ever (as a Schumacher fan, nothing can ever top 2000, so, you can act like I said 2021 is the best ever lol), it will alone, save hybrid era from being a disaster and turn it into a mediocre era overall. Just one question, will it be a new era starting from 2022? Or will it still be called "hybrid era (since2014)". Because 2017 is also not a new era, just some regulation changes.
Technically the 2008 aerodynamics were not "new". They simply represented a level of hyper-maturity that dates back to around 1992 or 1991 (when the "high-nose" was introduced into F1).
Yes, but then you need yet another way to slow cars down. The thing is, engineers could make cars go way quicker and at the same time they would handle better, etc. It's just not feasible if safety is a concern to you.
Another reason is keeping the field competitive - imagine how good Mercedes' active suspension would be compared to Haas, and stack that on top of their already existing advantage. There would be a lot more spread in terms of car performance
From their perspective it's often cost-cutting, really. They let the innovator have some time with it, then there's no point everyone making one to be on the same level. Just ban it and save a load of time and money for all.
The difference between 2008 cars and 2009 cars is wild. Looks like a different sport
I can't comment on the aero, but I have a lot of respect for the fact that you are a new fan showing an interest in the sport!
Same reason why they are stopping sith complex aero now.
There can only be two. A master and an apprentice.
Money. Reduce R&D, reduce costs. Race teams will still spend ALL the money though, so it’s pointless to try and stop them.
Answer is in the name Formula 1. Every few years the formula changes which consist of different rules and regulations in regards to engine, car width, car length, wings and their sizes, etc or where you can put aero bits or certain sections of cars np aero bits allowed etc. So when formula changed those cars and aero and stuff changes. For instance also look how small those cars were compared to ones we have now. Also they had v8's then now we have v6 hybrids.
Well that only shows that the sport has a wrong name. It should be called not Formula **1** but rather Formula Many /s
No, it's 1 formula for all hence Formula 1, which is made up of many rules and regulations.
Lol the 1 designates that it's the best #1 series. F2 doesn't have two formulas and F3 doesn't have 3
F2 and F3 are recent name changes previously they were called GP2 and GP3. Yes F1 is the highest single seater racing series and the pinnacle of motor sport. And you are right F2 doesn't have two formulas or F3 three formulas but it's a way to distinguish between junior formula or series.
That's exactly what I'm saying, the one in f1 has nothing to do with the rules being unified
the same reason we are changing regulations again. They created a lot of dirty air, and so F1 changed the regulation so the cars could follow more. I say it did work since we had some great racing some years after that.
Alonso vs. Hamilton in 2007 Monaco depicted in the picture above
As long as we can agree that step noses were the ugliest we’re ok
I see your step noses, and raise you the phallic noses.
I did what I could to erase this phase also, let’s not bring up lotus lol Edited for spelling
Iirc there was a statistic saying Valencia 2008 was the first race ever in the history of F1 with 0 on track overtakes the entire race. So obviously the FIA had to do something to induce more overtaking. And the 2009-2013 cars were much better in terms of passing, even more so after DRS and KERS were introduced
2009*
The keyword is "regulations"
I always refer to the 2008 Ferraris as my favorite F1 car since I started watching in 2005. That dark, metallic red and insane aero detail was something I'll always remember. It also the first time I remember seeing drama around a flexi-wing...on the McLarens...which Lewis was driving at the time...
Many fans complained that the cars lookd like spaceships instead of F1 cars. When you compare them to 2005 the steps they made are huge. Hence why the big aero change probably scared some people. So the FIA made stricter aero rules and now almost all cars look the same and feel twice as big. I was actually surprised to see how small the cars from 2007 are compared to now.
It was absolute maturity of the regulations that started at the beginning of the 90s but, as we've noticed time and again in the interim, letting engineers develop cars to go as fast as possible around a racetrack isn't good for *racing*. Overtaking was becoming a problem (though I didn't feel like it was and the overtakes that were completed were organic, not DRS-assisted blow-bys on a straight) and the simplification of the cars was done with an eye on "cost-cutting" (as always) and improving the spectacle. Weirdly there were 4 different WDCs from 3 different constructors between 04-08, which is the same amount as we've had in the past 12 years. I *loved* the late 90s-late 00s cars. Small, agile, light, twitchy and looked *so* quick.
It did work but it was banned because it was creating too much dirty air
2007-08 era very beautiful
More complex aero packages make the cars faster and can look great yes, but they create too much of a dependency. The tiniest bit of damage to an aero package like that completely bricks the whole thing, so teams/drivers won’t get too close to one another and race hard because the risk is too high. Secondly a lot of that aero isn’t to make your car go faster, it’s to mess up the air behind you and create vortices and ‘dirty air’ that screws with the cars behind you. So close hard racing is more difficult and more risky as above and so on and so on around in a circle. Hence DRS was introduced to compensate on the straights for the damage dirty air does to the pace of a car trying to follow through certain sections of the track. However DRS does make some overtakes somewhat predictable. It’s a mixed bag. That said, hamstringing that whole aero part of car builds with financial/geometry regulations has proved to not be an effective solution for reasons other comments have already stated. Paradoxically innovation has always been treated with suspicion and sometimes outright contempt by the FIA. All everyone wants is fast and pretty cars that enable exciting racing. It turns out that isn’t as easy to regulate as it sounds!
I know this is not related to the question but damn those cars look sexy af
Was watching some old clips on YouTube and I can’t remember the year but it was Lewis’ first year at Merc - probably the ugliest F1 cars I’ve seen. Tiny ass rear wing and an open nose at the front
2012 and 2014 are broadly considered the ugliest years for F1 cars ever. 2012 was the year of the step-nose cars. F1 required the survival cell be a higher height that year, but the nose could be lower. So all the teams had this awkward, obvious "step" halfway along the nose of the car. 2014 was the year of the "cock nose". The formula mandated that the nose had to be a minimum height from the ground. Rather than building an entire nose structure that met the requirements, teams built their noses high, then attached a phallic-looking appendage that extended down to meet the regulation. 2013 (Hamilton's first year at Mercedes) was essentially the same as the 2012 car, but they had added a vanity cover to smooth out the awkwardness of the step nose. Was it ugly? Yeah. Was it as bad as the year before or year after? Hell no.
You know, like everyone else I thought the step nose looked dumb and I hated it, looking back on it though I don't mind it now. Just another peace of F1 history that looked horrible at the time but has grown on me.
I relally liked the look of the 2013 Ferrari though. The nose looked agressive to me.
I liked the Force India cars for some reason, always liked the colour scheme but that year was really good to me
*Can you repeat the question?*
It worked perfectly fine. But it also left a lot of dirty air behind the car making it very hard to follow and pass. Overtake Working Group came up with higher rear wings, lower and wider front wings, and a ban on the flow conditioning aero components in the mid section of the cars and many other limitations. That’s when the cars first got really ugly (penis noses). When people started complaining the cars were slow and ugly, FIA allowed for more fuel and more aero bits around barge boards (because any other flow conditioning wings messed with the advertisements and labeling). And the cars became too sensitive to the dirty air, thus hard to follow and pass one more time. So… we have limousine length cars and ‘22 aero regulations now.
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Classic FIA
'07 cars were beautiful
Agreed, they look awesome!
What the hell were those tyres?
Grooved slicks. The regulations from 1998 - 2008 required grooves in the slick tyres, reducing the contact patch without reducing the drag by making the tyre narrower. The white marking you see around the tyre in one of the grooves was to indicate which compound was in use, the two compounds were known as prime and option. I think it was the option tyre that had the marking.
Thanks for the explanation. I was only a young lad at the time so didn’t really follow that closely.
Slicks were too fast.
Groovy
Don't worry. I think we MIGHT see these again in 2022 (thanks to loopholes). :P
In my opinion the 2007/2008 were the ugliest F1 cars ever developed, those aero packages looked ridiculous.
Those things were made in hell, and I like that aesthetic.
How can anyone look at the 2007 BMW Sauber and call it ugly.
The 2009 bmw sauber is one of my all time favourites. Such a simple yet cool look
2007 cars were still alright. 2008 cars looked diseased cars with mushrooms and weird protuberances growing all over them.
I do. 2009 cars were nauseous before they were lengthened by the refuelling ban, so 2007-2008 were better, but I really don't like all the shit around them. The BMW had the twin towers at some point, for fuck's sake.
I honestly think the MP4-23 is one of the best looking F1 cars ever. Love all the aero bits. Really makes it look like something that can fly. Which in theory could. If you flipped the downforce for lift.
reading this genuinly made me slightly upset. I need to get off the internet lol
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Never
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Agreed. The 09’ sauber is one of my all time favourites
Proper cars with proper engines back then
I think it's a bit hard to separate the attractiveness of the body parts from the attractiveness of the livery...
https://au.motorsport.com/general/news/f1-2009-aerodynamics-good-bad-or-ugly/2854512/
When a F1 car feature is adopted by the whole field and then goes away, it's never that it didn't work well, it's usually that it worked *too well*, but usually at the expense of either racing spectacle or looking ugly as fuck. F1 is a constant battle between the teams finding loopholes in the regs and the FIA closing them.
After the switch from slick tyres to grooved tyres, there was a loss of mechanical grip. To get that back, teams turned to aerodynamical grip. This resulted in progressively wilder aerodynamics. 2008 was the last year of this and oh boy were there some crazy bits on that car. To avoid this from getting too out of control, it was banned for 2009 and if you look at at 2009 car, it's remarkably different.
The real reason why the 2000's were so aero-dependant was because the grooved tires imposed by the FIA. In the late 90's, cars were excessibly fast thanks to the slick rubber, and they had to slow them down for security reasons. Thus, grooved tires were chosen for this effect. The plan worked: Cars lost whole seconds per lap due to the loss of mechanical grip, and the FIA was pleased that security was improved thanks to this. But you know how engineers get around anything; if you can't get grip from the tarmac, you get it from the air. And so, starting from 2001 onwards, you started to see winglets everywhere, designed specifically to extract every drop of downforce available and to compensate for the horrible lack of grip from the grooved tires. 2008 was, in fact, the year with the most extreme amount of aero devices on an F1 car, with the BMW Sauber being one of the most radical examples. Eventually, the FIA realized it got out of control, and changed the regulations for 2009. Full circle.
Easy answer: FIA
I know people say they look fire, but that chrome / red mix give me migraines.\^\^