I got a question about what’s changing in the rules for the 2011 season. I’ve said before that I believe F1 is first and foremost an engineering exercise (actually first and foremost it’s about money, but I choose to ignore that for now), but no one buys Ross Brawn or Adrian Newey T–shirts and baseball caps.
The rules are broken down into two sections, Sporting and Technical. If you are interested in some bedtime reading they are available on the FIA website, but are certainly rather dry.
Sporting governs the rules around the races and the championship, while the Technical regulations dictate the rules that the cars will be built too. I may have missed detail in this post, but think I’ve hit the bigger points OK.
Sporting
Return of the 107% rule – This is to get rid of the no hopers that just get in the way of the front runners. Every car must qualify within 107% of the pole sitter. So if pole was set in 1:15, any driver slower than 1:20.25 does not take the start. It should not affect too many cars, but anyone can have a bad Q1 session and not make the grid now.
Team orders are permitted, but it has to be explicit, no coded message to let drivers know now is the time to put their car into the wall. Not sure how this is enforceable, but the idea to make things clear to everyone, including the spectators and stewards.
The maximum fine that stewards can impose on the teams has gone from a slap on the wrist $100,000 to a still not exactly eye watering to the big boys $250,000.
No all-nighters by the mechanics anymore. Garages are closed to everyone between midnight and 6am.
Technical
F-Duct is gone, McLarens rather inventive system for reducing drag is banned.
Diffuser height is cut by 50mm to 125mm. Will reduce rear end downforce somewhat, and only single plane diffusers allowed, the double plane units pioneered by Brawn in 2009 are gone.
Rear wing is now adjustable. The lower drag setting can only be used for a few seconds when a car is trying to overtake another in certain parts of the circuit. F1 Tech director Charlie Whiting will get to specify the where at each race.
Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is being used again. While not really a rule change, the teams have agreed that it can be fitted after the gentleman’s agreement in 2010 about not using it. Combine the few second long power-boost of KERS wit the momentary use of the lower drag setting of the rear wing and overtaking should be easier than it has up until now.
It will be interesting to see if the wing and KERS together really makes a difference.
Lots of little changes that tighten up on the aerodynamics that are allowed to be used. Nothing connecting the bodywork to the rear wing, some of the little dive planes have been removed and the underside of the forward chassis needs to be flat.
Gear boxes now have to last 5 races instead of the 4 from last year.
Pirelli has taken over as the tyre supplier. At the moment all the teams are sharing tyre data so no one gets an advantage through testing. To make Pirelli’s life easier the cars have a mandated 46:54 Front-to-rear weight bias.
Thoughts
I think the rear wing is probably the biggest deal, it will be interesting to see how it gets used and if it gives the 12-15KMH advantage down the straight that’s been claimed. Interestingly it’s only the overtaking driver that’s allowed to lower drag, not sure that’s going to be popular with everyone and has the potential to be difficult to police. Along with KERS it gives the teams a little more help in getting past cars, that tactics that develop around these two things will be interesting.
As for the other aero changes, I’m sure the teams have been working hard over the winter and have already found every gram of lost downforce and probably a little extra besides.
Tyres are the big unknown, build a chassis that does not work well with the Pirellis and it could be a long season playing catch up while trying to get the car to work.
Working in the ever diminishing grey area in the rules separates the average from the great engineers. The F-duct is a great example, the theory of stalling airflow to reduce drag is well known and has been used in aero for a long time. But it’s the discovery of a way to make it work on the car in a way that meets the letter of the rules (no movable aero devices) that’s the tough part.
As I said F1 is really an engineering exercise and that requires huge resources and a lot of smart people happy to work in the unknown. It is absolutely fascinating.
As a side note In Valencia today Alonso was fastest, by a significant margin over Vettel. De Reesta in the Force India was third and almost half a second faster than Hamilton in the 2010 spec McLaren. Based on the 107% rule, only Kovalainen in the Lotus would have missed out.
3 Comments
Do you think the Lotus-Renault (it does sound good to say that again) exhausts will get back some of the down-force lost in the diffusers?
Any idea why Weber was so much slower than Vettel today?
hello Dave, awesome blog, and an amazing understand ing of the sport! This is 1 for my bookmarks.
It does sound good to say “Lotus Renault” after all these years. It’s just a shame Ayrton Senna won’t be behind the wheel once more.
I don’t know about the exhausts being the must have item, if teams can deal with the additional heat then it certainly offers an advantage, I’ve been told the radiators and side pods on the LR are bigger to cope with the extra heat.
The unveiling of the McLaren tomorrow should be interesting. They are the masters of unconventional thinking.