Everything changes but will F1 stay the same?
As I write, Formula 1 pre-season testing in Barcelona is under way and we’re finally seeing 2022’s revolutionary new cars turning proper laps. There’s much anticipation. When no less than Adrian Newey calls this “a huge regulation change, the biggest one we've had since 1983” you realise Formula 1 faces a seismic moment. So too does F1’s present owner Liberty Media, which has bet heavily on a crack team of poachers turned gamekeepers, led by Ross Brawn. Brawn et al have conceptualised and developed a substantially revised set of technical regulations using the very same techniques F1 teams usually employ to exploit the rules to their own benefit. The immediate result is an end to the complicated wings and bargeboards, flicks and tricks we’ve become used to seeing on the top surfaces of…
