Aston Martin seeks to "exploit" 2022 regulations

Szafnauer on the Monaco Pit Wall — Photo: © LAT Images

Aston Martin

Aston Martin seeks to "exploit" 2022 regulations

2022 will see a drastic change of regulations

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Saturday 21 August 2021 16:45

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Aston Martin team principal Otmar Szafnauer believes the key to success in the new era of F1 from next season will be "exploiting" the regulations.

Cars will look radically different in 2022 and beyond with aerodynamic concepts altered with the aim of promoting closer, more exciting racing action with less turbulent air affecting following cars.

With the regulations more restrictive than ever, there will be an emphasis on clever engineering to find performance gains in development, with AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost suggesting loopholes will be found.

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Szafnauer's team fell foul of the regulations when trying to exploit rules in 2020 around car design but he insisted this was the nature of the beast in a results-driven business.

"A big part of having a performant car is reading the regulations and not really finding loopholes but maybe exploiting of the regulations in an area that allows for better performance and differentiation," Szafnauer told GPFans Global.

"That's what it's really about. So that's what we're trying to do, and it's hard to know if we've done a better job than somebody else, our competitors have.

"Until you actually run the cars, it's really hard to know."

F1 demo car "frozen in time"

F1 released a demo car at the British Grand Prix to offer a glimpse of the future but with development work continuing at factories up and down the grid, Szafnauer expects machinery to look different next year.

"The demo car to me is something that the car will have probably looked like at one stage of its development, but that demo car is frozen in time," he added.

"For us, that doesn't happen, especially with new regulations, so every week for us we change some aspect to the car.

"That cumulative change will mean that it will depart from what the car looks like today.

"Between today and we put it on track, it's not going to look the same.

"I would be surprised that if all the cars when they come out in February - or whenever that is - will look like the thing that we've seen only because it's forever changing."