Well, you can’t be completely sure that it is the actual Renault Formula 1 car in 2020 for a number of reason. And the most important one is the fact that Formula 1 might not survive that long given the current disputes and the rules for four-cylinder engines! This is Renault F1 chief designer Pat Symonds’ speculations of that car.
According to Pat Symonds the 2020 Renault F1 car will feature Low-profile tyres on bigger wheels, the return of ground effects aerodynamics, Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) that produce 250bhp and a standard, non-downforce rear wing. That 250 hp is extremely worrying, but sadly it’s probably true becasue of the constantly increasing CO2 restrictions in motorsport.
They’ve already decided on using 1.6 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine from 2013, so these speculations are not that outlandish.
The article, featured in Issue 179 of F1 Racing, on sale from January 27, theorises on how future regulation changes could lead to radically-different F1 designs.
The results take into account the likelihood of future rules on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions but assume that F1 will remain an open-wheel, open-cockpit formula.
F1 teams have already been instructed to reduce their fuel consumption by 35% in future generations of racing cars, while a more environmentally-friendly 1.6-litre turbo engine will be introduced for the 2013 season.
Symonds said: “Taking into consideration all the variant motivators that drive regulations, I expect that the F1 car of 2020 will demonstrate much more change than has been seen over the past 10 years.
“A few simple assumptions can determine the basic architecture of the car,” he explains. “By the time we add a few changes, such as larger wheels and low-profile tyres, we start to get a fairly clear picture of what the car might look like.
“The illustrations we’ve produced are certainly an artistic impression, but they capture the essential characteristics of a car that will be contesting the Formula 1 World Championship in 2020.”
