WHAT CAN TEAMS DO UNDER 2021’S NEW RULES?

A new development handicap system aims to level the playing field by putting restrictions on the leading teams while giving backmarkers more opportunity to catch up. Until 30 June it’s based on the 2020 constructors’ championship, which means Mercedes loses out, while Williams stands to gain. But of course, having the extra resource is one thing, making the most of it quite another…

The new rules take the latest restrictions on aerodynamic research – number of windtunnel runs, tunnel ‘on’ time and hours of occupancy, plus Computational Fluid Dynamics processing capacity – and adjusts them by a percentage based on the 2020 finishing order. On 30 June it will reset to the championship order at that time. These rules divide the calendar year into six Aerodynamic Testing Periods (ATPS), the majority of which are eight weeks long. This is how the resource handicap works out in terms of allowances per ATP over the first three Periods, before they are recalculated:

Key

Runs Defined as a windtunnel test which begins when air speed rises above 5m/s and ends when it falls below 5m/s

Wind on The amount of time in hours during the ATP where tunnel air speed exceeds 15m/s Occupancy Two shifts of windtunnel occupancy per calendar day, each beginning when air speed exceeds 5m/s for the first time and ending when air speed falls below 5m/s

RATG Restricted Aerodynamic Test Geometry – a 3D representation, physical or digital, of a car or sub-component

Compute used Computing resource allocated to a CFD solver run, measured in AUH (Allocation Unit hours). A single AUH is equivalent to a core hour on a physical CPU core; the FIA calculates this by multiplying the peak clock frequency of each CPU core in Gigahertz by the number of cores by the number of solver wall clock seconds elapsed during the run, then dividing that figure by 3600. Each competitor has to declare its computing resource to the FIA