Claw back
The broad consensus… was that floor and associated aerodynamic changes amounted to a loss of a second per lap at the Bahrain circuit. Tyre loss was estimated at 0.3 seconds per lap, meaning teams faced a deficit of 1.3 seconds. Some put it at 1.5 seconds
Formula 1’s pre-season testing conundrum – how best to recover approximately 1.5 seconds lost due to aerodynamic restrictions and tyre sidewall construction changes – has its roots in decisions taken by the sport’s collective executive exactly a year apart, in June 2019 and June 2020.
The earlier decision, an agreement by simple majority to carry over that year’s tyres into what would have been Formula 1’s final season under the prevailing formula, in turn had a knock-on effect after the sport elected to roll over the technical regulations for another season due to the ravaging, and ongoing, effects of Covid-19. Simply put, F1 went into survival mode, but the decisions taken then have had a major knock-on effect on the 2021 season.
Retaining 2019’s tyres for one more year was a commercial and technical no brainer. Sole tyre supplier, Pirelli, was well advanced with development of 18in tyres – back then slated for introduction in 2021 – and further developing 13 inchers meant splitting resources across two programmes, while projections were that teams would soon be concentrating fully on 2021’s ‘new era’ cars. In short, 2019’s tyres could cope for another year.
Revised regulations
Then came Covid, and with it various far-reaching decisions, including postponement of the ‘new era’. Teams, though, had been
