The FIA claim introducing a new aerodynamic package for 2019 has proven a “very useful exercise” in developing the Formula 1 cars for 2021.
This season saw simpler and wider front and rear wings introduced as well as tweaks to the bargeboards and brake ducts in an effort to promote closer racing and more overtaking.
Overall, the changes appear to have worked with cars able to follow a little better and a more powerful DRS certainly proved effective in Bahrain with passing everywhere you looked.
According to the head of single-seater technology at the FIA, former Ferrari member Nikolas Tombazis, the results have been more or less in line with expectations.
“Some simulations were showing a +10% increase of overtaking, assuming a similar evolution of a race, of course. In other races, the same simulations expect a more sizeable increase, possibly to the tune of +50%,” he explained in Auto magazine.
“That’s the feedback we’ve had so far, but it will really only become clear as we progress through the season. We weren’t expecting miracles in round one at Australia, but generally, we are expecting a step in the right direction as far as aerodynamics are concerned.”
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The 2019 design is only seen as a first step towards a bigger overhaul in 2021, with possible renderings released a few weeks ago.
F1’s motorsport director Ross Brawn has claimed that simulations with that car have seen the loss of downforce while in dirty air reduced to just 5% from around 30% now.
And Tombazis claims that work is thanks to the lessons learnt from developing for 2019.
“I certainly don’t think we have arrived at the final destination point and we can never sit back and say, ‘OK, it’s all fine’,” he noted.
“However, I think that if we hadn’t gone through this process and we were sitting here writing the 2021 rules we would be in a much weaker position. For what we are trying to achieve, 2019 has been a very useful exercise.”
