[Rules] 2014 Tech regulations...easily explained!

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Hey guys and girls, happy new year! Hope you're all set for a great 2014...

A new writer to FSpy has put together a nice piece explaining all the main tech changes for this season. Might be a little obvious for most people on here, but worth a read!

Here's the external link...

With each new season in Formula 1 usually comes a tweaking of the regulations that govern the sport. Here are all the important rule changes you need to know for 2014.

In the past few seasons these have consisted of relatively mild changes, such as the mandated lowering of the nose tip, angle change of the exhausts or even widening of the tyres. The 2014 season however is ushering so many extensive regulation changes, that is considered to be the start of a brand new era in the sport. These changes are outlined below.

Aerodynamics
For 2014, the aerodynamic regulations of the cars will significantly tightened. The aim of this will be to place more of an emphasis on the cars generating their grip from mechanical means as opposed to through downforce, which up until this point has dominated the development races throughout the post-2009 era of the sport.
This restriction of aero-grip is set to be achieved by first off reducing the width of the front wing by 15cm, without altering the 50cm section along the centre of the wing, which still has to be kept free of any winglets, otherwise known to the aerodynamicists as the ‘no touching zone’.
The obvious implication of this is less space to generate downforce with, however another challenge that this wing reduction imposes on the teams is that the wing is no longer the same width as the car. In previous years, having a matched width, allowed the teams to easily diminish drag produced by the tyres, by using specially designed front wing endplates. Reducing the wing size, however means that moderating the drag produced by the tyres will be a considerable challenge.


For the rear wing, the new regulations mandate the deletion of the lower beam wing. In previous years, this has been used to generate considerable amounts of downforce,
Other areas of the car in which the teams have previously been able to exploit for aerodynamic benefit include the front mounted FIA camera pods. By mandating that these cameras can no longer be fitted as close to the front wings, the new regulations have closed this avenue for aero-gain.

Powertrain
Arguably the biggest change to the sport is a switch to a new formula of engines, a change that hasn’t occurred since 2006. The sport is switching from 2.4 litre naturally aspirated V8 engines to 1.6 litre turbocharged V6 units. Not only this, but the new season will also introduce a switch from KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) to ERS (…just ‘Energy Recovery System’). The omission of the ‘K’ being rather important as the new system will not only harvest energy from the kinectic forces upon the rear axel, but also from the heat of the exhaust.


Combined, this will allow a boost of up to 160bhp to be used for up to 33 seconds per lap. A dramatic increase from the comparatively measly 80bhp for 6 seconds a lap that has been seen up until this point. To compensate for the extra power being generated under braking by ERS, teams will be allowed to use an electronic rear brake control system.
With teams racing with still-developing engines and ERS systems, reliability is likely to play a far greater factor into 2014’s race results than in previous years.
Another key area of change with the powertrain concerns the exhaust system. The cars will now have a single exhaust tailpipe, which must exit 170-185mm behind the rear axle line, and 350-500mm above the floor. The exhaust exit will also have to be angled 5 degrees upwards, thus combined with the fact that behind the exhaust exit is yet another ‘no touching zone’ for aerodynamicists, means that the exhaust can no longer be used to generate downforce.
Interestingly, the teams can opt to move the exhaust up to 100mm away from the car’s centre line, expect some interesting developments around this during the year.

Other changes

Weight
To compensate for all of the extra weight generated by the new powertrain, the minimum weight of the cars has been increased from 642Kg to 690Kg. Expect this to result in slower laptimes.

Safety
Side Impact Protection
A safety weakness in the design regulation of the cars has been highlighted recently, showing that ‘T-Bone’ impacts (the front of one car impacting the side of another) expose drivers to serious potential injury. To alleviate this issue, the new regulations require a new side impact absorbing carbon structure to be included on both sides of the car.