The 2022 technical regulation has revolutionized cars and will likely do the same with drivers’ driving styles. Which in theory should have an easier time undergoing overtaking with cars that are less affected by dirty air. A goal that, according to George Russell and Lando Norris, could be compromised.
The British duo, in fact, argues how the wake effect is much less important than in previous years, and consequently the efforts of the FIA to make the cars aerodynamically efficient even in the chase phase risk being thwarted: “It’s easier to follow the car ahead of you, but with less wake it remains to be seen if overtaking will be easier. You need that delta of performance on the straight to be able to overtake, because you can only really do it at the end of the straight. I got behind Lando and I was about one or two car lengths away: I couldn’t pass him on the straight and this worried me a bit.“, Said Russell at a press conference at Montmeló.
Norris, present with him in front of the journalists, was of the same opinion: “I didn’t want to let him pass on his fast lap, so I screwed him!Joked the McLaren driver. “Overall, I think that if you are behind a car and out of curves the situation has improved. How big this improvement is I don’t know, because there are different levels of fuel in the tests. And perhaps this also depends on the number of cars in front of us: maybe following one car is different from following two, three or four. I too, like George, have noticed the decrease in the wake effect: in short, there are positive and negative sides of these changes. I don’t know where the balance will hang, I think we will have to wait for the first race to better understand the situation“.
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