19/03/2024
NEWS STORY
Mercedes technical boss, James Allison believes F1 got it wrong with the 2022 rules overhaul in terms of addressing the problem of dirty air.
Confident that reducing the wake created by a leading car would allow cars to run closer together and thereby increase the probability of overtaking, the sport reintroduced ground effect in the belief that this would improve the racing.
It didn't, insists Allison, who also pays tribute to Adrian Newey for being ahead of the game.
"I don't necessarily think that the rules have failed in those terms," he said of Red Bull's subsequent domination of the sport following the overhaul, "because our job is to try and make sure that we can make a good fight of it.
"Red Bull are doing a good job and the rest of us have a duty to do a better job," he added. "I don't think that's the fault of the regulator.
"But there are things in the regulations that don't serve any of us well," he admitted. "I don't think it's sensible to have cars that hug the ground in the way that these cars hug it.
The Briton also argues against the idea "that you get good racing by controlling wakes, while ignoring tyres".
"The whole idea of controlling wakes, being something of a tilting-at-windmills type of challenge, that side of things has been tested to destruction fairly evidently," he said.
"I don't think there's anything wrong in particular with ground-effects floors," he continued. "But the FIA is still very much of a mind to place wake management at the top of the tree of everything, sacrificing this stuff. It would be helpful if there was more of a balanced approach.
The particular layout of these ones, that have a response to rear ride height that is not particularly good for the cars, isn't something that we should carry into 2026," he warned, referring to the next big rules overhaul.