MOTORSPORT: Ferrari's F1 future

This is what Ferrari reckons a Formula One car could — and should — look like with a little relaxation in the sport’s rules.

The Italian team released images of this concept car last night on its website before some of F1’s heavyweights meet in Geneva today to consider how to liven up a sport seen by many to have gone down a wrong, boring road.

The futuristic Ferrari features a double-decker front wing, a huge rear wing and other sleekly-sculpted bodywork.

Jonathan Noble, F1 editor of Britain’s Autosport, said that while it stuck to the general concept of the existing regulations, Ferrari revealed it “purely to show how simple it would be to make sweeping car changes”.

Two other top teams, Red Bull and McLaren, have shown designs of concept cars to an F1 strategy group behind closed doors in recent times but have declined to make them public.

Those designs are said to have not been as radical as the Ferrari.

In any case, there won’t be any rapid change in the sport’s technical rules after today's meeting of the F1 Commission in Geneva.

There was a preference there to wait until 2017 for a shake-up rather than try to push for it next year.

A majority vote among the teams in favour of change could have got the wheels turning for major revisions next year, but from next month any alterations for 2016 will require unanimous support -- and that is highly unlikely.

By waiting until 2017 the design changes being couched could coincide with the potential return to 1000hp engines, still hybrids but perhaps allowing greater fuel use and faster flow rates, wider-track cars, much wider tyres and more downforce.

Anything agreed among the technical gurus in the teams will need sign-off from the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile’s World Motor Sport Council.

The FIA is headed by Frenchman Jean Todt, who was team principal of Ferrari during its most successful era with Michael Schumacher. Todt championed the existing rules after his predecessor as FIA president, Max Mosley, got the ball rolling in this direction and participating car manufacturers, especially Renault and Mercedes, insisted on hybrid power units.

“Would it be possible to come up with an F1 car which not only is technologically advanced, but also captivating to the eye and aggressive looking?” Ferrari asked via its public website.

“And this could be made without having to overturn the current technical rules.

“Let us introduce you to the ‘concept design’ that was conceived by our design studio (Ferrari Centro Stile) together with the Scuderia’s aero department.

“Minimal changes give the car a look that is way different from what you have been familiar with so far. Our challenge was to create something that was – to put it short – better looking.”

Autosport’s technical editor, Craig Scarborough, said the existing regulations were “based around a series of dimensional boxes into which bodywork can and cannot be placed, and even within these regulatory boxes there are additional rules to prevent overly complex shapes being created”.

“As a result the cars all follow a similar template with aero devices crammed into these boxes to maximise their potential, creating lots of square-edged shapes to form the wings and monocoque,” Scarborough said.

“As a result there is little visually exciting about an F1 car, nor any association between it and a road car manufacturer’s own products.”

Scarborough suggested “very different” regulations that isolated “the functional aero surfaces of the cars (the wings and diffuser) while freeing up the rest of the bodywork”.

He said a sweetener to the cap on aero performance could be “the introduction of active aero, with wings and cooling altering between the straights and corners”.

“This would add to the current efficiency drive in F1, as downforce isn’t required on the straights and the drag it brings costs in fuel consumption,” he said.

“Such a move would massively alter the aero-dominated and dull-looking formula we have now.

“Of course, it won’t suit every team’s strengths and agendas, but a step change is the only way such a radical and equitable rethinking of aesthetics could be introduced.

“The potential exists for much more visually exciting cars, but it’s not clear if the sport is ready to accept the huge change it would require.”