This week the Formula 1 committee met in London to discuss issues regarding the future of Formula 1. The new-generation cars, which will debut in 2026, will be smaller, equipped with active aerodynamics to reduce drag, smaller fuel tanks and equipped with a collision avoidance system.
Formula 1 technical director Pat Symonds spoke about what ideas he believes could be implemented to achieve the goals, stressing that these could not be discussed at the Formula 1 committee meeting.
When asked how to reduce drag and improve fuel economy, Symonds said: “The only answer is active aerodynamics. You can’t just reduce drag to reduce fuel consumption, because in this scenario the car just can’t go into a corner.” .
A simplistic view of active aerodynamics is that the car has a high air resistance and therefore a high downforce in corners. In a straight line, the downward force is reduced and the air resistance is reduced. In fact, this is exactly the foundation on which active aerodynamics for future Formula 1 will be built.
One of the goals we want to achieve is to make the cars a little smaller, because they’ve grown a lot in recent years. The wheelbase of the 2022 cars is too large in my opinion. The 2014 Williams car I built was shorter than current regulations require, so theoretically anything is possible. Our goal is to significantly reduce the wheelbase by 2026.”
Symonds emphasized that one of the ways to reduce the size of the cars is related to the power plant: “It will take less fuel to cover the race distance, which will help reduce the size of the fuel tank. The hybrid component of the power plant will increase – the power of the internal combustion engine will decrease, and the power of electric motors will increase, which will reduce fuel consumption.
My estimate is that fuel consumption will decrease by 20% or even 25% compared to the current figures.”
Pat Symonds added that to achieve the goals of making Formula 1 more environmentally friendly and sustainable, the circle will be recycled and reused rather than using more environmentally friendly materials to build cars.
“Cars are built with the materials they’re built with because they’re the best for it,” Symonds says. “However, we need to think about recycling certain materials such as nickel and cobalt.
We believe there is a hidden problem in batteries. Yes, car batteries can be recycled, but only up to a point. We believe that recycling should become an important part of the entire electrical component of new generation machines, so we pay a lot of attention to this.”
Talking about the new collision avoidance technology the FIA is working on, Symonds said: “One of the areas we’re looking at is the cars going to communicate with each other. This lets the car know if another car is moving slowly in front of it. Secondary safety has to do with dissipating impact energy, but that requires length and distance, so it’s quite a complex subject.”
Symonds also confirmed the desire to reduce weight: “We want to reduce the weight of cars, but we are not there yet. However, we have to make sure that it stops growing.”
Source: F1 News
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