Next year heralds more tech changes
So 2011 won’t only include a new tyre supplier, it will have new technical regulations because of the F-duct. McLaren’s innovation of the F-duct seems to have caught a lot of the other teams on the back foot and has given them a huge advantage in terms of development time this year and from the results it looks like they’ve put it to good use. This new device although banned for next year is surely behind the new regulation that the drivers will be able to adjust the top flap of the rear wing.
With a similar effect to the F-duct a movable rear wing will effectively be a boost button on long straights and will enable the cars to run with more down-force at places like Canada and Silverstone. It will come down to who can design the best system but I’m not sure that I like the whole idea. It means that the drivers have another thing to think about, it means that the cars can effectively have a low and high down-force setup completely bypassing the trade-offs of the two. It is also another thing that can go wrong with the cars.Despite the fact that the regulation is intended to increase overtaking it seems that they will just spend the race trading places and give the following driver a huge advantage.
The money to be spent on developing it would be much better spent on the new teams and getting them upto speed if it were really all about the show.Though the reintroduction of the 107% rule will have the new teams concerned at they may end up simply contesting a 15min qualifying session if they can’t get up to speed next year. I wonder how this affects cars that get eliminated before they can set a fast lap…
Along with all of that we should see the return of KERS, which coupled with the new wing regulations might make for a confusing mix. Next year could make things a lot more random, of course the cars need to be on the same piece of tarmac for any of that to matter and that it the team’s job, to build cars that will compete with each other.
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