What will a 2014 F1 car look like?

F1 News

Date: 10/May/2013

Next year’s new generation of F1 cars will contain visual differences in several areas relative to the present machines.

But there will be no revolutionary changes and fans will get used to the new 1.6-litre V6 turbocharged cars ‘after three races’.

 “The version I’ve seen looks very much like - the cars won’t look immensely different once you get used to them,” said Marussia Race Engineer Dave Greenwood.

“The first time you see them, you’ll decide they’re a lot different and then after three races you’ll think they always looked like that.

“There are some areas that have gone. Like the beam wing, which is probably the most significant, but you’ll still think it looks like a current F1 car.”

Red Bull’s legendary F1 designer Adrian Newey expects most of the cars to look broadly similar.

“So much of the shape of the car is dictated by the regulations, and that kind of hems you in,” he said.

“Visually, as was said the lack of the beam wing, the low nose which is again forced by regulations and a slightly narrower overall front wing - 75mm a side narrower. Those are the other things you’ll notice.

“The other thing, depending on how good a job everybody manages to do, is probably slightly bigger sidepods to accommodate the significantly increased cooling requirements.”

Ferrari’s Chief Designer Nikolas Tombazis gave an insight into the engineering challenges of the new cars.

“It’s a hugely complicated project from a mechanical point of view, the installation of the turbo with all the energy recovery and the completely different looms,” he began.

“Apart from the work that the engine people need to do to make sure that they get the most power and fuel efficiency etc, the challenge is also to make sure that one doesn’t take any wrong turns in terms of the packaging the new power unit into the car.

“It would be a big shame if one discovers, from the start of the next season, that one has missed some trick and has to live with a sub-optimally packaged power unit. So a lot of the early aerodynamic work has to do with answering basic fundamental questions.

“For example, the cooling could be one of them, or gearbox or whatever. So there’ s a lot of importance in being good at your simulations at this stage so as to be able to not over-design or under-design some particular aspect.”

The present generation of F1 cars are powered by 2.4 litre normally-aspirated V8 engines.