With the Championships as good as decided and a number of teams looking already to next year's design, how do we expect the next generation of vehicles to shape up? Regulation Changes: The major upheaval of regulation changes is due for 2013, but a number of small changes will be made for next season: Exhausts: After the mid-season furore over exhaust blown diffusers, the FIA have looked to eradicate the solution from the sport entirely. As it stands the teams will be forced to revert to the periscope style exhausts seen in the past. Sauber's James Key has expressed concerns that a loophole may still exist, no doubt the FIA will seek to close it before the regulations are finalised. A result of this change will be that the teams are able to generate less rear downforce from the floor of the car, and may be more dependent on the rear wing and beam wing for downforce at the back of the car. Nose Height: Another change being made is a restriction on the height of the cars' nose cones. The worrying trend in the last few years has been to increase the height of the nose with the aim being to increase the airflow under the car. This has increased the likelihood of cars mounting one another, such as Schumacher's collision with Perez last week, and Liuzzi and Schumacher in Abu Dhabi last year. Pirelli: There are two planned changes to Pirelli's tyre range for 2012. The first is a squarer profiling of the rear tyres to reduce degradation. The second is a new compound slotting between the medium and soft compounds, with the hardest compound being scrapped altogether. The first change should result in longer lasting tyres, the life of the current tyres is largely dictated by the performance of the rears, which degrade faster than the fronts. More consistency in degradation between front and rears is welcome in my opinion, as it places an emphasis on the driver to protect both front and rear tyres and will punish drivers more for locking the fronts under braking. The second change should obviously increase degradation, since the range as a whole will be softer. As a result I think we'll see a similar amount of stops, with Pirelli likely to achieve the 2-3 stop races they say they're aiming for. Current Design Trends: Side Pods: The main trend currently is to undercut the sidepods as much as possible to increase air flow to the rear of the car. Two teams have gone down quite extreme routes with this. McLaren have cut over the top of their sidepods, giving them L-shaped intakes. While Toro Rosso have gone for a double floor concept. It's hard to judge the effectiveness of each design because they're only a small part of the overall package, but I expect McLaren to evolve what they've produced and I wouldn't be surprised to see one or two teams copying this approach. Rear Suspension: Red Bull's RB5 moved back to a pullrod rear suspension system, the main merit of the design was to reduce the centre of gravity at the rear. After the success of their recent cars, many other teams have copied the idea, with the notable exception of Ferrari and Sauber, whose gearbox means they're unable to package such a system. As a result the two teams came up with a radical dual rate push rod system, which has contributed to both teams having exceptional tyre wear, but struggling to heat up the tyres. As a result both teams have struggled in qualifying but have often been stronger in the races. The changes to Pirelli's tyre line up could both hinder and help Sauber and Ferrari. The abandonment of the harder compound should help them with their warm up problems, but the squarer profile of the rear tyres could mean they have less of an advantage from lower degradation. Long Wheelbase: McLaren are proud of having the longest wheelbase in Formula One, and have been for while, which is strange considering the rest of civilisation seems to think it's holding the team back considerably. I don't expect anyone else to go down this route, but think there's probably a strong chance McLaren will give it up as a lost cause and revert to a more conventional wheelbase. Next Year's Cars: I expect Red Bull to continue evolving their current car, this era of Formula 1 has been dominated by Newey's creation and with one season to go until the regulation change I see no reason for them to take unnercessary risks. Likewise I expect McLaren to evolve their current car, preferably (for the sake of competition) with a shorter wheelbase. They've abandoned their approach of having two different design teams producing cars for alternate years after a fragmented transition between projects saw them start each of the last three seasons slowly. Their car has been very competitive in a lot of races this year and should provide them with a good baseline to work from. Ferrari will probably scrap their 2011 car and start from scratch. The F150 was notably conservative when it was unveiled and has been consistently off the pace. They've promised to be more aggressive next year and I expect their car to be much more tightly packaged and I wouldn't be surprised if their car looked similar to McLaren's. In 2010 they also went down the route of cutting into the top of the sidepod, though nowhere near as dramatically as McLaren, so it's an idea they've toyed with in the past. Hopefully the cars will be more evenly paced next season. The RB7 is around a tenth slower compared to the competition than the RB6 was. If the gap comes down again a one or two tenth advantage for Red Bull will at least ensure they have to fight for victories. I don't expect the midfield and back running teams to challenge the top three at all, an I think Renault and Mercedes will abandon development very early to gain a headstart on the 2013 regulations.
Great article. I expect the RB8 to be the best car next year but with Byrne working on 663, I have high hopes for Alonso's chances in 2012. Just want to talk about some of those regulation changes. Are the 2012 noses going to look something like this? I think a compound between the medium and soft is necessary. The gap between prime and option is too great, which means teams will use options for as long as possible and only switch to primes at the end because of the rules. The medium tyre is easy capable of acting as the hard tyre next year. I can't comment on Sauber, but Ferrari are developing a pull rod suspension for next year and Domenicali has mentioned that they will fix the tyre warm-up issues for 2012. Out of the big teams, McLaren will be hurt the most by the EBD ban, as we saw in Silverstone. Their front wing is brilliant and the loss of rear downforce caused by the ban will give them a lot of problems next year (assuming that (1)they evolve their current car and (2)they are unable to recover the rear downforce levels - both are likely). Red Bull weren't affected much in Silverstone, but that was only a restriction on off-throttle blowing. Completely banning the EBD will also cause Newey a lot of problems, because his implementation of the system was so good. Ferrari will benefit the most.
Strange, why have McLaren incoporated a long wheelbase. It was the opposite up until 2009 (with Ferrari utilising a long wheelbase and McLaren short), this allowed McLaren to dominate tracks like Monaco etc. In fact I feel Ferrari' choice of a longer wheelbasse config ultimately cost them the title that year
I didn't realise Byrne was back designing for Ferrari, he should be able to give them that little something they're lacking. I was hoping the noses would look more like the Brawn's. It makes sense for Ferrari to go for a pull rod suspension I think. Will they have to completely redesign the gearbox though? I didn't think it was possible to package it with their drivetrain. I agree the EBD ban will hurt McLaren and help Ferrari. I'm sure Newey will find a way around it though.
I'm not sure what their thinking was but Tim Goss seemed quite proud of the fact. I think McLaren have been using a longer wheelbase through this whole era of F1, there were rumours before the 2009 season that they were going to have a long and short wheelbase chassis, I think they opted for long in the end and have stuck with it.
personally i want to see the overall downforce levels reduced to make the cars harder to drive, then we'll see who the real drivers are!!!
Great article. What will be interesting is that all the teams have seen Red Bulls secrets under the car so I am sure they are doing their best already trying to copy some of their concepts. I still don't understand why McLaren abandoned the 2009 car, it was a great car in the second half of the season, Lewis scored more points than anybody from Hungary and they secured pole in the last race by a mile. If they evolved it like Red Bull after 09 they would probably have been more competitive in 2010 and 2011.
Yes. This article says that Pat Fry has asked Byrne to help contribute to the 2012 car. It mentions that Tombazis interprets the rules to the letter and that Byrne will help Ferrari exploit loopholes, as he is a "skilled interpreter of the rules". This article confirms that he is working at Ferrari. I don't know exactly where he fits in Pat Fry's new structure but I'm sure his input will be very useful. He will make sure that our car next year is not conservative or "conventional" as Newey described it. Forza Ferrari!
If red bull plan on retaining this car for next season, then they will get soundly beaten. The car has reached it's development ceiling, whereas more work can be done on competitors cars. i think it's time for Newey to consider an all new design.
Wait a second, didn't they push the new regs back to 2014? Or was that just the engine? That gives us two more years to play with these regulations so If Ferrari do go for radical they'll have longer to perfect it.
Virgin are still not using KERS for next year Why is Timo still there when he must know that next year's car is going to be just as bad as this years?
That reminds me, Lotus/Caterham/? are due to have KERS+ benefits next year, wonder if they'll bridge the gap, especially since some of the tricks being banned next year aren't currently on their car.
Mclaren have consistently over the last few years lacked rear downforce; their front wing is a piece of art but for whatever reasons they just can't match it at the back, so I do not think they will improve it that much next year, although if they actually evolve this car then they might stand a better chance than the last few years where they have been chucking them away. I do hope they keep their sidepods the same as well because I think they make the Mclaren the best looking car. With Byrne back I really do think that Ferrari can actually give Alonso a car next year that will properly allow him to compete for the WDC which would be fantastic, especially seeing as they have promised that they are going to be much more aggressive with the design. In my opinion the RB7 is the best ever Red Bull car. It might not of had the odd massive performance advantages the RB6 had at Barcelona, Hungary and Silverstone, but it is still easily the fastest car on the grid and is so on a wider spread of tracks than the RB6 was as well. The RB7 also is much much more reliable. So with no major rule changes for next year you would have to be a fool not to think that the RB8 is not going to be just as devastatingly fast as it's predecessors. That said if Mclaren can improve their rear downforce and stop making as many operational errors, and Ferrari can give Alonso a competitve car then maybe 2012 can be the year Red Bull do not have everything their own way. Oh and please, please Mclaren deal with your insecurities and get rid of your massively long wheelbase. EDIT: I am also very interested to see how different the RB8 is to the RB7 seeing as the RB7 was completely designed around the blown diffuser
I completely agree with that. I also didnt realise Mclaren had a long wheelbase design. The shorter version was thier one-up on Ferrari so its strange they decided to flip to the longer. Sometimes I think Mclaren go too extream and that is why they havnt won a championship in 12 or so years
Forgot about this thread probably should of posted this here. Adrian Newey has said that next years Red Bull will "amaze" their rivals. Sounds foreboding . Normally I would just say it is hyperbole, but this is Adrian Newey so "amazing" is really to be expected.
