Red Bull’s Adrian Newey says next year’s technical regulations, whilst appearing relatively small, are actually “throwing up a lot of challenges” and he therefore expects some big opportunities for those that get it right.
The design guru, who recently took a step back from Red Bull’s Formula 1 team to focus on other projects like the Americas Cup and Aston Martin’s new collaboration with Red Bull, admitted the new regulations “excite” him and he is therefore getting more involved with the F1 side of things again.
“It’s a very different set of aerodynamic regulations and it poses a lot of challenges,” said the Briton. “When you first look at them, the changes appear relatively small. Although the tyres are wider, the inside shoulder is in roughly the same place, some of the box regulations are swept to give the illusion of speed – but once you get into the details then it’s actually hugely different and throwing up a lot of challenges and with challenges comes opportunities.”
Next year’s cars will be much quicker – by as much as four to five seconds a lap – as well as looking more aggressive with a wider chassis, wider tyres and lower wings.
The change represents the first major overhaul of the technical regulations since 2009 and Newey expects to see a more varied grid in terms of design as a result.
“The regulations we have been working to up until the end of this year obviously came in for the 2009 season, and while there have been some relatively small changes over the years, they have been exactly that.
“The cars have all evolved quite heavily over several seasons to one set of regulations, to the point of course that now when you look at the cars they all look pretty similar to each other,” he added.