The 2022 Formula 1 season will start this weekend with new regulations, and the Bahrain Grand Prix is the first litmus test for teams to see their true position on the grid.
Those responsible for the creation of the technical regulations have made an effort to reduce the freedom of aerodynamic ingenuity that they previously had, pressing to make a category more close and easier for the single-seaters to follow each other.
That would increase the battles on the track, although it was feared that the teams, limited by the rules, could have made the same decisions to build their cars. However, after the presentations and the two weeks of testing, the teams have pleasantly surprised everyone with a wide variety of aerodynamic designs.
One of the biggest areas where teams have settled on different setups has been in the sidepods. Mercedes updated its W13 with slimmer, more upright ones, while Ferrari sports a wider, letterbox-like design.
The FIA’s head of single-seater affairs, Nikolas Tombazis , explained that the group he worked with kept “very attentive to certain areas of the cars” that were the most aerodynamically sensitive to generating dirty air.
This meant that other parts, such as the pontoons, had more design freedom, although the member of the regulatory body admitted that he did not expect to see so many differences between the teams.
“We have consciously given the pontoons more freedom than other areas,” he acknowledged. “We could have written in the rules that everyone would have been equal if we wanted to, and we didn’t because we thought it was an opportunity.”
“In that sense, it wasn’t something that we didn’t have under control, everything that happened with the pontoons. If you ask me, if I expected to see the variety of solutions that the teams would bring, no, it was beyond what I imagined,” said Tombazis.
Mercedes’ radical design at the start of the second week of testing in Bahrain caught the attention of the entire paddock, leading some to question whether it was within the spirit of the regulations, as Red Bull boss Christian Horner suggested.
However, Tombazis said the FIA’s way to protect the spirit of the regulations is to be able to “easily react to correct the rules” and “not to say whether a car is illegal or the like”.
“I don’t think the teams have created a car in a certain way just because we like it. They continue to do what they think is the fastest and the best interpretation, they have worked a lot on the regulations, as expected,” said the former engineer. Ferrari or McLaren, among others.
“The regulations were reasonably well written, some areas were not perfect, and they will be updated in the future,” Tombazis said. “We have to follow the governance, and it is governed by votes, we do not make it out of the blue and say that here is the new regulation.”
