The FIA has decided to postpone the experimentation of spray guards to be mounted on the single-seaters in the event of heavy rain to 2024. The idea is to limit the spray to improve the visibility of drivers when in a group. The session scheduled for November was canceled due to the intensity of the races at the end of the 2023 season: teams collaborating with the International Federation would have outsourced the production of the kit components, leading to increased costs not in line with the budget cap.
In the FIA’s plans, the test with the new spray guards to improve driver visibility in very wet races was supposed to take place before the beginning of December. An experiment conducted at Silverstone on the sidelines of tire tests did not yield the expected results because the designed fairings were unable to limit the spray.
The initial idea was set aside, but a second project was pursued, and its experimentation has been postponed to May of next year. The tight end-of-season schedule and the need not to affect the budget cap advised the teams willing to collaborate with the FIA to return to the track around mid-next year.
Nikolas Tombazis, technical head for the single-seater sector of the FIA, welcomed the teams’ input: “Obviously, for these tests, we receive support from the teams that prepare the kits, as we do not have single-seaters available. The test was scheduled for November, but the teams, engaged in a challenging end of the season, had indicated that they would have to outsource the production of the parts, incurring a significant increase in costs. Therefore, it makes sense to postpone the tests until late spring.”
In addition to organizational aspects, there is also a technical issue to resolve. The idea is to shield the wheels with a removable solution, allowing for the management of sprays from full-wet tires, while there would be no control over the water sucked in from the bottom and shot out by the rear extractor.
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“We still have doubts,” explains Nikolas Tombazis, “about what the actual proportion is between the spray from wet tires and that from the rear diffuser. We know that both factors are quite significant, and obviously, we are aware that the problem cannot be completely solved.”
“What we will try in May will not be the final solution. The test will allow us to gather useful information to understand if we are heading in the right direction; otherwise, we will have to consider another solution. If, on the other hand, the session has a positive outcome, it may make sense to introduce the modification on the 2025 cars, while otherwise, it would be pushed back to 2026.”
Nikolas Tombazis believes that the technical regulations for 2026 could facilitate achieving the goal since the influence of the diffuser will be less than it is today. Someone had also proposed introducing a blast of air that pushes the spray downward: however, this solution would have a significant impact on the ability to generate downforce, so teams are not interested in it.
“If, to improve visibility in the rain, we end up with cars having less grip,” Nikolas Tombazis concludes, “we wouldn’t have made much progress, so every intervention must be carefully evaluated.”
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