What's wrong with the look of modern F1 cars...

[mattikake]

It's those grotesque raised noses.

There's some nice new testing shots on Bernie's site: http://www.formula1.com/gallery/testing/2010/480.h...

The Renault is defintely the best looking car by far, mainly because of having the lowest nose I reckon.

Which prompted a very quick edit with mspaint:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/welformed/l...

Is it me or do they look far more right?

I have this feeling that if front wing complexity is anything to go by (catering for the reduced front tyre widths) and lower noses, I have a feeling Renault could be a force this year... though that could just be casting an aspiration!

[Merry]

mattikake said:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/welformed/l...

Is it me or do they look far more right?

No, I dont think so.

And i'm not sure about the Renault. It looks very conservative to me, but then i'm not an F1 designer!

[stew-S160]

they're out of proportion. front too wide, rear too narrow(bodywork & wings). the raised noses are not the nicest of things, but they are over shadowed by the narrow rear wing in my opinion.

[LordGrover]

I don't think it's much lower if at all on the Renault. Look at the side-on views and compare the lowest part of the nose with the wheel centre - pretty much all similar.

[petergb]

Front wings too wide - rear wings too narrow.

[Jem Thompson]

They have been downhill since this really.

[hullbilly]

I think the Mercedes is the best looking with the McLaren not far behind.

But the wide nose narrow rear does make the cars look a bit awkward.

[llewop]

stew-S160 said:

they're out of proportion. front too wide, rear too narrow(bodywork & wings). the raised noses are not the nicest of things, but they are over shadowed by the narrow rear wing in my opinion.

some of the raised noses (Merc and Sauber spring to mind) look awful to me, but some of it could be down to the paintwork drawing your eye in certain directions.

I don't think the rear wing is any different to last year so have got used to that and at least all the stupid little winglets from 08 and earlier have gone. I'd ban the vanes on the corners of the sidepods (I thought they had! - but they then seemed to find excuses to refit them!)

But you are right, they are 'nose heavy' in detail with the big complex front wings - but at least they seem robust as Rubens proved a few times last year!

[Altrezia]

It's just the front wings for me - everything else looks OK.

[Mikey G]

This is Formula 1 racing, bugger what the cars look like. They are not, and never will be the definition of beauty to look at. They are however a beautifull piece of machinery in an engineering aspect and i get more enjoyment in seeing what the designers and inovators can do given the constraints in the rule book they have to work too.

[brierleys]

What surprises me is that the teams said the regulatory changes would not be so different from 2009 to 2010 and yet we're seeing successful teams from 2009 with radically different 2010 cars. I expected Brawn/Merc to come up with a longer 2009 car but it looks completely different. Why change the nose so dramatically?

Also, anyone know why some of the cars have very long vertical bars above the cameras?

[T89 Callan]

Who cares what they look like? You wouldn't judge Jodie Kidd on her carpentry skills so why would you judge an F1 car by how it looks.

[Nee_Naw]

brierleys said:

What surprises me is that the teams said the regulatory changes would not be so different from 2009 to 2010 and yet we're seeing successful teams from 2009 with radically different 2010 cars. I expected Brawn/Merc to come up with a longer 2009 car but it looks completely different. Why change the nose so dramatically?

Also, anyone know why some of the cars have very long vertical bars above the cameras?

They will always be chasing each other, it's the nature of F1. To be fair, at the end of the year Brawn didnt have the fastest car, so they're all looking to improve on where the Red Bull & McLaren left off.

I think the vertical bars are to do with mapping air pressure & speed, a bit like the pitot tubes you see sprouting from some other cars. I guess they're trying to get a reading that isn't impacted too much by the car itself, hence it's out of the way. If you look at the Williams, it doens't have the bar, but does have the pitot tube. Development only, you won't see them running in races like that.

[Dakkon]

The rear wing is way too small and out of proportion to the rest of the car making them look odd.

[StevieBee]

T89 Callan said:

Who cares what they look like? You wouldn't judge Jodie Kidd on her carpentry skills so why would you judge an F1 car by how it looks.

There’s a line to be had here along the lines of getting wood…..but back on topic!


Gordon Murray once said that if a car looked right, then it was right. He had a point. There are not many successful F1 cars that looked complete mingers.

The reason they all look so similar today is that all the teams put pretty much the same data into pretty much the same type of computer which will conclude pretty much the same design.

Most of the design innovation is what’s underneath – suspension geometry, gearing, etc.

The new McLaren looks great but that’s only because of the paint job. Take that away and it would look the same as the others.

The only way I’d see this changing is if the teams were given wider options: You can have as much power as you want, but no aero, all the aero you want but limited power, etc..

[LocoBlade]

I'm not a Ferrari fan by any stretch of the imagination but of all the cars Ive seen so far, their's is the prettiest in my eyes, especially the front end

http://www.autosport.com/gallery/photo.php/id/1324...

[Sea Demon]

The Sauber reminds me of a paper aeroplane

[Mazda Baiter]

I think the 1999 rule change was the one that made the most difference, when they went narrow track.

From this:


To this:


It makes them look stunted.

[Conian]

egads i hadn't noticed just how bad the narrow cars were until i saw those pics! really hammered it home.

I'm not a fan of the nose being too high, but mainly it is that rear wing.
Some (not F1) cars have been 'not pretty' but have had such ruthless efficiency in their design that they become beautiful for that very reason. (911 GT1?)

F1 cars are the opposite of this as they're clearly designed to be not efficient, designed to rules designed to limit performance.

If it looks right it'll fly right, or in this case, if it dont fly right it dont look right.

[chevronb37]

Mazda Baiter said:

I think the 1999 rule change was the one that made the most difference, when they went narrow track.

It makes them look stunted.

Sorry to be the world's worst pedant, but that was 1998, not 1999. I agree with your sentiment - up to a point. I think the 1996/7 seasons where they were still grappling with the high cockpit sides were perhaps the worst. Up until 1996, I think a GP car was quite an elegant beast on the whole. The Ferrari 412T2 was a stunner, for example, but the F310 was nauseatingly ugly.

The current cars are, to this viewer, actually rather more appealing than those for 2007/8 when the aero appendages, while dramatic, simply cluttered the lines. I think last year's RB5 was a great looking machine, especially pre-Silverstone with those glorious low wing end plates, which reminded me of the twin-wing late-era Group C cars like the XJR-14.