"Exceeded what I was imagining" - FIA head surprised by the variations in 2022 F1 car designs

Nikolas Tombazis, the head of single-seater matters at the FIA, said he was surprised by the variations amongst teams in their 2022 F1 car designs. The new regulations were originally considered to be “too prescriptive”. Yet, across pre-season testing, teams showcased a plethora of design philosophies that were refreshingly unique, and even extreme.

When asked if the FIA expected teams to bring in such a variety of design philosophies during an interview with Motorsport.com, Tombazis said:

“If you asked me whether I expected to see the variety of the solutions that teams produced in the sidepods, then no, that exceeded what I was imagining, I must say.”

The FIA and the F1’s technical team had a clear objective for the new regulations – to improve the new cars’ ability to follow each other closely at all speeds. Subsequently, they brought in “ground-effects” as the obvious solution to achieving that objective by minimizing aerodynamic wake. They also went a step further and tightened up the regulations to prevent teams from following a developmental path that could prove detrimental to the original objective.

This meant that the new rules were some of the largest regulatory changes in F1 history, while also being extremely restrictive.

According to Tombazis, however, the FIA only tightened the rules in certain areas which had direct consequences on the cars’ ability to follow, while allowing F1 teams free reign in other areas. He added, saying:

“We did consciously free up the sidepods more than we did other areas. We could easily have written rules for the sidepods that would have been all the same if we wanted to. We didn’t do that because we felt it was an opportunity. So, in that respect, that wasn’t totally random that happened with the sidepods.”

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FIA taking a more pragmatic approach to policing F1’s new rules

With such a variety of interpretations of the new regulations, teams are bound to come up with at least some innovation or design that could fall foul of the FIA. Tombazis, however, said that policing the new 2022 regulations will be more about “reacting more easily to correct regulations" rather than “saying a car is illegal or something like that".

Speaking to Motorsport.com, Tombazis said:

“I don’t think teams designed a car in any particular way, just because they liked us. They still made what they think is the fastest car and the best interpretation. They worked really hard on the regulations like one would expect them to do. I think by and large, the regulations were reasonably well written. Some areas were not perfect and will be tweaked in the future. We still have to follow the governance; the governance has voting and so on. We don’t pluck it out of thin air and say here are the new regulations.”

Mercedes have already turned heads around the F1 paddock with their extreme no-sidepods design. Ferrari has now questioned the legality of the way Mercedes has mounted their rear-view mirror supports onto the safety structure due to the lack of sidepods and is expecting the FIA to publish a technical directive clarifying the regulations.