Andreas Seidl, spoke about the new Formula One rake rules and insisted that it has been a difficult rule to accept for all the teams that are out there. Being tough and protesting against the rule is one thing but talking about going to court against the rule is another. Team Aston Martin F1 has done just the same.
Aston Martin’s Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer has reached out to FIA regarding the new rule about the rake and expected fair explanation. The team from Britain feels the new rule isn’t providing them a fair playground and has hurt them badly.
Rolling out for Portimao. 🇵🇹
Welcome to race week! pic.twitter.com/Pjaa4i2NnA
— Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) April 26, 2021
The McLaren principal conveyed in an interview on this context, “To be honest, it’s difficult for each team, in my opinion, to give a solid or valid judgment on the effect these new aero regulations have on different car concepts. To be honest, it’s difficult for each team, in my opinion, to give a solid or valid judgment on the effect these new aero regulations have on different car concepts.”
McLaren 🤝 Mercedes
Listen to the #MCL35M rip around Silverstone 🔊#SkyF1 | #F1 | @McLarenF1 pic.twitter.com/r1LRHlkh5O
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) February 18, 2021
The 45-year-old German International further asserted, “We all went into winter with the car concept that we used last year, because of the regulations. It wasn’t really possible to do a big change there, and none of the teams I guess did a parallel development with the same manpower and the same energy with two different concepts to see actually where would you come out.”
Aston Martin trying everything to get better of this rake rule
Even though McLaren uses high rake cars, but they’ve introduced a diffuser in their MCL35M during the pre-season testing at Bahrain Circuit. However, Aston Martin uses Mercedes’s low rake concept cars and it has hurt them a lot.
Sebastian Vettel with Aston Martin’s AMR21 car for 2021 season. (Image courtesy: Getty Images)
The low rake cars lose as much as one second per lap to those of high rake ones. Adding on, the team from Britain doens’t have Lewis Hamilton or Valtteri Bottas in their line up to make up the time gap.
To fight this rake rule, Aston Martin has taken up on reducing the size of the inlet and, as a consequence, the size of the sidepod’s shoulder. However, the sidepods were already incredibly tightly packaged on the AMR21, Aston Martin’s car for 2031 season. It’ll be now interesting to see how far Sebastian Vettel’s team cope up with the rake rules and perform this season.
