F1 2011: New Season, New Rules. What Has Changed?

Pirelli are the new tire suppliers for F1 in the 2011 season.

The new season is dawning on us; with testing well under way, cars being released and driver deals being finalized before the first race on 13th March in Bahrain. However this season brings a huge number of changes to the sport, this article is my attempt to simply all of these changes down and make them easy to understand!

List of Changes occuring:

• The F-Duct which was introduced amidst controversy last season has been banned
• Adjustable Rear wings have been introduced (THIS IS A BIG ONE!)
• Moveable splitters have been banned
• Rear wing slots have been banned
• Beam wind slots have been banned
• Mirror positions have been mandated, they must now sit in the optimal position for the driver to see what is around him, rather than being used an aerodynamic feature
• Limits have been placed on the rear impact structures
• Blade Roll Structures have been banned
• Connected shark fins have been banned
• Max chassis height and dash roll have been mandated 
• Wheel spoke shaping has been banned
• Weight distribution rules have been mandated
• Oversized started motor holes have been banned
• Limits have been placed on the rear wing support pylons
• The infamous double diffuser (and exhaust blown diffusers) have been banned. 

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I found the following discussion on JamesAllenOnF1 surrounding the introduction of the adjustable rear wing, i will let you make your own mind up!

"To reiterate, the rule is as follows, “The driver may only activate the adjustable bodywork in the race when he has been notified via the control electronics that it is enabled. It will only be enabled if the driver is less than one second behind another at any of the pre-determined positions around each circuit. The system will be disabled the first time the driver uses the brakes after the system has been activated.”

Many fans feel that the device will be a gimmick, which adds an artificial element to the racing and today several drivers articulated similar fears. Mark Webber said that the devices would be at home on a Sony Playstation, but not in the real world of F1 racing.

“Overtaking moves should be about pressurising, being skillful, and tactical,” said Webber in his press briefing today. “Yes we want to see more overtaking, of course we do, we know that, but we also need to keep the element of skill involved in overtaking and not just hitting buttons, like KERS, like adjustable rear wings.”

One of the concerns the drivers have is that the art of defensive driving will potentially disappear. However well a driver defends his position, if the car behind can drop the wing angle and shoot past with a 10km/h speed advantage, then that skill will be redundant. As it will be the same for everybody, there are likely to be a lot more overtakes on straights, particularly at tracks with long straights like Shanghai, Bahrain, Monza and Abu Dhabi.

Jarno Trulli voiced safety concerns having been the victim of some high speed wing failures in the past, “We have to make sure we can run it in a way that it is safe,” he said.

“I have the lost the rear wing a couple of times and it is one of the most dangerous things you can have happen to you because you are no longer in control of your car. Normally it fails at very high speed and you’re going to end up hitting the wall. I do not want to have the worry of my rear wing failing. The front wing is slightly different even though it is still a problem, the rear wing is worse.”"