F1 | New 2021 Car Images and New Regulations Revealed

[josap11]

F1 is just making a joke from itself.. even more! Led lights on wheels? What the actual f........? And they want to keep current teams and want to get more of them to join in the series, for what? To make them look laughable and ridiculous?! Cars look better when simplified yes but not sure about that desing. Well i admit that there is a touch from end 80s or early 90s but.... This desing looks like a toy compared to the real racing machines from the past. So new toy desing, still garbage lawnmover sound, led lights where not needed, that stupid looking thing on the car, teenagers behind wheel.. Let me laugh. Where is true F1?! I give you the answer. Its gone for good, this might use the same name but it carries on only with it's history. Man and machine the past, boys and toys the future.

Who are those teenagers you are talking about? Verstappen, Leclerc, Norris, Russel? Aren't they some of the most exciting prospects for the future? The current cars do look good, they look fast and exciting but this new one looks like trash. That being said, the McLaren render they posted wasn't as bad so there is some hope but I don't think they will ever look as good as the cars we have now. Especially from the front, that is just horrendous.

The LEDs could be very good if it gives the spectators actual information about what is happening on track and not just a light show that no-one wanted. We will just have to wait and see how they implement that. To me, the biggest fear is that Liberty seem to care more about the show than the actual racing and that is where I think the American mentality goes very wrong in European racing.

I would like to see more innovation and I would like to see what it is giving teams the freedom to do what they want with the cars and creating different shapes. In my opinion they should also try to incentivise the teams to make the cars look different between the drivers because with the introduction of the halo it has become even harder to differentiate between team mates.

The cars don't sound as great as they used to, sure but I don't think that is a bad thing. The world is evolving and so is F1. Luckily, they introduced the hybrid systems into the cars in a way that makes them a lot quicker and more exciting instead of just making them less eco unfriendly.

 

[josap11]

George Orwell was a real prophet. 2+2 is finally 5.

I cannot find a source at the moment but I think that if you were to look back over the past decades that the cars are closer together. No-one is 5-10 seconds of the pace anymore there are no true bad drivers anymore, the teams are closer due to less aerodynamic openness. If you listen to Martin Brundle in commentary, he makes that and similar points quite a lot.

 

[davifernandeslima]

every year...the same bullshit discussion about noise.... wtf. F1 is not some crap redneck kiddies show, its the motor -> racing <- pinnacle... Don't care about sound, lights and looks, just give me some ugly cars and awsome battles on the track and off it. The new regulations are adressing that. Can't wait!

 

[Richard Wilks]

I think they should have taken the chance to integrate a canopy in the car. That would have looked awesome, and improve the safety even more.

 

[josap11]

I think they should have taken the chance to integrate a canopy in the car. That would have looked awesome, and improve the safety even more.

I very much dislike the idea of putting a roof on a Formula One car but I agree with you. If you compare a modern F1 car with an LMP1 car, the driver might be more visible in the glass of the cockpit in an LMP1 car than hidden behind the halo in F1. I don't really care what they do with it as long as it makes the driver more visible to the fans. They could also accomplish this by painting the halo different colours or indeed using the LEDs to light up different colours.

 

[UMC 22]

..... LED lights on the wheels.....

LED lights on the wheels.
I finally know why I haven't watched any F1 in more than 10 years.

F1 is just making a joke from itself.. even more! Led lights on wheels? What the actual f........?

I have to agree with the sentiment here. I mean, what the hell is this all about? Putting LEDs on wheels is the kind of thing a five year old does to his bicycle because he thinks it's cool. To a five year old it definitely is cool. To everyone else it's pretty lame, and in no way whatsoever contributes to "improving the show" of F1. Moronic.

As for everything else, I'll reserve judgement and see what happens. It's easy for us armchair experts to argue with each other over the pros and cons of the new regs, but the fact is that none of us know what impact they'll have until race one of 2021.

The way I currently see it is that if the new regs work and improve the racing, great! If they don't and the racing remains relatively dull, then... what have we lost? Nothing, since that's how it is now. Trying to do something and failing is better than doing nothing at all.

 

[dud]

Somebody there didn't understand how computer simulation, in this case of fluid flow (CFD) works.

You don't have good software, in any simulation. You have so-so software that you constantly tune with real-world measurements. So you will be able to do more with less real-world expenses. But if you lack the measurements your CFD results will drift, and the more powerful teams will be much better able to compensate for that.

Are wind tunnels really that expensive?

 

[dud]

It also looks like DRS will be gone which would be interesting. I personally like DRS if it brings the car behind alongside towards the braking zone but it shouldn't be too OP and not having it should not hurt the racing. The LEDs could be interesting if integrated properly but it could also be very annoying and cheesy if they try too hard, but we will have to wait and see.

DRS doesn't work when the cars have electric motors and batteries. If you have somebody with DRS hunting you you just drive slower always keeping the battery fully charged on most parts of the track. Then in the DRS zones you defend with the electric motor. The hunter had to blow much of the electric charge on the straight to get close enough to strike.

 

[aka2k]

They really outdone themselves now: that's a case study on how to make something even more uglier than one could imagine.

 

[josap11]

DRS doesn't work when the cars have electric motors and batteries. If you have somebody with DRS hunting you you just drive slower always keeping the battery fully charged on most parts of the track. Then in the DRS zones you defend with the electric motor. The hunter had to blow much of the electric charge on the straight to get close enough to strike.

I don't know how you think that? F1 has had DRS all through the hybrid era and most overtakes have still used DRS. This is just racecraft and should not be a problem. If you see the driver in front is saving the hybrid for the straight than just match him. It would be the best way to get an overtake done anyway.

 

[dud]

I don't know how you think that? F1 has had DRS all through the hybrid era and most overtakes have still used DRS. This is just racecraft and should not be a problem. If you see the driver in front is saving the hybrid for the straight than just match him. It would be the best way to get an overtake done anyway.

It was quite evident in last week's race. Sure, when overtaking does happen it uses DRS. However, there were plenty of moments when DRS had basically no effect because the front person could mobilize the electric motor.

I don't want to take away DRS, I want to take away the bursts of power coming out of the battery. They benefit the defender more than the attacker, and that is not what we want.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

car design: anything stepping away from the Caterham nose of yore is good +
more overtakes: this is being romanticized, watch full length races from the 70s 80s 90s on YouTube: most "overtakes" were people losing speed due to technical problems, cars were so haphazardly built, they never lasted the whole race. Even with a smaller calendar they needed drop results to make up for the many DNFs. There are plenty of overtakes in F1 today, but more is always better, so +
cost cap: basically a good idea, but will result in massive paperwork (extra costs!) +-
more races: too many already, a win has lost some of ist special flavour since there are too many around. 12-15 races will make each event stand out more. -

 

[bosco lam]

This will change nothing...
Mercedes would still Win…

 

[Ben Lee]

Shame they aren’t going to do anything about the ridiculously huge wheelbase these cars now have or the overweight nature of the chassis.

 

[josap11]

Shame they aren’t going to do anything about the ridiculously huge wheelbase these cars now have or the overweight nature of the chassis.

The new cars will have a max wheelbase of 3.7 metres. The Mercedes W10 is the longest car on the grid with a wheelbase of 3.726 metres so this will be the max for the foreseeable future.

 

[josap11]

It was quite evident in last week's race. Sure, when overtaking does happen it uses DRS. However, there were plenty of moments when DRS had basically no effect because the front person could mobilize the electric motor.

I don't want to take away DRS, I want to take away the bursts of power coming out of the battery. They benefit the defender more than the attacker, and that is not what we want.

If you look closely at the wind tunnel model in the press conference or in F1TV Tech Talk it does look like there is a DRS flap on the rear wing but the rear wing pilars seem to be attached to the bottom of the wing instead of the top where the DRS activator is located in the current cars. This might mean less incontinuity in the profile of the wing due to the activator but it might also mean they changed it last minute. We will have to wait for a definitive answer to this.

DRS is not designed to allow for overtaking but just to get the cars closer. To gain some of the time back that was lost in the dirty air. The activation for the hybrid system would be different in the new regs which would give the driver more influence into when the boost is used. This will mean that the driver will have to decide when to use the hyrbid boost in the lap wither in defense or attack. This doesn't hamper any overtaking it just means both the attacking and defending driver will have to use the boost more tactically and it has therefore changed racecraft and added another layer to this. The hybrid systems make the cars harder to drive and give more control to the driver, that is a win for me.

 

[Paul Glover]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1189975559146741760

 

[Asena6]

It seems like F1 is changing for the better, but the wheels and the weight change is awful.
18-inch rims and +25kg? Just what the hell were they thinking?

 

[josap11]

It seems like F1 is changing for the better, but the wheels and the weight change is awful.
18-inch rims and +25kg? Just what the hell were they thinking?

To hear Pat Symmonds talk about it is quite interesting. Due to the smaller sidewalls there is less sidewall flex this means that the tyre shape is less dynamic and thus requires less research and thus makes it cheaper for the constructors.

Another aspect to this is that it makes driving the cars harder. The reason the balloonlike tyres were introduced was to absorb some of the intense power applications and therefore make driving the cars a little less difficult and thus less dangerous. If there is less movement in the tyre this means that the power applied by the PU goes to the track much more linearly and thus making sure the driver makes more of a difference.

 

[dud]

To hear Pat Symmonds talk about it is quite interesting. Due to the smaller sidewalls there is less sidewall flex this means that the tyre shape is less dynamic and thus requires less research and thus makes it cheaper for the constructors.

Another aspect to this is that it makes driving the cars harder. The reason the balloonlike tyres were introduced was to absorb some of the intense power applications and therefore make driving the cars a little less difficult and thus less dangerous. If there is less movement in the tyre this means that the power applied by the PU goes to the track much more linearly and thus making sure the driver makes more of a difference.

Yeah, the big tires can be thought of as a horizontal suspension with both springs and dampers. Quite powerful.