2021. A New Beginning?

Racing Point, F1, AGP. (C)

    Finally, after exhaustive and extensive collaboration, Formula One and the FIA  has finally released its blueprint for the F1 regulations commencing in 2021. The overriding premise is to improve the racing by enabling F1 cars to follow and therefore overtake another car with greater ease. The other main consideration is to rein in costs.
    A cost cap is to be enforced by an external authority. This is set at $175 million/year. This figure does not include driver salaries, the top three team personnel salaries, and marketing. This is less than the top teams currently spend but more than the majority of teams spend. We mooted the idea quite a while ago, but there is a limit to the number of updates per season a team can bring to the car. The list of standardised parts has expanded and a more equitable distribution of prize money.   
    Aerodynamics have been simplified. Currently it's touted a F1 car loses 40-50% of its downforce when following another car, rendering it unable to punch through the dirty air of the leading car's wake to obtain the necessary slipstream to overtake. The new rules and regulations look to address this. They claim after significant testing, that the pursuing car will only forfeit 10%. This is theoretically achieved through a combination of variables. Bargeboards which are the aero devices in front of the sidepods serve multiple purposes. They split the air into three. The first to keep the air attached to the bodywork to channel it down to the rear wing. The second to channel the air to the underfloor. The third to send the dirty unwanted air from predominantly the front wheels outwards away from the car. This was an area that was open for development this year and quite frankly have been become intricate, convoluted, complex abominations. They have been outlawed under the new regs with a return to the ground effect principle, whereas air is fed under the floor via a series of channels or tunnels to create a low pressure area that consequentially creates downforce by sucking the car down to the surface. Front wings and suspension elements are more generic coupled with a rear wing that is virtually "endplateless". The airflow impeding front wheels have wheel wake control devices fitted to limit the outwash from  the troublesome front wheels. Aesthetics have also been considered with smoother flowing bodywork lines and low profile tyres fitted to 18" wheels in keeping with the trend of today. All to achieve a cleaner, higher wash or airwake for the chasing car.  
    The race weekend is to be shortened with the official press conference and scrutineering moved to Friday. There are also proposed tweaks to the weekend format. 
    To date, F1 commentators, pundits, so called experts, even the teams themselves have expressed positive responses to the new regs. But where do you stand? Are these regs a step in the right direction to bridge the competitive gap between the "haves" and "have nots", or could more have been done? Can the cost cap be effectively policed? Changes to the weekend format? Please tell us they are still not considering reverse grids? Rules and regulations have always been modifyied since F1's inception in 1950 to try and level the competitive field. We found ourselves trawling through various archives to note significant changes to F1 cars. Wings first appeared on late 1960's cars and it was still hard to overtake. Ground effect was from 1977-1982 and it was still hard to overtake. Bargeboards first appeared in 1994 and it was still hard to overtake. Cars were stripped of aero add-ons in 2009 and it was still hard to overtake. Hasn't F1 always been hard to overtake? Or have F1 possibly, quite possibly, finally found the panacea they seek?

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