Formula 1’s decision to postpone its introduction of new technical regulations by one year due to the pandemic had an unintended outcome which could play to the advantage of some teams over others this year.
On Wednesday, teams will begin their first test with cars built to drastically changed rules governing their aerodynamics, wheel sizes, suspension systems and more. These were originally due to come into force last year, but were pushed back by one season as a cost-saving measure when Covid-19 forced a delay to the start of the 2020 championship.
At that time, teams had already agreed to bring in another rules change which would limit how much development work each could perform based on where they finished in the previous season’s championship. As the regulations were originally envisaged, this was going to come into force after teams had a year of work on their cars designed for the new regulations.
The postponement changed that. Instead, teams did the aerodynamic work on…