F1’s Funky Fresh Cars Promise Swifter, More Titillating Racing

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F1’s Funky Fresh Cars Promise Quicker, More Titillating Racing

Slide: one / of four . Caption: Caption: Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport unveiled its car for the two thousand seventeen season at Silverstone, England Daimler

Slide: two / of four . Caption: Caption: Fresh rules for two thousand seventeen mean cars are lower and broader, with enlarged front and rear wings Daimler

Slide: three / of four . Caption: Caption: Renault’s car sports the larger tires permitted under the fresh regulations Renault

Slide: four / of four . Caption: Caption: Pre-season testing of the redesigned cars starts Monday, in Barcelona, Spain Force India Team

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If you want to make a Formula one car that can already top two hundred mph go even quicker, you don’t worry about pushing it forward as much as you worry about pushing it down. The sports engineers never stop tweaking the car’s wings and slots and vanes, aiming to increase downforce while minimizing haul. The more downforce you have, the more speed you carry through turns.

Speed brings spectacle, and Formula one certainly wants more spectacle. And so the rule makers at the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile rewrote the sports technical standards for the two thousand seventeen season. The fresh cars will be broader and more aggressive in appearance, with broader front and rear wings to increase downforce. Throw in broader tires for better grip, and teams expect to cut lap times by up to five seconds and increase cornering speeds by up to twenty five mph–swift enough that the FIA asked every track to upgrade its safety standards.

“It’s a very substantial switch to the regulations,” says Frank Dernie, a veteran Formula one engineer.

The purpose is to make races, which in latest years have largely been processionals behind reigning champs Mercedes, more arousing. Formula one is on a perpetual quest to increase overtaking, and therefore excitement. Not everyone agrees the fresh rules will do that, but we’ll know soon enough. With opening day just a month off, teams are exposing their fresh cars and gathering in Barcelona for pre-season testing. So far, the drivers seem pleased. “You’ve got this fatter, more powerful animal around you,” says three-time champ Lewis Hamilton, who drives for Mercedes.

Mercedes is among the five teams that have exposed their fresh cars, and to the untrained eye, its W08 EQ Power+ doesn’t look so different from the outgoing W07 Hybrid. But look closely. The car is broader and longer, following rules that gave engineers another eight inches to play with. The front wing is six inches broader, the rear wing is about six inches lower, and more swept back. The diffuser, which manages airflow under the car and contributes mightily to downforce, is larger too, as are the barge boards that manage airflow around the sides of the car. So far, only Mercedes has not included a “shark fin” on the engine cover, and is instead testing a god-awful “T-wing” that slams up just in front of the rear wing.

The fresh tires are just as significant. Broader by Two.36 inches up front and Trio.15 inches in back, they increase the contact patch inbetween rubber and road, enlargening grip. “This is one of the most significant switches for a tire maker for maybe twenty years,” says Paul Hembery, motorsport director at Pirelli, which supplies all F1 rubber.

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Xxx fans love the strategy involved in racing–the tire choices, the pit stop timing, managing fuel, and so forward–but everyone loves overtaking, which is what the rest of the world calls passing. That’s where the excitement lies, and everyone has their beloved stir. It might be Ayrton Senna throating by four drivers in the rain at Donnington in 1993. Or maybe Mika Hakkinen slipping past Michael Schumacher in Belgium in 2000. And who can leave behind Jenson Button’s charge from last place to win the Canadian Grand Prix in 2011? It’s one reason Max Verstappen of Crimson Bull Racing is so arousing to observe–the 18-year-old finished more passes last year than any driver in in more than three decades.

Back in 2009, the FIA attempted to encourage passing by adopting a very different set of rules suggested by the Formula one Overtaking Working Group. The rules sharply curtailed aerodynamics to limit cornering speeds but increase straight-line speed. Reducing aerodynamic trickery makes it lighter to pass by minimizing the “dirty” or turbulent air coming off the car in front, making it lighter for pursuing drivers to stay close and execute a pass. The regs didn’t work out as planned because F1 engineers, being F1 engineers, found other ways to manipulate airflow and maintain downforce.

The two thousand seventeen rules represent the opposite treatment, permitting yam-sized amounts of downforce and grip to increase cornering speed. “F1 tracks typically feature many more corners than long straights,” says Holger Babinsky, who studies racing aerodynamics at Cambridge University. “Cornering speed is considerably more significant than top straight line speed to achieve the shortest time around a track.”

Dernie isn’t persuaded the fresh rules will work out as planned. He argues that enlargened grip will shorten braking distances, providing drivers a smaller window in which they can leap ahead of a competitor by waiting just a bit longer than the fellow in front before getting on the brakes. And he says the added aerodynamic downforce will create more dirty air behind a car, making it tougher to get around someone.

But this is racing. Engineers always find a way around the rules, and drivers always find a way around the dude in front.

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