F1 unveils new concept images to enhance race attractiveness

Formula 1 looks to overhaul their current fleet of cars, unveiling three new concept images for the 2021 season, ahead of the expiration of the seventh Concorde Agreement in 2020.

Radical changes have been made to make the cars more visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing, but they’re also part of important regulatory changes to make the races more exciting, competitive and attractive to the fans.

F1’s Managing Director of Motorsports, Ross Brawn, said the intention behind the designs was to not just develop cars that are “more raceable”, but cars that are more appealing to fans who would want to stick pictures of them up on their walls.

“When we started looking at the 2021 car, the primary objective was to enable the cars to race well together,” Brawn said.

“What we established early on in our research is the cars we have now are very bad in following each other.”

Current regulations cause a 50 per cent reduction in downforce when closely following a car in front, but Brawn says the new regulation has improved this by 30 per cent so that a car only loses 20 per cent downforce which will dramatically improve aerodynamic efficiency.

The new aerodynamics would enable cars to follow each other at shorter distances without a loss of performance and Brawn hopes these designs will encourage new teams and manufacturers to join the sport in the coming years.

“We want to create an environment where there is a queue of people wanting to join F1.”

The concept will be chosen by the end of 2019 following at least 12-15 months of research and development.

“We want cars that look better than what you see in a video game, cars that kids want to have up on their walls.

“At each stage, as we have been evolving the car, we’ve had someone we are working with create a graphic representation to give us a feel of what the car could look like,” he said.

“That is not to control the development, because it’s critical this development achieves its objectives, but why shouldn’t we have great looking cars as we’re evolving the cars?

“We want a car that is inspiring, F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport and the car should look sensational,” he added.

As per the latest designs, larger profile wheels are another change that will potentially be introduced in the post-2020 regulation changes as Pirelli’s current contract as sole supplier for F1 expires in 2020, a year before the massive changes will be introduced.