Formula 1 chiefs move to avoid ugly noses in 2015
| By Jonathan Noble and Craig Scarborough | Friday, June 20th 2014, 16:59 GMT |
Formula 1 chiefs have agreed to a change of technical regulations for next year in a bid to get rid of the current ugly noses.
A quirk of the rules this season aimed at lowering the tip of the noses resulted in some controversial designs.
But on the back of criticism from teams and fans about the look of the cars, the FIA has now agreed to revise the rules for 2015 to try to eradicate the issue.
From next year, the noses will need to taper more linearly from the low tip to the front of the chassis.
As well as the new dimensional rules, there are also changes to make the crash test more progressive to prevent teams making the very end of the frontal crash structure too flimsy.
While the nose tip cross section remains the same at 9,000mm2, it will be lowered even further and will have to sit between 135mm and 220mm above the car's floor.
Furthermore, the tip must be no wider than 140mm, so teams will now have a choice of a wide flat nose, a tall thin one or rounded shapes in between.
Then the nose must widen to a second cross section 150mm behind its tip, which must be no less than 20,000mm2. Again a maximum width is stated of 330mm.
Both these cross sections will have to be symmetrical about the car's centreline, which effectively outlaws the Lotus twin-tusk style nose.
The remaining length of the nose going back towards the chassis must have a tapering cross section, so that the nose cannot suddenly slim or use concave shapes to reduce its aerodynamic blockage.
Lastly the rules prevent super short noses as used by Mercedes this year. The nose tip will have to start about mid-way along the front wing.
For the crash tests there are now demands for average decelerations for the first 150mm of the crash structure.
This means the thinner front section of the nose must be a useful addition to the crash worthiness of the car, rather than a thinner less structural part simply there to meet the geometric rules.
The result of this is that teams will have slightly less freedom to arrange the nose, while there will still be high or low noses, with flat or rounded shapes.
The variation will be far less than the visibly different concepts seen in 2014.
The way the new rules are worded means teams will most likely opt for a solution similar to the current Ferrari.
