Proposal for wheel arches in 2024
Posted: 19 Nov 2022, 12:56
There has been a recent announcement by the FIA that, in response to the criticism over problems running in wet weather, the sport is investigating the possibility of introducing wheel arches as soon as 2024.
The idea is to create "standard bodywork kit” that can be fitted to the cars for "extreme wet weather" conditions (implying it is not permanently fixed to the cars) to cut down on the amount of spray being thrown into the air by the tyres. There also appears to be plans for a related study into the aerodynamic effects of the new bodywork and underfloor regulations to see whether that is significantly worsening visibility issues, and whether additional lights can be fitted to the cars to make it easier for drivers to see each other on track.
https://the-race.com/formula-1/f1-evalu ... wet-races/
It seems to be garnering some mixed responses, not least over the question of whether it's going to be that effective given the floor is a significant contributing factor - the way that the new regulations are intended to disperse the wake of the car higher into the air also disperses the spray thrown up by the cars much more widely.
There are also questions about what happens if the weather conditions change during the race - if it starts off dry, but there is then a heavy downpour during the race, what happens then? The article comments about fitting the covers during a red flag period - does that suggest they would red flag the race for the teams to then fit the covers? It would seem more logical for the covers to be permanently fixed in that case, but that doesn't seem to be how it's been described so far.
The idea is to create "standard bodywork kit” that can be fitted to the cars for "extreme wet weather" conditions (implying it is not permanently fixed to the cars) to cut down on the amount of spray being thrown into the air by the tyres. There also appears to be plans for a related study into the aerodynamic effects of the new bodywork and underfloor regulations to see whether that is significantly worsening visibility issues, and whether additional lights can be fitted to the cars to make it easier for drivers to see each other on track.
https://the-race.com/formula-1/f1-evalu ... wet-races/
It seems to be garnering some mixed responses, not least over the question of whether it's going to be that effective given the floor is a significant contributing factor - the way that the new regulations are intended to disperse the wake of the car higher into the air also disperses the spray thrown up by the cars much more widely.
There are also questions about what happens if the weather conditions change during the race - if it starts off dry, but there is then a heavy downpour during the race, what happens then? The article comments about fitting the covers during a red flag period - does that suggest they would red flag the race for the teams to then fit the covers? It would seem more logical for the covers to be permanently fixed in that case, but that doesn't seem to be how it's been described so far.