21/01/2018
NEWS STORY
At a time many fear for the direction Formula One is heading, one of the agreements reached at this week's meeting of the Strategy Group appears to encapsulate much of what is wrong with the sport at present.
Last year, as is the norm, the teams disagreed on a number of devices that appeared on the cars over the course of the year, most notably the so-called shark fin.
McLaren, which has made no secret of its need for new sponsors, argued that the fin obscured a large portion of the rear wing, widely seen as 'prime real estate' in terms of logos.
While many were keen to retain the fin, for aerodynamic reasons, the device was scrapped for this year, though there is talk of it returning in 2019.
This week's meeting of the Strategy Group saw the teams agree on a number of changes to bodywork design for 2019, all with the intention of optimising said sponsorship 'real estate' for the teams as opposed to improving the racing.
In addition to bargeboards being lower, thereby allowing better visibility of the side of the cars, there will be a mandatory space at the top of the rear wing endplates in order that sponsors logos are not compromised by aero devices such as louvres.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the revelation that overtaking in 2017 was around 50% down on 2016, the proposal that the front wings be simplified - but in order to make them more attractive to sponsors - was dismissed as the aerodynamic impact would be too great to justify on non-technical grounds.
This is in a week Pirelli's Mario Isola is said to have claimed that the sport needs more mechanical grip and less reliance on aero, something that most F1 fans have been saying for 20-plus years.
The mind boggles.