F1, 2022: the challenge between rule makers and team engineers to find loopholes

It’s a challenge between guards and … thieves. On the one hand there are the Formula 1 rule makers who seek to approve an F1 regulation that allows ground-effect single-seaters to stay more easily in the tow of another car in order to facilitate on track battles and attempts at overtaking, and on the other side there are the designers of the cars.

It is an unequal struggle so it is also easy to predict how it will end …

Pat Symonds can retire now that he has deliberated the 2022 aerodynamic rules: the technical working group that Liberty Media had formed years ago to revolutionize the aero rules of F1 has completed its task, but raises an alarm: “I have worked with three aerodynamics – explained Pat, a long-time engineer with a career divided between Toleman, Benetton, Renault, Marussia and Williams – while now the teams tgat are studying and developing the ground-effect single-seaters will be able to involve well over a thousand!”.

The game is on, but it is very reasonable to expect cars that are quite different from the model that the FIA and FOM showed at the British GP because the designers will try to go beyond the regulatory constraints that have been imposed.

Reading the technical regulations of F1 2022, it is anything but simple: this year, well-defined geometric profiles have been added to the area that define the spaces which it is possible to work on and only the engineers can decode them.

If the idea was to simplify the rules to make them more approachable to an audience other than technicians, the goal has been unsuccessful, because there is a risk that some “readings” may generate doubts even among the engineers themselves, to the point that we will have to expect many requests for clarification or extreme interpretations of certain numerical codes.

We should not be surprised, therefore, if we will see lawyers appear more and more often in the teams, as Mercedes did in the disputed Abu Dhabi GP. F1 doesn’t need to be “brawling”: let’s just hope the ground-effect single-seater revolution doesn’t lead to endless controversy.

Pat Symonds explained what was the philosophy that led to change the new cars with the intention of making them much less sensitive in the tow: “We started the work by analyzing the recent cars in the gallery: we saw how much the management of the Y250 vortex generated an outwash that, the more it is powered and the more it pushes the flow out of the rear tire. The vortex arises from the front wing and then pushes the air outwards thanks to the bargeboards”.

The rule makers, therefore, decided to change the design of the front wing to prevent the harmful vortex from being born and decided to ban bargeboards to prevent the tow of the car from opening too much, creating a loss of load on the car that follows, generating also overheating of the tires and, therefore, greater wear of the front tires.

Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma!

“If we analyze the F12022 we discover that the flow trend is much more consistent because we are able to keep it inside the rear wheels, with few outward loopholes. You will notice a big difference ”.

The same result was obtained by eliminating the turning vanes under the nose: “They were real vortex generators – continues Pat Symonds – which in the lower part of the car were used to direct the flows towards the floor according to specific needs, while with the new F1 we will be able to do not let the trail expand. It should be a significant step forward ”.

Pat is satisfied with the work done by his “team”, but now it will be necessary to see what the Formula 1 teams’ response to the new rules will be: “The attempt is commendable – said one designer – but just find a discontinuity in the front wing and we will see those vortices again that the FIA would like to ban “.

“I’m sure that, at least at the beginning, we will see very different aerodynamic concepts in the front wing compared to the model seen in July. And also to feed the floor, flow deviators will appear to push the air beyond the rear wheels. The lessons that have been learned over time in F1 are not forgotten: we are only looking for the most appropriate way to propose them again for 2022”.