“For us it’s less of a hit”- Williams views crucial aid in new regulations

“For us it’s less of a hit”- Williams is optimistic about the new floor rules 2021, which according to them could help them progress.

Once a glorious team in Formula 1, Williams has been struggling on the grid since past few years, with 2020 being their lowest as they failed to score a single point throughout the season.

However, this could end up to be the days of the past, as Williams’ head of vehicle performance Dave Robson views a significant aid from the new floor regulations set to be enacted in 2021.

As part of several regulation tweaks coming for this year to cut downforce to help lessen the stress put on tyres, teams will have to deal with tighter restrictions around the floor areas.

This means that the teams will have to cut away a section of floor ahead of the rear tyres and a ban on using slots in that region has also been imposed. Teams have been misusing this space for better downforce by feeding air through diffuser.

“It is a major change to the floor, particularly that area close to the rear tyre,” he said as per the Autosport. “It is an area where we suspect we’re not class leader, let’s say, so hopefully for us, it’s less of a hit than some of those other teams.

“I think it is traditionally a challenging area to understand, particularly how the floor will react to the tyre as it deforms and ages and wears,” he added.

“So hopefully it will have quite a big effect for the teams at the sharp end and perhaps less so for us. That’s what we’re hoping, and hopefully, there are some early indications from the running we did on Friday [in Abu Dhabi] that that might be the case.”

Cut in downforce and speed.

Rest of the teams have already gone onto implement the new rules before starting the new season, as FIA aims to cut the downforce by 10 percent in 2021.

Additionally, more robust tyres from Pirelli in 2021 will further decrease the cars’ overall speed on the grid, but it has been viewed as the right direction for the drivers’ safety.

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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