Formula One is indeed in rude health as for the second time in four seasons the drivers’ champion did not come from the winning constructor. The infamous end to the 2021 season saw Max Verstappen claim his maiden F1 title while Mercedes completed their eight consecutive year as constructor champions.

Despite Verstappen in the end dominating the 2024 campaign, it was McLaren with their two consistent drivers who went on to defeat Red Bull in the constructors’ wining their first title since 1998.

The closeness of the battle between Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren in 2024 leads a number of F1 veteran observers to believe the 2025 season will be even closer. With the cost cap now embedded and aerodynamic testing time rationed on a handicap basis, Formula One is indeed becoming an ever closer battle between the teams and last year for the first time ever all twenty competitors were within one second of each other at the end of Q1 in Austria.

 

 

 

FIA 2022 rules goal: More overtaking

Yet the all new rules for 2022 had a singular focus when designed by the FIA and this was to create closer racing and making it easier for drivers to overtake each other. To this end 50% of the downforce of the pre-22 machines was stripped from the traditional aerodynamic elements of the chassis of the car and the ground effect underfloors were to replace the forces pushing the car onto the circuit, to pulling it down to the track with clever changes of air pressure.

The measure of the FIA’s success has been easy to establish by a simple glance at the overtaking statistics from year to year since the new regulations came into force. The chaos of the bouncing and porpoising of the all new 2022 cars initially distracted analysis from the all new regulations and their impact on how easy it is for another car to follow closely in what is called ‘the dirty air.’

In 2021 the number of overtakes during the 22 race weekend campaign was recorded as being 599. This rose in 2022 to an impressive 784 giving an average of 35.6 for each race that year.

As the teams continued to struggle with bouncing and porpoising, the F1 car development appeared to be continuing in the right direction in 2023. The average number of overtakes per race race rose from just over 35, to 39 by the end of the year as a whooping 858 were recorded.

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F1 overtakes fell in 2024

Overtakes recorded exclude any first lap chaos together with those completed in the pit lane during the team’s change of tyres. Now new statistics for 2024 suggest the teams are now developing their cars in a way that is increasing the dirty air and making it harder to overtake.

Passes last year fell from 858 to just 788 and this despite there being two more race weekends on the 2024 F1 calendar. Drivers have been noted as complaining more about this issue over the course of last year’s campaign and the FIA now recognise they failed in their efforts to ensure the teams did not build cars with too make ‘wake.’

The turbulent air hitting the car behind has two impacts. Firstly it reduces the aerodynamic power of the front end of the trailing car, which in turn means it slides around through the corners more than usual, overheating and damaging the tyres as the cooling effect of clean air is reduced.

The head of FIA day to day operations Nicolas Tombazis explained the current difficulty. “When you have a worse wake, you have slow-moving air which hits the rear car and makes it lose downforce. And you also have slow moving air going over the tyres, so cooling is a bit less.

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FIA admit mistakes

“Plus, when you’re close to the front car, you may be sliding a bit more. It’s a combination. So it’s not the two things happening [in isolation], they sort of go a bit hand in hand.”

The reality of the sitation was that the FIA left the door open from development perspective for the teams to continually redesign elements of the car which affected the amount of wake produced.

“We believe that that was the outcome of some specific parts of the car, maybe not being as tightly regulated as possible,” added Tombazis.

“The aerodynamic development went in the direction of increasing performance for the teams, which is what they want to do, but worsening the wake. The key areas where this happened were the front wing endplates of current cars, the floor edges, the diffuser edges and front wheel furniture.

“Those were the key areas where we missed a few tricks on the regulatory side and therefore allowed some options that made this wake effect become worse.”

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Pirelli rubber not the solution

Yet this was entirely foreseeable as McLaren F1 designer Gordon Murray wrote for Motorsport week back in 2014. As well as suggesting ground effect cars as a way of reducing the wake, he proved that by reducing the width of the front wings so they are within the outer limits of the wheels this delivered a dramatic reduction in airflow around the side of the car.

Of course this is not the perfect solution for the general aerodynamics and downforce of an F1 car, which is why the teams have been driven to develop this area under the all new 2022 regulations.

The direction of travel for F1 car design does not bode well for overtaking in the coming 2025 season. Further, Pirelli have confirmed they will not improve the thermal degradation of their tyres, even their remit is to deliver ideally a two stop race strategy.

“If we reduce the degradation too much, the result is that everybody can push, but we have a one-stop strategy with the same compounds and the same stint for everybody,” says Pirelli boss Mario Isola.

“When everybody can push, this is not just the cars behind, it is the leader too. And I would say the leader can push more because he’s in free air and, with the current cars, when you follow another car closely, you lose a lot of downforce.

“Unfortunately, the situation we had in 2022 when we started with this generation of car is no longer the same.”

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Lessons learned for F1 big rule change – 2026

Whilst the prognosis for the coming year is a continued trend in cars being developed with ever greater wakes, there is hope on the horizon according to Tombazis, “We believe we’ve learned from this for the ’26 regulations,” he now claims. “The concept of the 2026 car is different. For example, it has the flow board, which is this device in front of the sidepod which helps control the front wheel wake. And the numbers we have for wake performance is far better than anything we had before.

“So we believe we have identified areas where they could have loopholes and try to deteriorate this effect.

“The bottom line is the current 2026 regulations, we believe, will be significantly better in the wake and I would say, also much better than where even the current cars were in 2022.”

“Hamilton owes Ferrari honesty about his pace and motivation”

 

 

 

 

Ferrari cave in to Hamilton car design demands

As the long winter months drag on with just the Dakar Rally to quench motorsport enthusiasts thirst for action, Ferrari are bending over backwards to accommodate their new Formula One superstar driver, Lewis Hamilton.

The seven times world champion is being given the Maranello red carpet treatment as he begins the final chapter of his F1 journey with the sport’s most iconic racing team. Hamilton is no stranger to working with the Scuderia boss, Fred Vasseur given their successful partnership back in Lewis’ GP2 championship winning days before his step up into F1 with McLaren.

Hamilton, unhappy with his one year deal agreed with Mercedes late in 2023, accepted the offer from Ferrari group chairman John Elkann to ‘pick up the phone’ during last year’s winter break. And whilst he is not the preferred choice of Vasseur who stated he wished to retain Sainz and Leclerc before the bombshell from Hamilton dropped, the boss of Italy’s national racing team is bending over backwards to accommodate the seven times world champion… READ MORE