A push by the FIA to cut downforce for this year to reduce stress on tires led to some changes to the floor and bargeboard regulations.
These changes, made at a stage when teams were forced to adopt their 2020 chassis, hit the high-rake cars like Mercedes and Aston Martin in particular.
Though Mercedes recovered to win the Constructors’ Championship, Aston Martin faced a tougher campaign as they dropped from fourth place in 2020 to seventh this season.
Aston’s team principal Otmar Szafnauer said his team’s decline came as no surprise as the Silverstone team didn’t have a performance buffer like Mercedes to minimize the effects of downforce loss.
“What happened this year confirmed our pre-season concerns that the one-sided aerodynamic changes made late in the season had a massive impact on us and Mercedes,” he said.
“Because the midfield was so tight, the lap times that we lost – seven, eight, nine tenths per lap, depending on the track we were on – brought us from the third fastest car to around sixth or seventh place.” – fastest car.
“They lost with Mercedes because of their aerodynamic philosophy, but that only brought them from pole position to the battle for the championship.
“For us, in my opinion, it had a much, much greater impact, and because of that, and because the ’22 rules were completely different, we had to change over early to focus our full attention on ’22 and leave ’21’ back then.”
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Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR21
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR21
Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images
While Aston Martin was able to work on some improvements at the beginning of the campaign to counter its losses, Szafnauer stated that in the end it would be pointless to invest too much resources because the profits would be minimal – compared to the risk of car development in 2022.
“We had a major development program early in ’21 to try to make up some of the aerodynamic deficit that was imposed on us,” he said.
“We tried that early on, but we had to stick to our conversion plan, because otherwise this year will be a mediocre year and then not the optimal year that we should have next year. So we consciously tried to change, painful as it was. “
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What updates Aston Martin put in to improve its downforce proved costly in another area – because they made the car too dragging, which was damaging it in some places.
Szafnauer added: “In trying to get some of that downforce back, we also got a car that was a little more sluggish than in the past.
“On some tracks, a little extra air resistance doesn’t lead to a large lap time deficit. But it does that with other gearshifts. That’s why we’ve been up and down a bit this season. “
Starting shot for the Mercedes-AMG F1 car 2022
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