If you haven’t read part 1 of my F1 2009 regulations feature focusing on overtaking, then click the link below.
Which teams will adapt best to the 2009 rules?
The 2009 rules are probably the biggest changes to be made to the F1 car for quite some time. It will nearly be an entirely different racing series next season.
For all the teams, it’s like starting on a fresh piece of paper. Rather than evolving the current cars as most teams did for this season, they have to build a completely new car.
Due to the extent of the challenge of building the 2009 challenger, all the teams have had to consider how to split their time and resources between continuing development on the 2008 car and creating the 2009 challenger. The teams who get this decision right will have a good starting point already for next season.
At the moment there is a lot of guesswork involved as to which teams will be where on the grid next season. An awful lot could change before the start of next season and we won’t really get a huge indication of performance before testing starts in January next year.
One of the main factors of these new rules is that developing the cars according to these new regulations is going to cost the teams a lot of money, particularly the very advanced KERs.
Therefore the biggest and richest teams (or the biggest manufacturer teams) are at an advantage.
Getting KERs right will be critical as it could be worth about half a second. Some teams may even struggle to have KERs ready for the first race due to the extent of work required to get it ready and also make it safe to use, which is proving another challenge (a BMW mechanic recently got a shock whilst testing the system).
Although I do think there will more grid changes in 2009 than there was between 2007 and 2008, it won’t be as extreme as some fans are predicting it to be (or perhaps hoping for!).
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