Mercedes, Wolff skeptical about the new regulation: "The addition of aerodynamic load was a mistake"

At the end of the month, as FIA president Jean Todt recently declared, the new rules that will make up the new technical regulations, in force from next season, will be approved. Among the new features are faster single-seaters (an improvement of 5 seconds per lap compared to the current ones) and the increase in aerodynamic load.

On this last point, Toto Wolff expressed all his skepticism. The Austrian manager, as well as Nico Rosberg, does not think that this innovation can provide the expected benefits: “The cars will not be able to follow each other. I think adding downforce is a mistake. We accept this new challenge and the guys in the factory are working hard. I think that for Formula 1, a sport that thrives on overtaking, it is a wrong decision".

"With a greater presence of aerodynamic load – explained the executive director of the Star – the car following another will be disturbed by the wake generated by the latter. The moment you follow a car closely, you lose downforce. If a car has 100kg of downforce, it will drop to 50/40 as it gets closer to the other".

All this will cause a significant problem, as Wolff himself recalled: “This will ruin the tires and as a result we will see less and less overtaking".

Piero Ladisa

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