.... for Allianz F1
Formula 1 started the 2005 season with new regulations for the engines, tyres and aerodynamics. In spite of many misgivings, Christian Dannerbelieves that the changes have brought about better performance and more exciting races. “The new developments have had the desired effect,”says the Formula 1 expert in his intermediate assessment ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.
When, after lengthy discussions, the legislators of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) finally laid down the new regulations for the 2005 season,they were aiming to make progress in two directions. First, they hoped to reduce the costs for the manufacturers and teams involved in Formula 1, andsecondly, in the interest of safety, they intended to restrict the performance explosion of recent years and the resulting increases in speed. After the firstfour races of the year, Danner takes a critical look at the effects of the new regulations.
Engine: this season, each engine has to last for two successive grand prix weekends, twice as long as last year. The FIA has calculated that fewerengines means lower costs, and that lower performance ultimately also means an increase in safety.
Danner agrees that the new engine regulations mean a “huge saving in costs, because the teams definitely only need half as many engines.”
But he also points out the negative effects for the spectators resulting from hardly any action at the track on Friday.
“Of course, they now all drive only the absolute minimum, and as soon as they have found out which tyres theywant to use in the race, they stop practicing to protect the engine.”
He also finds it disappointing that the drivers reduce their speed in the race when they have established their positions, to cut down the load on the engines.
Tyres: this season, every driver has fewer tyres at his disposal. They must all now complete both the Saturday and Sunday qualifying sessions, as well as therace, on one and the same set of tyres.
During the race, a tyre can now only be changed if it is damaged. Danner agrees:
“This regulation is generally a good thing because it has made certain that we see better races.” The cost savings,he believes, are negligible, but not the improvement in safety which has come about from the harder tyres not permitting such high cornering speeds and thedrivers having to take better care of their tyres.
“If you have to conserve your tyres for the entire race distance, you make more compromises as you drive – you can’t just hammer away without a care in the world,” the former Formula 1 driver explains.
For him, the loss of the tyre-changing pit stops is not a bad thing. On the contrary, he says: “The performance is still good. From my point of view, we could do witheven fewer pit stops.
I think one would be plenty. Lots of stops just makes the race confusing.”
Aerodynamics: as the cornering speeds kept increasing in recent years, the FIA wanted to decrease the cars’ downforce by 25 percent through restrictions in the aerodynamics, suchas a higher position for the front wing. This has only been achieved on paper – on the track, the cars are already driving just as fast as before. However, Danner speaks up in favour ofthe new regulation.
“If they had not decided to apply these restrictions,” he says, “the cars would now have so much downforce that the engineers wouldn’t know what to do with it all!”In this way, the performance explosion of recent years was at least slowed down as intended but, in his opinion, there is still much more that needs to be done.
“Actually, they ought to take far more radical action, because the cars really have amazingly strong downforce,” he suggests.
The new aerodynamics regulations are also the reason why the field has closed together and so the races have become more interesting.
“The restrictions have made the field slightly more even,” says Danner, “because eventually all the aerodynamic engineersreach the same limit, and after that there’s simply nothing they can do.”
Conclusion:
The new regulations have helped to reduce the costs, which is good for the teams. In parallel, they have slowed the escalation of the cars’ performance, which hasimproved safety. In Danner’s view, therefore, the FIA has achieved its aims with the changes to the regulations.
And did you know...... that the Technical Regulations of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) forFormula 1 cover exactly 50 pages? In 22 articles with 138 clauses, the FIA has laid down inminute detail exactly how the cars should be designed.
The Racing Regulations are 35 pages long with 161 clauses, and stipulate the running of every Grand Prix. By way of acomparison, the football regulations published by the German Football Federation (DFB) are 94 pages long with 17 articles and 89 clauses, plus 133 additional instructions for interpretingthe regulations.
