Not all is lost...
Although the decision to abandon some of the chief ideas for 2017 is disappointing for those hoping for a big leap forward in pace, some changes will remain.
The push for wider front and rear wings and more freedom in the bargeboard area will be retained.
The bodywork “chin” [bh2: tea tray] length will also be reduced by 100mm, allowing cars to run slightly lower.
The cosmetic changes designed to improve the look of the cars, such as swept back front wing, rear endplates and leading edge of the sidepods, will also stay.
This next bit just tickles me to pieces...
“My belief is that the more downforce you have on a car, the harder it is to follow,” [Pat Symonds] said. “And this car has more downforce.
“Therefore irrespective of any niceties that the Overtaking Working Group may have come up with, and irrespective of whether one believes them or not – and as a member of that group I know what short cuts we did against the true scientific process – the fact is if you've got more downforce, the harder it is to follow.
"I think that's simplistic, but nevertheless quite a true view.”
Yeah, there was definitely no scientific investigation into the nature of
overtaking. Instead, the "Dirty Air Working Group" took it for granted that there's a correlation between proximity and overtaking, simply because that's the most common refrain heard throughout the sport's vast echo chamber. In reality, no one knows for sure. (But, there is a reason why the 2009 rules failed so miserably.)
And what about the "short cuts...against the true scientific process"?
Overtaking, Applying science and commonsense wrote:What was interesting was that by using a scientific approach to the problem [meant to be addressed by the 2009 aero overhaul] it became clear that previous attempts to solve the problem had in reality made things worse.
"Almost all of the attempts to reduce downforce in the recent past have been retrograde in terms of overtaking possibilities and wake behaviour," one member of the OWG said. "If we had wanted to make overtaking chances worse, that was what we would have come up with."
[...]
The new rules will exclude all the barge boards, the radiator air extraction chimneys, flip-ups, nose horns and all the rest of it. The plan is for the cars to be smooth between the axles.
"There is a small overtaking benefit attached to that," [OWG member, Paddy] Lowe admitted, "but it was mainly done in response to demands from the team principals for cleaner advertising areas."
Greener advertising pastures under the guise of increased overtaking? No wonder fans are abandoning the sport in droves.
Empty stands = "cleaner advertising areas"?
Excellent use of space
I propose the establishment of a Fan Retention Working Group in order to more thoroughly ignore that problem, too.