McLaren technical director James Key believes that the 2022 regulations don’t seem as easy as they look on paper and may give challenges.
The 2022 regulations aim to achieve closer racing in Formula 1 via radical aerodynamics regulations by eliminating a large part of the dirty turbulent air.
The new regulations are intended to break the status quo of F1. McLaren technical director James Key speaks that adapting to the new regulations may take much longer.
“You could argue a more restrictive car has less wrong alleys to go down, so the chances of that are maybe less than you’d have with more complex regs right now,” said Key.
“Having said that I think there are a lot of subtleties, too, to be exploited and that’s going to be the journey in ’22. You’re not going to see double diffusers and that kind of huge innovation with these regs. They’re too restrictive for that.”
“But there will be other clever ideas and ways of approaching things we will begin to spot as these cars get released. There are traps there. It may be your platform isn’t as optimum as someone else’s once you look at how someone has lined out their car for example.”
“That’s a job for next year. That’s definitely not doable in season.”
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Budget caps are a concern
Next year, budget caps are being introduced to level the field between the teams by controlling the expenditure of top teams on the grid compared to financially weaker teams. While bigger teams have shown their resentments, smaller teams see it as an opportunity.
Key claims that the budget spending on car development would be different in all the teams. Thus, according to him, the shape of the budget counts here.
“As far as the cost cap is concerned, yes, clearly, if you’re working at the cap, then you are going to be watching the numbers very closely,” Key added.
“But I suppose it’s the shape of your budget which really counts there, how much of that budget is a push into car development and so on. It’s probably a bit different from team to team.”
