Tech insight: How F1's teams are trialling 2020 front wings

By:

Jake Boxall-Legge

Nov 18, 2019, 8:32 PM

It's often said that hindsight is 20/20. But for one year only, the prescience of Formula 1's engineers will surely be enhanced by the fact that all of next year's planning will be done with 2020 vision.

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Before you roll your eyes at that somewhat-contrived pun, there's actually some truth to that. For the final stage in F1's current rules cycle before the much-anticipated 2021 overhaul crashes into the paddock, there's very little change from 2019.

In light of that most - if not all - of the teams will use evolutions of their current cars this year in a bid to pump unrestricted costs into their designs for the final time, before F1's cost cap will ostensibly put creative accounting to the ultimate test. The work for 2020 has begun in earnest, and plenty of teams have dedicated parts of Friday's practice sessions in Brazil to laying the foundations for next season.

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Jake Boxall-Legge

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Jake Boxall-Legge Autosport’s Technical Editor. Having studied Automotive Engineering with Motorsport at the University of Hertfordshire, West Country-born Jake's original ambition was to design racing cars. During a year between studies in which he accidentally rekindled a love of writing, he took up a Master's in Motorsport Engineering at Oxford Brookes. Halfway through his master's year, he was offered a place on the Autosport Academy, conducting occasional freelance duties before becoming the press officer for Formula 2 and GP3 in 2018. Autosport offered him a return to the fold later that year to serve as its Technical Editor. His voice appears on a number of videos and podcasts, and can often be found writing about terrible Formula 1 cars in excruciating detail. In his spare time, Jake enjoys baking and blames his failure to make it past the Great British Bake-Off interviews on his tenuous grasp on choux pastry. His dream is to open a brunch cafe - and his willingness to make outrageous puns in inappropriate situations has earned him the contempt of his colleagues.