‘Our car doesn’t look like that’ is what several Formula 1 teams are privately reporting following the release of a full-scale mock-up of the new-look 2022 car.
This would appear to lessen the fears of some fans that the regulations are so prescriptive in their bid to improve the racing that it will leave a grid of identical cars.
However series boss Ross Brawn has told The Race that F1 won’t be afraid to “tweak things” if the teams compromise the “aims” of the new regulations.
F1 sporting director Brawn, who has headed up the whole research initiative that has led to this first incarnation of the new car, says it’s “encouraging to hear” those comments from teams.
“But we will be monitoring what the teams have done and incorporating that into our modelling to make sure we don’t compromise any of the targets,” he told The Race.
Brawn has long emphasised F1’s willingness to tweak these regulations to achieve the aims of the new formula and revealed that F1 has allowed for more flexibility since the initial outline of the rules.
“Part of the feedback from the teams to the initial proposals was that there were not enough opportunities to make a performance advantage,” Brawn said.
“As a result of that, we did open up a few areas. Pat [Symonds], Jason [Somerville] and Nikolas [Tombazis] took a very detailed look at what we could do there and as a result, opened it up a little.
“So, yes if that has brought about a bit of visual variation it’s encouraging. But if it compromises the aims, we will tweak things so that they aren’t compromised.”
