Autobayng News Team
Fernando Alonso says Formula 1’s attempt to improve the quality of racing with its overhaul of the technical regulations in 2022 did not work.
The series ploughed huge resources into developing the ‘ground effect’ rules which are now in their fourth year. However, as F1 prepares to replace the regulations next year, Alonso has cast doubt on how successful they were.
“The expectations of these regulations, that was to follow [more] closely and to have better action on track, was not really a success,” said Alonso. “Maybe in the first year a little bit, but not after that. So I don’t think we will miss too much of this.”
Alonso is the most experienced F1 driver of all time and has witnessed several changes in regulations. He won his first world championship in the ‘V10 era’ and the second when V8s were mandated. During his time in the series car aerodynamics were simplified in 2009, then made more sophisticated in 2017, when the cars were also widened.
The current generation of cars are the heaviest ever specified by the rules. “I think these cars are definitely too heavy,” said Alonso.
“They are too big and [with] the ground effect and the ride heights we are racing in a way that is not really fun to drive and probably not even to follow cars.”
However he admitted next year’s cars are unlikely to match the outright cornering performance of the current chassis.
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“I will not miss this generation of cars, I think,” said Alonso. “But I think next year, probably, we will go slower, and we will miss them when we drive the next cars because we always want to be as fast as possible.”
Improving the quality of racing was a key goal of the new regulations. Some designers even expressed hope F1’s Drag Reduction System overtaking aid could be dropped following their introduction.
When the new cars arrived drivers gave mixed verdicts on how successful they had been at making the racing closer. However as teams have refined their designs over the following years some drivers have reported passing has become more difficult.
Teams have also drawn closer together in terms of lap times. This has likely also made overtaking more difficult as there is less of a performance gap between any cars which meet on-track.
Nonetheless F1 team bosses have defended the current regulations. Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said earlier this year they produced “incredible racing” after their introduction.
“I think if you ask Stefano [Domenicali, F1 CEO], he’ll probably remind you that we were all criticising these cars before they came out. And in the end, we got incredible racing.
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I was in the ‘bad guys’ group – we were all thinking that the cars would all be the same, that there would be too much standardisation, and that performance levels would be too close. It turned out not to be exactly true. We got four years of incredible competition.
“Up to now, you still have one team dominating, and another team has been dominating in the past. So I think, when you combine that with the fact that these cars are the fastest ever, or nearly so, I think they’ve given us quite a great show. We’ve seen a lot of overtaking this year.
“So personally, I feel good about these cars. They brought something great to Formula 1: technologically very advanced, it was a challenge for everyone. The ground effect cars caught nearly all the teams out in 2022, with the bouncing and everything, but I think we had a great show. And combined with this engine, I think it raised the bar to a very high level.”
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