Analysis: 2010 Formula One regulations

The World Motor Sport Council has just introduced its proposal for the new set of rules to further economise Formula One. The budget cap should finally make its entrance in 2010 and any team opting for the solution will benefit of more technical freedom.

First of all, the council has confirmed that refuelling will be banned as of 2010. There have been talks about this change for a while, mostly because it will have a considerable impact for the car's designs. At some circuits fuel consumption is currently as high as 3l per lap, requiring next year's cars to have fuel tanks of approximately 180l, maybe even more. To put this in perspective, most teams currently have tanks of about 90l.

The change will remove the need to transport the 20 heavy refuelling rigs to each race venue, while on the sportive side we may again see drivers having to save fuel at some point during the race. It may even come to situations as in the late 80's where drivers just ran out of fuel towards the end of a race.

Due to the pressure of BMW Sauber who want to reduce the disadvantage heavier drivers have now, the minimum weight has been increased from 605kg to 620kg.

In the margin of changes, the new rules also stipulate an extended area where bodywork components must have a minimum radius to prevent damage to an opponent's tyre in case of a collision:

As of 2010, the KERS may not be activated when a car is travelling at more than 300km/h. This change will effectively eliminate the possibility to use KERS for additional top speed but instead allow its use to more quickly attain than top speed.

In addition to that, homologated sensors on the system will be required. The position of the KERS storage device - whether it is a flywheel or a battery pack - will have to be located ahead of the front of the engine and behind the driver. It is believed that all current KERS cars nearly comply to this regulation already.

Budget capped regulation set

With the start of 2010, an additional regulation formula will be introduced that will put teams on a budget limit of £45 million. In exchange these will receive more technical freedom.

One of these particularities is the removal of the 18000rpm limit. Whether this will prove interesting is something else, as the teams will be using the same standardised engines as all other competitors. Because these have been designed to last long enough to manage a full season with 8 engines, reliability may be severely compromised if teams choose to run them at higher speeds.

Apart from this worry, increased speed will also come with increased fuel consumption. The teams willing to run their engines at higher rpm consistently will have to build larger fuel tanks and be slower at the beginning of the race due to their higher fuel ballast.

Budget controlled teams will be allowed to have their front wing adjusted by 10°, a surplus of 4° over the teams that choose to go with the conventional rule set. They will also be allowed to adjust the front wing's incidence any time they find it appropriate - and not limited to twice a lap.

The rear wing will also be adjustable and can greatly help to boost a car on high speed sections of a circuit.

Perhaps the most interesting benefit for these teams will be the double power allowed from their KERS devices. The cars will be allowed to release twice the energy - in and out - with KERS. Hence, with the same KERS system, they can use the additional 60hp for up to 12s per lap. Or, alternatively, the system can be adapted to have 120hp available during 6s.

On top of that, cost regulated teams will be allowed four wheel drive. For those teams, article 9.1 of the technical regulations that states "No transmission system may permit more than two wheels to be driven." has been scrapped from the rulebook.

While there is an extensive range of possibilities to exploit this change, it is most likely that teams will add a motor-generator for their KERS systems to the front wheels, allowing to charge the KERS device with brake energy from the front wheels too, whereas this is currently not allowed. As a direct consequence, the front wheels are also allowed to be powered by KERS.

Currently teams are not allowed any in-season testing. However, it will be up to the budget-limited teams when they test in 2010, as long as they don't exceed their limited yearly budget.

The cost-reducing regulation that allows teams only to run 50% scale models in their wind tunnels will be removed for teams complying with the budget limitation.