Cockpit Halo
In 2018 we started a new era of F1 racing with the first season of the Halo. Gone were the days of open cockpit racing and the future is now. Primarily brought in for safety, following the tragic death of Jules Bianchi the season before, the halo provides a barrier around the cockpit to protect the driver from any debris that may be at head height and act as a channel for energy in a head on collision. I’ll admit when I first saw this, I wasn’t keen. It just seemed unnecessary as to my recollection, there were not many incidents of drivers getting injured that way, and from the first race on TV there was a new convenient place to put more graphics on your screen about car performance and god forbid, advertise from with sponsors ideally placed in you eyeline. What was next? Actual closed cockpits like fighter jets?
But then an incident happened last season (2020). Roman Grosjean had a massive crash, one of the biggest for a while, in Bahrain, snapping his car in two and hitting the barrier at 140 mph and an estimated 53G causing his car to burst in to flames and engulf the car in fire. Amazingly he only escaped with minor burns, which he was treated for, and was out of hospital a few days later. But the biggest contribution to his survival was the halo taking the brunt of the force and stopping any serious head trauma. Ross Brawn was quoted with saying, “There is absolutely no doubt the halo was the factor that saved the day – and saved Romain.”
So perhaps I was a bit hasty in my initial assessment of the Halo, as it has provided to be an essential piece of equipment and if it saves life, probably the best F1 innovation ever.
Active Suspension
Back in the early 1990s, Williams F1 unveiled an innovation on the FW14B that provided to be a massive advantage to the team. Revamping and redeveloping an earlier system used by the Lotus 92 car in 1983, it gave Williams a game-changing advantage over their rivals. Essentially the system maintains the ride height of the car improving aerodynamic performance in cornering, braking and accelerating. But what Williams did was to combine it was cutting edge electronics that both predictively and reactively adapted the car when corning, complimenting the traction control and added a button to drop the rear of the car when on straights to maximize top speed.
Williams won 10 of 16 races that season (1992) and won both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ championship. So quite effective then.
Fan Car
The Brabham BT46B “Fan Car”. A pretty blink and you’ll miss it innovation in F1. Debuting in the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix, and a in direct competition to Lotus’ ground force car, British team Brabham decided to use suction to maximise downforce on the BT46B. There’s only two major ways to produce downforce. Either put big wings all over the car, pushing the car to down, or literally suck it to the road. Well designer Gordon Murray went with the latter and smacked a whopping great fan on the back of the BT46B, sucking air from beneath the car, reducing drag and producing some serious downforce with minimal to no airflow deficiency.
The late great Nikki Lauda drove the car to victory in that race after qualifying third when he and teammate John Watson were specifically told to “take it easy” during qualifying as to not show their hand. Quite astutely Murray had exploited a loophole claiming the fan was part of the engine and was for cooling. The rest of the field didn’t buy it and thus the fan car came to an end. It only raced once but was cleared for the season. However, the then team owner Bernie Eccleston decided to retire it rather than cause issue with the rest of the teams.
Gordon Murray went on to design the legendary McLaren F1 and will be back again with its spiritual successor the T50, a 650bhp three-seater V12 …with a massive fan on the back to improve downforce.
Six wheels
It’s 1976 and you’re working for Tyrell. You’ve been charged with improving performance of the car and reducing drag and improving grip and breaking, what do you do? Add two more wheels of course.
Introduced for the ’76 season, and brainchild of Derek Gardener, the P34 is probably the most iconic looking F1 car of all time. The first six-wheeler to ever compete in F1 the concept was to reduce the front lift by having four small tires in the footprint of the bodywork, meaning the rear aerodynamics could be concentrated on, producing some 40-odd extra horsepower for the car. When Gardener sneaked into the first-class compartment on the flight back from the 1975 South African Grand Prix to inform the then retired three-time world champ Jackie Stewart, JS apparent had a “fit of choking” on his drink when he heard.
Competing in the ’76 season the car had a record of one pole, one win and 13 podiums in a 30-race season. Which is quite decent, but driver Jody Sheckter was not a fan. He said that he “didn’t believe in it, didn’t believe in the theory and the test results were wrong” in 2008. He also revealed that it broke all the time and only worked properly on very smooth surfaces.
The car only lasted two seasons and was retired for the 1978 one. Due to a failure by Goodyear to develop the smaller tyres and an ongoing issue with brake efficiency for six tyres and three axles, Tyrell decided the close the book in its six-wheeler project. However, March, Williams and Ferrari were all developing six-wheelers until the layout was banned in the early 80s.
Ground Effect
Ah Lotus. We love you. So, it’s the mid to late 70s and everyone is looking for any advantage they can get in an increasingly even playing field with innovations coming out the wazoo of teams every season, but his one, was a true game-changer.
Reverse wings or ‘inverted lift’ was tried before but it wasn’t until Colin Chapman decided to use the whole car not just the wings halfway through the ’76 season was it successful. Keeping it under wraps until the following ’77 season it certainly caused a stir. Utilizing negative pressure to effectively suck the car the ground it wasn’t apparent until about halfway through the season that it became apparent of what the car could do. With some further developments over the next year or so, the car was lightning fast through corners but lost speed on the straights at first, the Lotus 79 would carry Mario Andretti to the championship with his team mate Peterson finishing second, but tragically losing his life two races from the end in Monza.
F1 banned flat-bottomed cars in 1983 however Lotus did it again in ’88 with the twin chassis car, but ground effect is back for the 2021 season.
Double Diffuser
I can’t remember a more revolutionary innovation in my lifetime. Others happened, but this is the one I remember the most.
In 2009 the FIA released regulations severely dampening aerodynamics for the cars. However, the smart teams found a massive loophole which allowed them to completely ignore them whilst not breaking the rules. The loophole allowed the teams to use holes in the car floor forcing air from underneath up a ramp connected to a second diffuser built into the rear wing creating immense downforce. Three teams exploited this Williams, Toyota and of course Brawn. But it was only Brawn who managed to crack it in time for the start of the season and the rest is recent history. The Brawn car was lapping 8 tenths faster than its rivals at testing in Barcelona leading to the other teams protesting whilst vigorously trying to create their own versions. Slightly hypocritical me thinks.
Alas it was all too little too late, and Jenson Button went to win the Drivers’ Championship and Brawn won the Constructors. Brawn only lasted one season and went on to be the current Mercedes F1 team and we all know how that went.
So, those are some of the best inventions and innovations from F1, did we mention your favourite or is there one or two we missed? Let us know.
Keyword: The Best F1 innovations that caused a stir