2021 F1 car design

Despite reservations, Horner believes 2021 rules are ‘right in principle’

2021 F1 season

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has given his cautious backing to new rules for the 2021 F1 season.

The new regulations, which were approved unanimously by the FIA World Motor Sports Council, include major changes to car aerodynamics which are intended to improve the standard of racing.

“I think the concept is a good concept,” Horner told Sky. “This high wake and trying to allow the drivers to follow closely I think is a good thing.”

The 2021 cars will be heavier, however, which several drivers have complained about. “The weight isn’t a good thing,” Horner admitted. “The cars are going to be heavier, we need to get that down.

“But I think the principle of what they’re trying to do is absolutely right. It’s important now that we try to work collectively for whatever areas do need a bit of tidying up that we work together to achieve that for the benefit of the sport.”

Horner added he thinks some elements of the new rules will not “address the problems that they’re hoping to”.

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He also expressed concern that the delay before the introduction of new spending limits in 2021 will mean teams spend huge amounts during the 2020 F1 season on developing their cars for the nest year.

2021 F1 car design
Analysis: What’s new in the 2021 F1 regulations
“We’ve obviously got a budget cap as well. My preference would have been to delay the introduction of these years to ’22, take a little bit more time to evolve the concept, and then not have all development costs next year, which is uncapped. So we’ve got a really expensive year next year before that regulation change comes in.”

The move to 18-inch wheels has also met with some resistance. “It’s visually different but between the technical guys it was quite unpopular,” said Horner.

“But obviously there’s reasoning for it, there’s commercial reasoning for it as well. So long as it delivers the closer racing, it’s the same for everyone.”

“Change can sometimes be scary but you’ve got to embrace it and that’s what it is,” Horner added. “We’ll fully embrace it. We’ve got some really clever technical brains that’ll be applying themselves to it as best we can.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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6 comments on “Despite reservations, Horner believes 2021 rules are ‘right in principle’”

  1. I agree with at least one of Horner’s points here. That the current spending cap implementation is too late to impact the massive spending that will occur on the 2021 cars. I don’t agree that they should delay it though, as that would likely still only benefit the Big Three.

    At this point I would want to see possible exceptions made for teams that do not meet the cap (i.e. spend less than), to be allowed to address any substantive issues arising during the first year of the new regs. Fanciful and impossible, but it’s an idea.

  2. Haven’t read much of the powerunit idea.

    Is there a variation in it.
    Will we see more energy on the battery pack, progress.
    Higher output limits and regen.

    Will the fuel become ethanol or methanol.
    is there allowance on bigger non electric turbo, or some smaller electric turbo/blower.

    1. Engine remains the same, same goes for fuel. The formula is locked in till 2024 i think. The reason for that is that the changes were designed with the intention to attract new manufacturers, but since that didn’t happen the current ones joined forces and said that they’d spent a lot of money on the engines, and if the changes weren’t going to bring the intended results (bringing new suppliers in) then they might as well keep them as they are given the performance is converging and as the years go by the engines will justify the development costs. But the changes are big enough as it is and i think that on the whole it’s good that the engines will be changed a bit later

  3. Yes, I want to know about the drive train also. They were talking about dropping the turbo at one time to increase the engine noise. But it sounds like the engines will remain the same as the 2014 to 2020 era. They are concentrating on the fuel, made up of 20 per cent bio renewable, increasing with technology over the era.

    1. There’s not a chance they will drop the turbo until the PU becomes fully electric. What was being discussed to drop is the MGU-H, but that idea was scrapped.

  4. Well considering wheel to wheel 08 cars were better, what a waste of a decade, sacrifices for nothing in return, the fantasy of returning f1 back to the mid to late 80s is over. Hurray, more sacrifices, now this is the time they’ll work…or not.

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