BREAKING: F1 Unveil first pictures of 2021 car

Breaking News

22 August 2019 at 12:12
Last update 22 August 2019 at 12:47
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  • Bevan Youl

Formula 1 have released first images of what the proposed 2021 cars will look like with the regulation changes coming into place after a model of the latest iteration was run in secrecy at the Sauber wind tunnel.

Before the German Grand Prix the latest model of the 2021 regulations car was ran at the Sauber wind tunnel for extensive testing to discover what forces are created and how they change when the car moves.
 
The model used was a 50% scale model with the new 18-inch wheels with a rake moving besides the back of the car in an attempt to measure the airflow behind to determine an improvement on a cars ability to follow another.
 
F1 chief technical officer Pat Symonds said on F1's official website: “The fundamental point of all of this is that we are trying to reduce the losses that the following car would face.
 
“The simplification of the leading car’s aerodynamics also helps for wake performance because on the one hand the front car doesn't have as many methods to control its wake.
 
“On the other hand the following car, not having all these little, very sensitive devices is less susceptible to disruption.”


The reason a 50% model was used in the wind tunnel is due to a ban from a few years ago stopping 100% scale models because of the cost.
 
“We also chose to use a 50% model rather than a 60% model and we chose to run that model quite a long way forward in the wind tunnel, so this gave us the opportunity to best inspect the wake of the car,” Symonds added.

From the model shown the sidepod and rear wing are set to stay the same when the final car iteration is created but the front wing will evolve as it is developed further.

The results from the tesing done according are “actually beyond what I thought we could achieve when we started the project," said Symonds.

“With the configurations we have got at the moment, the results are exceptional.”