Changes to F1’s technical rules have made the creative concepts—involving the Mercedes front wing endplate and the Aston Martin rear wing—illegal.
Both ideas caused a stir when they were first proposed because, despite perfectly adhering to the letter of the law and being approved by the FIA, they seemed to contradict the general idea that performance-enhancing car designs should not make it more difficult for cars to follow one another.
At the Miami Grand Prix, Mercedes debuted its innovative front wing endplate, which had a distinctive design where the flapped part meets the endplate.
This was carried out in an effort to somewhat make up for the negative effects of the new regulations.
The rear lower border of the endplate was entirely free of the flaps since the flaps had been pushed forward rather forcefully in the outer part.
The Father Of Sergio Perez Makes Startling Comments About Max Verstappen.
Alex Albon Gives Details About Dinner Organised For Vettel.
Aston Martin’s Unique High Downforce Rear Wing Concept.
At the Hungarian Grand Prix, Aston Martin attracted attention when it unveiled a rear-wing design that looked to violate one of the main goals of the 2022 regulations.
Its distinctive configuration on the front part of the endplate allowed the main plane to butt up to it in a more conventional manner, so increasing its spread and the amount of downforce that could be produced.
The typical endplate and wing interaction of the past was to be replaced by a curving transition under the new standards.
This was intended to lessen the force of the tip vortex, which would prevent airflow disturbance and contribute to the broader objective of making it simpler for automobiles to follow one another.
“Obviously this year they were both legal. The regulations have changed on both the front and the rear in different ways to stop those solutions,” said Nikolas Tombazis The F1’s single-seater technical director.
Tom McCullough, the performance director at Aston Martin, said he was nevertheless proud of his team for coming up with something so daring under the stringent 2022 regulations even though the Aston Martin concept is currently prohibited.
“I think what was nice this year is the fact that we came up with something novel and new,” he said when asked by Motorsport.com for his thoughts on it getting outlawed.
“It was a very difficult interpretation of the rules that added performance to our car. It was a part that people couldn’t just copy quickly because of how complicated it was to get around several different regulations.
“So in a way, we’ve sort of had that advantage this year because, by the time we brought it to Budapest, it’s quite late for people to react to understand it and, from the cost cap [perspective], they had already made their high downforce wings. So for me, I was really happy.
“A lot of people were involved in that project for a long time, many months in the toing and froing between the FIA. But I understand: our job is always to make the most of the regulations and, if they change, we have to adapt to that really.”
