Teams react to moving goalposts
With a simplified aero formula in the offing, the rules remained relatively static for the 2020 season. Before the coronavirus pandemic took Formula 1’s best-laid plans and cast them aside with little regard for their content, the idea was for 2020 to be the final season run under the current formula before transitioning to the overhauled, ground-effect aero for 2021.
Owing to the mandatory lockdowns and cost concerns, those plans were shuffled back a year, meaning that 2020’s cars will remain in use for another season, and giving the teams a reason to continue their development.
A few trends emerged throughout 2020, notably the willingness of a greater range of teams to adopt the thinner, tapered noses used to great effect by Mercedes to reduce the aero blockage to the floor, along with a greater effort to shrink-wrap the bodywork. Compared to the start of the hybrid era, where bodywork was significantly bulkier amid cooling concerns for the early iterations of the current power-unit formula, today’s cars are considerably more svelte.
There’s been further development in the high-yield areas of the cars too; diffusers and bargeboards look increasingly complex and intricate as the engineers seek to milk every single drop of performance from the floor area, while the regulations governing the new breed of front wings set out in 2019’s rules continue to be exploited in increasingly creative ways.
Although there will be a few tweaks to 2021’s rules, most notably around the floor and diffuser area in a bid to trim away downforce, the majority of 2020’s innovations will be carried
