F1 2009 regulations PART 1: More overtaking?

Overall I do think these changes will see an increase in overtaking. According to the OWG’s wind tunnel research a car will now need to be around 0.5 seconds faster to overtake. This is a huge improvement over the 1.5 to 2.0 seconds needed currently as mentioned earlier. I think drivers will definitely feel the difference and will struggle less whilst in the turbulent air zone.

Lowering the front wing and removing all the upper body devices is definitely a very good move. When the front wing was raised and new upper devices started popping up in 2005 a lot of drivers said straight away that it was harder to follow cars. As more and more development went on with these new devices the sensitivity to the turbulent air has become greater and greater. Also removing the bargeboards is another very good step in my opinion, this helps reduce the turbulence.

Overall these changes will create a much finer balance between aero grip and mechanical grip. These last few years it has all been about aero grip. Whilst this makes the cars very fast it creates a bigger wake of turbulent which the cars are so sensitive to. Mechanical grip on the other hand creates no such major problems whilst following another car.

However it’s not all good news. A few leading pundits have expressed some disappointment in the changes in the diffuser regs (the diffuser is designed to speed up airflow under the car by extracting it). According to leading technical experts the diffuser can reduce the turbulent air behind the car, especially if it is made more powerful. In this new set of rules the diffuser has actually been made less powerful. So the OWG may have missed a trick here

The other problem I can see is the intelligence of engineers in F1. I can see engineers being able to find ways round some of these rules and being able to get the downforce back in certain areas of the car. This could end up eventually making the turbulent airflow as bad as it was before. The reduction in aero downforce for 2009 is quoted as being around 40%. I would have gone even furthur and enforced a 60 or 70% reduction so that we see an even bigger emphasis on mechanical grip and make it easier still to overtake. Even F1 engineers would find it very hard to get all that aero downforce back. I think these new rules go part of the way for making F1 cars easier to overtake but I think they could have gone even furthur.

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