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Another year, another F1 season, another set of four-wheeled carbon-fibre lust machines. This is basically just brazen automotive porn, but who cares? Click through to see some hot-and-heavy hardcore rear spoiler action.
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Lotus were the first team to reveal their new car, the E21. It bears a striking similarity to last year’s car, which is no bad thing considering their driver Kimi Raikkonen’s third-place finish. According to the Lotus technical director:
“The detail (changes) add up to a significant amount of performance. The rules for 2013 are very, very similar to those for 2012, so you can expect a lot of family resemblance from the 2012 car, but as ever in F1 the devil is in the detail.”
One of the obvious changes is a revamped system for harnessing the exhaust gases for aerodynamic effect — the bodywork guides gases into the gap between the rear bodywork and the rear wheels, ‘sealing’ the gap and creating downforce, a technique pioneered on the 2012 championship-winning Red Bull.
Caterham have the modest target of “catching the main midfield teams” this season — basically, they don’t want to repeat 2012, which saw them battling Marussia for last place.
Their car is visually similar to the 2012 model, continuing to have a rather ugly/unaerodynamic ‘step’ on the nose, despite a new rule allowing a panel to cover it up. They’ve also made changes to the aerodynamics, and tried to adopt a McLaren-style exhaust-gas-capture system. Their technical director said:
“We have made a number of significant changes to the car that takes it from the package that gained us 10th place in the 2012 championship in Brazil. Among the most obvious are around the lower chassis where the sidepods have been significantly undercut to improve airflow to the rear of the car. The diffuser, engine cover and cooling exits have also seen major changes and there are more subtle improvements to other areas of the car, such as the sidepod turning vanes and the lower tea-tray area.”
In addition to poaching Lewis Hamilton from McLaren, Mercedes have a few subtle changes from their 2012 car. Notable are the more-aerodynamic nose piece, a re-worked exhaust gas system, and convential push-rod suspension — Mercedes have chosen not to go the way of Ferrari and McLaren, who have both adopted pull-rod suspension, which is supposed to lend a slight aerodynamic advantage.
Hamilton took it for a spin at the launch, and he didn’t exactly seem to be singing its praises:
“Feels like we definitely have some work to do but we were on demonstration tyres so I can’t really get a feel for it. (It feels) different. Doesn’t feel too bad at all.”
Last year, McLaren’s car was wicked quick but notoriously unreliable. For 2013, they claim to have made a few minor tweaks — most notably the new, more aerodynamic pull-rod suspension — but most of all, they reckon they’ve fixed the reliability gremlins. According to Jenson Button:
“Unreliability is a massive no, no for McLaren; failure should not exist within McLaren so we shouldn’t be making the same mistake twice. We’ve fixed a lot of the issues which were mechanical and also issues made by the human hand hopefully won’t happen again…under the skin, this is so, so different.”
Last year’s Ferrari performance was a masterclass in coming back when you’re down: Fernando Alonso started the season with a car that was a horrendous 1.5 seconds off the pace, but dragged himself up to within 3 points of the title by the end of the season. There aren’t many obvious differences with the catchily-named 2013 car — the F138 — although the BBC reckon that the rear end of the car’s been tidied up significantly. We’ll just have to wait and see the results of the first pre-season test — happening today — to see how the car performs.
Although this might look like the same car as last year’s Force India, according to the technical director it’s a brand-new automobile through and through:
“We discussed carrying over big chunks of last year’s car, including the chassis, but decided not to. There were still some gains to be had with the chassis, so we elected to take the performance benefits. The biggest change that everybody is going to notice this year is the fairing on top of the nose to hide the ‘step’. It’s neutral as far as the car’s performance is concerned but tidies up the flow over the top of the chassis.”
Force India have progressed from the also-ran of F1 up to a half-decent midfield team; with a new car and new driver, they might become a real competitor in 2013.
Sauber saw a fair leap in performance in 2012, getting up to sixth in the constructor’s competition. The only real change to the 2013 car is aerodynamic — slim sidepods. They’ve not even chosen to go with a ‘vanity cover’ for the stepped nose, choosing instead to leave us with something that looks like it would be best used lifting slices of cake.
Red Bull cleaned up last year, taking both the driver and constructor championships. Apparently, there’s not much different in this year’s car — the aerodynamics wizard for Red Bull, Adrian Newey, claims that the biggest change for 2013 are the new Pirelli tyres rather than any regulation change. Still, I guess there’s not much to change on a car that won both championships last year.
Toro Rosso are under pressure from their owner to improve this year, and with both drivers staying the same, it’s safe to assume that the car’s going to have to find a lot of performance down the back of the couch. To this end, the car’s apparently “97 per cent” new, and has been produced under the leadership of the former Sauber employee James Key, who has produced some stonking machines for Sauber.
With a target of sixth in the constructor’s title, up three places from last year, the car’s going to have to do something magical to compete in the hotly-contested middle leageus of F1.
Marussia finished last (excluding the now-non-existent HRT) in 2012, so there’s really nowhere they can go but up. The new car is the first Marussia car to feature Kers, which should help; however, they’ve lost star driver Timo Glock as they couldn’t afford his salary, so who knows if they’ll be able to overtake Caterham this year.
Williams will launch their car at the second pre-season test in Barcelona in two weeks.
This Is the Gorgeous New McLaren F1 Car
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If looks would count for winning, then it would be Ferrari vs McLaren fighting for first place.
I quite like the understated, clean look of the Marussia (although this may simply be down to the lack of graphics/sponsors(ahem)).
I like the look of the Marussia too, it looks like a 90′s Indy car
I think the Red Bull looks pretty aggressive too.
Do wish the other teams had used the vanity panel – would really help airflow over the bodywork, even if it means misplacing a couple of grams of mass.
If it would help with the air flow they would of used it.
The important part of the nose these days is the underneath. It you notice most of them are funneling air to the floor or the car so they can use the air to create down force.
It does help with the airflow, there are some interesting articles on the BBC about it, AND the Giz article says it improve it. McLaren and Ferrari calculated that the weight gain was worth it. Most of the other teams didn’t. Red Bull decided that a small vanity panel was, but not the full one.
Please, do your research first. No one ever knows these things in F1 until the season starts. I’m just stating that my opinion is the air flow gains outweigh the weight gain.
Incidentally, the air flow under the nose was quite strictly regulated a few seasons ago, and they relaxed it again recently, so it is interesting to see that, as well as a dearth of changes around the rear of some of these cars.
It’ll probably kick some ass too, just a tad too colourful.
“In addition to poaching Lewis Hamilton from McLaren, McLaren have a few subtle changes from their 2012 car.” i think you mean Mercedes?
Spot on. Seems Chris loves McLaren a little too much
Can’t blame him though!
Your Sauber and Caterham pictures are of last year’s cars, guys. The Merc is a stunner!
Thought the Caterham had the wrong sponsors! didn’t notice the Sauber though. As for the Merc, I disagree. . . that nose still scares me and not in a good way.
Sauber, really? The paint job is totally different from 2012…
Yawn….. these cars look as boring as they did last year….. I say do away with all these fancy drivers aids and give them all cars from 1990 season when F1 was actually the skills of the driver.
I’d give them all 1960′s cars and do away with wings
TBH the cars that the F1 makers showed to the public aren’t really their new cars at all, they are shown to give away the less possible new information to the other teams, they are using dummy wings, no floors etc.
Wait, drivers aids? Please, do tell me.
Yeah the drivers are certainly incomparable in terms of skill now, I mean I guess the fairest way to look at it would be to take two high performing teams – lets say Red Bull and Ferrari, the cars just do all the work and the driver’s skill is nowhere to be seen, the team mates are enterely equal…oh wait, no they aren’t.
Just because the cars feature a lot of electronics doesn’t mean that they’re packed to the gills with driver aids. The era of driver aids was back when ABS, traction control, launch control active suspension were all permitted.
When was that? Oh yeah, the early 90′s. These devices were all banned in 1994.
Ok granted not all drivers are equal, but F1 is boring.
It needs to be exciting again. The good old days of Mansell, Senna and Prost
Ignoring the Vettel-whitewash of 2011, the last 3 seasons of F1 have been the best in 20 years. Even 2011 was great, if you ignored Vettel romping off into the distance.
Glad Lotus have gone back to the John Player Specials livery. One of the best of all time!
Agreed. Best looking car on the field IMHO.
However, the gold seems to have morphed into… cream.
The original Lotus JPS cars were actually black & cream. They started using gold, but it looked rubbish on TV. The same happened to the new Lotus team when they reintroduced those colours in 2010
http://www.egan37.fsnet.co.uk/lotus98.jpg
Fact learned! Nice one!
It’s a testament to the classic design that most people never even noticed! My dad worked for Lotus for 15-odd years so I grew up around them
Yeah, fun fact. Thanks for that.
However, the 2011 car definitely had more of a gold hue. I don’t know, perhaps the gold now looks better on modern HDTVs, but the new shade of cream is instantly noticeable as such.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/lotusrenaultlivery.jpg
Absolutely. They’ve transitioned to cream from gold rather than switch overnight, but they have gone a bit too far on this year’s car I think.
As far as visual entertainment is concerned, I put F1 ‘up’ there with Golf and Cricket. Its that good.
Five years ago, I would have agreed with you. However, the field is much more competitive now and the recent changes to tyre wear have made the whole spectacle more dynamic.
I liked the Ferrari last year, it was best looking of all. They managed to work the ‘step’ on the nose too!
This year though, their nose seems all wrong. It’s.. straight. Flat. Boring.. even more so than most of the others!
That RB9 though..phwoar!
They all look pretty much the same to me if you remove the shiny paint, gimme Le Mans/ALMS anyday.
I’m curious as to why Renault (and Lotus) haven’t developed the nose of the car further and have stuck with the ugly severe “ridge” on the nose, where as other teams have moved on.