#TermiOnTrack #F1 News Round-Up: Contract extensions and the future.

With no F1 action this weekend so we take a look at the latest news that has happened over the past week including Melbourne & Silverstone’s contract extension as well as the a glimpse into 2021 right here at TermiOnTrack.

 

 

Australian Grand Prix contract extended to 2025

 

TermiOnTrack starts off with the exciting news announced on Friday morning that the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix will continue to be run in Melbourne and the great Albert Park Street Circuit until the end of 2025. The deal between Formula 1 and the Australian Grand Prix Corporation was recently signed in London.

 

Australia’s motor sport history is rich and prestige, with the land down under hosting a round of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship since 1985. The Australian Grand Prix was held on the streets of Adelaide until 1995 before moving to Albert Park and Melbourne in the sporting capital since 1996. Since then, apart from 2006 and 10, the race has always been the traditional season opener.

 

In over two decades since it’s first, the Grand Prix in Melbourne has consistently become one of the most popular on the calendar with over 900,000 fans attending in the last three years. which guarantees that the Formula 1 season begins in style at the spectacular atmospheric places in the heart of the Victorian capital.

 

Next year the 2020 campaign gets underway in Melbourne from March 12-15 where the sport celebrates it’s 70th anniversary and it’s 25th visit at Albert Park with the Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix 2020 ready to show once again why it’s a “great place for the race”.

 

“We are pleased to have renewed our partnership with the city of Melbourne, which will now host the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix until at least 2025,” explained Formula 1 Chairman and CEO Chase Carey. “The decision to extend the current relationship for a further two years stems from the fact this event has proved to be a resounding success for the capital of Victoria, for Australia and indeed around the world, proving immensely popular with fans and those who work in Formula 1.”

 

“Working along with our partner, the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, we plan to make the Australian Grand Prix even more exciting and spectacular, as a sporting event and as a form of entertainment. Today’s announcement follows on from last week’s, relating to the British Grand Prix and is proof that more and more promoters are sharing our long-term vision for the future of Formula 1.”

 

“We cannot wait to be back in Melbourne, from 12 to 15 March next year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this race being held there and continuing a relationship which will also allow us to celebrate at least 30 years in the city in 2025.” Carey concluded.

 

 

Formula 1 extends contract at Silverstone until the end of 2024

 

Another bit of contract extension news to catch up on after my holiday at Port Hughes was seeing the announcement that the circuit, which played host to the very first World Championship Grand Prix in 1950 known as Silverstone will continue to host the British Grand Prix until the end of the 2024 season.

 

The five-year deal was signed by Formula 1, the British Racing Drivers Club and the Silverstone Circuit before last weekend’s Formula 1 Rolex British Grand Prix 2019 began.

 

“We are really pleased to confirm that the British Grand Prix will stay on the FIA Formula 1 World Championship calendar for at least the next five years, with the event remaining at its longstanding home, Silverstone circuit,” said Formula 1 Chairman and CEO Chase Carey. “We have always said that, if it is to have a long-term future, our sport must preserve its historic venues and Silverstone and Great Britain represent the cradle of this sport, its starting point back in 1950,”

 

“Today, Formula 1 is a global sport, held on five continents, watched by an audience of over 500 million fans around the world and our aim is to grow this number by bringing the sport we love to new countries, while also maintaining its roots: Silverstone and the British Grand Prix are an integral part of that vision.” Carey concluded.

 

Great Britain has played a major role in Formula 1’s history and will continue to do so into the future. Seven teams of the ten that compete in the championship are based in the United Kingdom with motor sport’s contribution an integral part of the country’s economics and technology.

 

British drivers have clinched more wins and world titles than any other nation, and in the 2019 season, Great Britain also has the most drivers on the grid with five-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, reigning Formula 2 champion George Russell and McLaren’s Lando Norris.

 

“Silverstone is one of the most iconic Grands Prix on the F1 calendar and with such a rich heritage it would have been disastrous for the sport and fans had we not managed to find a way forward,” said Chairman of the BRDC John Grant.  “2020 will be the 70th anniversary of the first round of the World Championship which took place at Silverstone on 13th May 1950 and will make next year’s event all the more special,”

 

“This is great news for the BRDC, Silverstone and Formula 1 – and for millions of British motor racing fans.” concluded Grant.

 

 

F1 2021 Rules Update

 

Formula 1 and governing body the FIA revealed this week it’s most detailed look of how the sport will change in 2021.

 

Following it’s decision in June to further refine the 2021 FIA Formula 1 World Championship rules and regulations ahead of the new presentation date at the end of October when the World Motor Sport Council will vote, the FIA and Formula 1 unveiled this week it’s most detailed blue print of how the sport will change in 2021 and how F1 will achieve much closer racing, a close-competitive grid and a sustainable future for it’s teams, encourage new or previous manufacturers and teams to join pinnacle of motorsport.

 

Aerodynamics

 

 

For a long time drivers have suffered from following or attacking another rivals car due to dirty turbulent air, a problem, which stems from the current characteristics of modern Formula 1 machinery. In recent seasons, team aerodynamicists have become focused on channeling airflow outboard of the car and creating a large wake of dirty air behind the car to make it harder to pass.

 

This wake reduces the downforce on a following car making it difficult to remain close to the car in-front. This causes overheating tyres, which forces the driver behind to back off and cool them down.

 

The aerodynamic regulation changes for 2021 are designed to fix this issue by generating downforce in a different way.

 

In place of the complex bargeboards and front wings, the sport will be bringing in the return of “ground effect” that will see downforce produced underneath the car.

 

“There’s a diffuser going right under the car, with a Venturi-type channel running through it. The tunnels go right from the front to the back,” explained FIA Head of Single Seater Technical Matters Nikolas Tombazis. “[With the 2021 car] typically, we will go from about a 50% loss of downforce for the following car at two car distances [in 2017] to about a 5-10% loss. So we have a massive reduction of the loss of downforce for the following car.”

 

The Venturi tunnels will send the airflow back to a much higher diffuser than on the current machinery, and joined to other conditioning components, including the front wheel arch, with the wake generated by the leading car to be a lot more higher and narrow, allowing the cars behind to stay closer for much longer in cleaner air.

 

“The two strong vortices we are creating take a lot of the wheel wake up and over the car behind. As a result what the car behind sees is much cleaner flow,” Tombazis added.

 

One element still in the main talking point in the final specification of the front wing.

 

“There is further work going on with the front wing,” Tombazis continued. “We are still not completely happy with it, both from an aero point of view and from an aesthetic point of view, so we are trying to make it better in both aspects. There are good reasons why the current wing is very wide aerodynamically, but it is not the best aesthetic result, so there is work going on there.”

 

Tyres

 

 

The tyres in 2021 available to the teams will also be facing the same huge changes. One among the alterations is the switch from the current 13-inch to 18-inch compounds.

 

“We are into a deep consultation with Pirelli about how to be in a position where [the tyres] enable people to race and don’t degrade or force people to manage so much,” said Tombazis. “They will need a broader working range and will not be as sensitive as the current tyres. We have understood jointly quite a lot of things that will make a significant difference in that respect.” Tombazis concluded.

 

Chief Technical Officer Pat Symonds adds on that changing the characteristics of the tyres will be a major component in producing much closer racing, although requesting sole-tyre supplier Pirelli to produce a Le Mans style “Super-Hard” compound is not part of the plan.

 

“The high degradation target is not the way to go,” Symonds said, “however, we do believe that pit stops are important in F1 and we know our fans enjoy these two-second stops. Some of the teams are going to help us with this task through simulation.”

 

Another positive benefit on the move to the 18-inch tyres is that understanding the degradation of the current rubber under load has been a large and costly research and development for all the teams and by moving to lower-profile 18-inch wheels that degrade less and makes the direction of research for teams to become significantly reduced.

 

Also a proposal still in discussion is that tyre blankets will be banned in 2021 and beyond.

 

Performance Gap Reduction

 

 

At last weekend’s British Grand Prix, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Valtteri Bottas’ pole time was a huge three seconds quicker than rear-qualified ROKiT Williams Racing’s Robert Kubica – and Formula 1 Managing Director of Motorsport Ross Brawn is open on the performance gap being too large. Another major objective on the sport’s issue list is to fix and tighten the margins between the field in 2021 by around a half.

 

“We have three teams that can win races at the moment, that’s all,” explained Brawn. “Over the next couple of years, Formula 1 will be on a much better path… where a really good, moderately-funded team, can cause a lot of trouble. That’s what we want. If you get a Charles Leclerc or a Max Verstappen in a midfield team, it can make a difference.”

 

The compress the field, along with the budget cap planned for 2021, the governing body, the FIA and Formula 1 are simplifying a range of car systems as well as parts to reduce costs along with allowing the smaller teams to resource targets more efficiently.

 

Some of the items include a simplified fuel system, less complex and long-life radiators, standard wheel rims and braking systems, banned hydraulic suspension systems, restriction on use of exotic materials, standard pit equipment for all teams and a gearbox specification freeze for a total of five years.

 

“All of these are technical and sporting regulations which, on top of the financial regulations, will in themselves create a significant cost reduction,” said Tombazis.

 

Also, cost controls are to be put in place to limit the size of the teams, with it’s objective again to achieve stopping the bigger outfits dominating the smaller teams via superior resources.

 

“The great teams will still be the great teams,” Brawn added. “But in all the marginal gains that they do where they have 10 people on a project instead of two, which brings 5% more performance – they won’t do that anymore. They can’t, or if they do, they’ll be losing out in other areas where perhaps they could perhaps be making better gains.”

 

Regulations Stress-Test

 

With the radical set of regulations set to change the sport, it brings an opportunity for teams to take advantage of, but for 2021, the FIA and Formula 1 are looking to “stress-test” the rules with the sport’s technical team looking at out the regulations may be exploited.

 

“There is work going on to ‘break the rules’,” said Tombazis. “Our colleagues at F1 have put a different hat on and rather than being a rule maker they are actually acting like an aerodynamicist in a team to see how much they can stretch the rules. It’s an opportunity to really try to push [the regulations] to the extreme to see if certain [exploitable] areas may emerge from the rules, either as loopholes or unintended consequences. Clearly, if we have the opportunity to do this ourselves it means we may avoid certain rules that might otherwise create problems later on.”

 

Brawn also added: “The group that we have at FOM is not going to stop work at the end when the rules are issued. That group is going to carry on working, so as we see the team’s solutions evolve, we’ll analyse those solutions and understand if they are starting to negate the objectives so we can steer it back again. We are going to monitor and develop and tune the solutions constantly to make sure that we maintain these objectives.”

 

Next Steps Toward Change

 

As Formula 1 heads towards it’s biggest change of regulations for many decades, over the new couple of months there will be several meetings involving all stakeholders in the sport to further fine-tune the sporting and technical regulations before it’s October deadline.

 

Ahead of the meeting, one of the main agendas is placing more responsibility of race management on the drivers with talk of possibly reducing the amount of electronics, driver aids and restrictions on car-to-pit telemetry.

 

Further talks are continuing on standardising more components that add little to the spectacle and simplifying the lower part of the chassis.

 

Drivers will also have a say after hearing their opinions at the first meeting, with Brawn also stating more consultation will continue.

 

“The first meeting that we had was very good and the drivers stood as a group,” Brawn continued. “Drivers come under pressure from their own teams to take a position and that means that they’re just another voice in the same direction. [But] when the drivers stand and give us their own views, as a drivers’ group, the GPDA [Grand Prix Drivers’ Association], that’s really helpful and constructive.”

 

The end result in October will change of where the direction of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship is heading and Brawn is excited for what is to come.

 

“Our objective is to make F1 more entertaining, more accessible, more sustainable – from a commercial perspective not just an environmental one, there’s a lot going on, and it won’t stop. It will continue, and this is the new philosophy of where we will take Formula One.” Brawn concluded.

 

For more insight on the sweeping new rule changes for the sport, watch this video via the great people at Autosport: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZlEoE0Epgw