Formula 1 Season 2021 was supposed to be the start of a new era in the sport's history with a new car concept designed to improve close racing and help overtaking without the need of any of the artificial aids like DRS.
Instead, Covid-19 changed all of F1’s plans just like how it impacted the rest of the world. For the first time in Formula One’s history, the opening for the 2020 season was delayed until July 2020, finishing all races in December. While everything was shut down and all scheduled races were cancelled from March till June, a lot of changes took place behind the scenes.
FIA, FOM, and the teams spent long closed-door discussions about saving the 2020 F1 season and minimising the costs by delaying the introduction of the new rules until 2022. It means that 2021 will be a year of transition and probably an exciting season in the turbo-hybrid era. There have been heaps of changes taking place up and down the pit lane.
F1 2021 Calendar
Formula 1 has announced a record 23-race calendar for the 2021 season. The calendar is out, but whether it can be completed by the time the curtain falls in Abu Dhabi in December remains to be seen. Australia was originally slated as the opening race of the season, but this GP has recently been moved in November. Taking its place as the season opener will be Bahrain on March 28 followed by Imola and Algarve (Portugal).
Netherlands GP is back on the calendar after it was cancelled last year due to the coronavirus. It is slated for September 5 at the iconic and fearsome Zandvoort track. Saudi Arabia will also make its Grand Prix racing debut with a night race in the streets of Jeddah on December 5.
Most of the races will be held at their usual time of the year. Last year, F1 did not race in America due to severe virus conditions in those parts of the world.
Changes to the 2021 Car Design
Pirelli has been using the same rubber compound for the last two years, but the downforce generated by cars has been making things difficult for the tyre company from a safety point of view. To ease the tyre’s load, it was decided last year to reduce downforce by 10%.
Other significant changes include:
- A maximum of 8mm of deflection in the floor when loaded with 500nm of the load, decreasing the rear diffuser's dividing stakes by 50mm.
- The car's minimum weight has been increased by 3kg and will now sit at 749 kg.
- The engine's minimum weight has also been increased to 150 kg to encourage cost-saving as teams don’t need to use premium lightweight materials.
- Rear brake duct winglets length will be reduced. The lower winglets length will be reduced from 80 to 40mm, while the top winglet will remain at 120mm long.
The DAS (Dual Axis Steering) pioneered by Mercedes last year has been banned from 2021 season onwards to discourage innovations and keep the costs down.
Budget Cap Introduced
2021 is the first time that F1 introduces a cost cap for the teams. The $147.4 million baseline cap has been set for this season, slashed further to $140 million in 2022 and $135 million in 2023. The budget cap covers nearly every aspect of an F1 team except for marketing costs and the salaries of drivers and the top three highest-paid employees.
Teams have also been allowed to spend up to $45 million until 2024 for buying machines and parts from factories.
New Aerodynamic Testing Scale & Ban on Copying Parts
F1 will introduce a new sliding scale aerodynamic testing regulations from 2021 onwards to close the gap between teams.
The simple rule is that the higher the team finishes in the standings the previous year, the less time it gets to spend in the wind tunnel or on CFD for the following year. Therefore, Mercedes will have the least amount of time for wind tunnel testing, while Williams will spend the most time in the wind tunnel for development.
Teams are banned from sharing the designs of listed parts with other teams through a deal. They can still copy it using the help of photos and videos. However, the teams are now banned from using 3D camera to reverse engineer other teams’ parts like what Racing Point did in 2020 with the Pink Mercedes.
New Tyre Compounds and Automatic Tyre Allocations
Pirelli will bring in new, more durable tyre compounds for the 2021 season. The main idea is to prevent tyre failures like the one that happened during the 2020 British Grand Prix. Teams cannot choose the number of dry weather tyre compounds for each race; instead, they all will receive 2 sets of hard tyres, 3 sets of medium tyres, and 8 sets of soft tyres.
Change in Practice Session Durations
Both the Friday sessions have now been shortened to 60 minutes each just like the Saturday practice session. This will make the teams very busy during the Friday practice sessions and will have to find time to test development parts like those they used to do during FP1.
Pre-season Testing
2021 F1 season will be the longest ever with 23 races. On the other hand, it will be the shortest ever pre-season test. Only a single 3-day test will be held in Bahrain from 12-14 March.
Coming in Part 2:
Things are just getting started! Read what the excitement is all about in Part 2. We will discuss all the teams individually to see what has changed for the 2021 season.