The 2021 F1 season is shaping up to be a classic, with many scenarios waiting to be played out. How will Sebastian Vettel perform at Aston Martin? Can Sergio Perez live with Max Verstappen’s relentless speed, week in week out? Can Red Bull finally start a season on the front foot and take the fight to Mercedes? Is Carlos Sainz going to be able to establish himself at Ferrari?
There is much to look forward to, but for me there is a big negative. It will be the final season of the current generation of F1 cars, with their incredible downforce and lap record-shredding speed. I’ve been a fan of the turbo-hybrid era since day one. I attended the first test of 2014 at Jerez and instantly fell in love with the wastegate chirping and endless wheel spinning that these power units generated. There was a lot more power (and torque) than grip, and I have an abiding memory of most cars struggling for traction from turn 1 down to turn 2. It reminded me of Penske driver Mark Donohue’s quote from the early 1970s, “if you can make black marks on a straight from the time you turn out of a corner until the braking point of the next turn, then you have enough horsepower.”
Although the turbo-hybrid F1 cars had an abundance of power, they didn’t have the grip levels to match it. Visually they didn’t look that fast in the corners or particularly nimble, in part due to lugging around the extra weight of the batteries. For example, Lewis Hamilton’s pole time for the 2014 Spanish Grand Prix was only four seconds faster than Stephane Richelmi’s GP2 pole time. Amazingly Richelmi’s GP2 pole time was quicker than four F1 cars in qualifying – both Marussias and Caterhams.
It wasn’t until 2017 that F1 cars got the grip they deserved. This was the year the FIA widened the cars, gave them fatter tyres and fatter aero. The result was an F1 car which finally started breaking the lap records that had been in place since the halcyon days of the V10s in 2004. F1 is about commitment, development, and speed. They should comfortably be the fastest racing cars on the planet.
So post-2017 we finally got a car to be proud of, and lap records started to fall. With the cars visibly quicker in the braking zones and corners, F1 became more spectacular. The racing wasn’t necessarily better, with the masses of turbulent air which the cars generate, but on a one lap qualifying run they are about as impressive as we’ve ever seen. My favourite era of F1 was the 1980s, with 1,300bhp turbo cars in all manner of engine configurations. They were spectacular cars, but the era was really just about raw power. The current era is about efficient, usable raw power. Last year Valterri Bottas asked the Mercedes engineers how much power the 1.6 V6 hybrid produces and they said they didn’t know. Back in the 1980s engine manufacturers used to say similar things, but their excuse was their dynos only went to 1,000bhp. Maybe that’s Mercedes problem too?
The current cars are the fastest we’ve ever seen and the Mercedes W11 is the fastest racing car ever created. If you saw the onboard footage of Lewis Hamilton’s pole lap at the Tuscan Grand Prix at Mugello, you would have seen a peak lateral g-force of 5.6g. The 4 corners which made up the Casanova, Savelli and Arrabbiata sections were all taken absolutely flat out. Almost unbelievable levels of performance. During qualifying for the British Grand Prix, Hamilton didn’t go below 5th gear from the exit of Luffield to the entry to the Club Chicane. This is a section that lasts nearly 40 seconds. These cars are almost outgrowing modern circuits. Literally in some cases, they really felt too big for Imola!
So what can we expect for 2022? The FIA have completely changed the direction in terms of how the cars will generate their grip, in an effort to allow cars to follow closely behind. Currently at some circuits there needs to be a delta of around 1.5 seconds per lap for the car behind to be able to overtake. This is due to the dirty air which bubbles off the car in front, the turbulence generated causes the car behind to lose a big portion of its downforce. The 2022 rules are essentially removing this huge delta, to simplify the wings and bodywork and to rely more on ground effect technology under the car to generate the grip. This will reduce the turbulent air and allow cars to follow more closely to the car in front.
When I saw the wind tunnel model of the new car I thought it looked amazing. I then read about some of the numbers and I was less than impressed. Racing Point ran some simulations and predicted the new cars would be 6 seconds a lap slower. An Autosport article quoted Racing Point team principal Otmar Szafnauer as saying “if we go six seconds a lap slower, it’s not Formula 1 any more. And before you know it, we’re going to have to slow Formula 2 down. In F2, $2 million will buy a ride, but if we’re not careful in 2021 (now 2022), those F2 cars that you spend $2m on it will be faster than we are with what we’re spending $200m on. There’s something wrong about that.”
Mercedes are predicting the new cars will be 2 seconds a lap slower, other sources put the number at 3.5 seconds. We won’t know until day 1 of testing in 2022, but I suspect it will be somewhere around 3 to 4 seconds. The other factor to consider is the 2022 cars will also use the new 18 inch wheel. This in itself causes issues, not least in the weight of the car, which will increase by 25kg to 768kg. This is 163kg heavier than what we had in 2007!
So what we will end up with in 2022 is a heavier car, a slower car and a less agile car. We should get a car which is easier to race, however the reluctance to remove the Drag Reduction System (DRS) raises some alarm bells. They will probably keep DRS for 2022 to see how the new cars perform. Putting the lap times aside, what the new cars should produce is closer racing. The current cars lose 50% of their downforce when they are one car length behind the car in front. In 2022 the car behind will have 86% of the downforce of the car in front. This should help racing.
Time will tell, I truly hope in 2022 we don’t go back to the days of F2 cars nudging F1 lap times. I personally would be happy to have a little bit more racing, but still see lap record pace. I hope the balance isn’t shifted the wrong way. In 2021 I will be seeing how all of the various scenarios play out, but I’ll also be glued to the qualifying onboards. They’ll likely be the best we will see for some time.
This article was originally published at Motorsport Muse https://themotorsportmuse.wordpress.com and shared to Live F1 News.
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