10 times F1 rule changes created ugly cars

every now and again in Formula one we get a new set of rules which changes the way the cars look and while there are often elegant design solutions there are times where engineers certainly put function over form or in the case of some of these cars whereabouts a sadly look at there was neither function nor form at play make sure you've got your I bleach at the ready and be prepared to yell at your screen in horror here's ten of the most aesthetically challenged Formula one cars after a large-scale rule change in 1983 ground effects have been eliminated for the new season gone were the long sprawling side pods and many teams turned up with a sleek dark like car for the new season the leash AJ s21 was quite an extreme interpretation while the rapid Brabham bt-50 - certainly looked like a car in a hurry but then emerged the little spirit team and its bulky 201 chassis designed to formulat regulations spirit turned up on the grid in 83 with a Honda engine and box edict and car and the white liveried version looked what like a refrigerator than a racing car just not quite as cool the double rear wing version was even more of an oddity as teams took drastic measures to recover the downforce lost over the offseason although the car wasn't entirely uncompetitive kick-starting Stephanie Hansen's f1 career and reintroducing Honda to Formula One spirit evaporated from the sport midway through 1985 without a single point okay so the Tirol nought to 6 wasn't actually a bad looking car on its own but the inclusion of a famous aero piece briefly ruined to the aesthetic properties of nearly the entire 1998 field do you remember x-wings no not the Star Wars ones these ones Terral needing a little bit of a downforce boost at low speed circuits experimented with x-wings the season before but circuits like Monaco when the rules for narrower track cars were brought in for 1998 slicing off a hefty chunk of overall downforce Terrell dipped into its back catalogue to get some of it back emerging in Melbourne with a pair of wings sprouting from the top of the side pod not looking quite as avant-garde as the original x-wing Terrell triggered a sudden burst of similar designs appearing through the early races Salva turned up with them in Brazil with Jordan cross an even Ferrari seeking to take advantage of the newly rechristened tower wings in Imbler these wings were rudimentary at best to the point where Prost had to run with just one during the race as the other one blocked the refueling port thankfully they were banned on safety grounds the FAA presumably worried they'd have somebody's eye out worried about the stagnant racing throughout the mid-2000s the 2009 arrow changes sought to address that looking to create stronger wheel to wheel action although the skinny rear wings and wide snowplow front wings took some time to get used to most teams emerged in 2009 with reasonably attractive interpretations of the rules especially the Braun and Ferrari designs Renaud's are 29 on the other hand was incredibly aesthetically challenged a bulky design at the nose cone can only be accurately described as bulbous with a chunky underside intended to minimize any lift there's air passed underneath thankfully with a bit of clever trickery and presumably after a few contouring tutorials on YouTube Renault managed to conceal it with black paint meaning the nose didn't look anywhere near as huge as it actually was still the livery scheme perhaps needed a bit of a rethink and the incongruous mix of white yellow and orange did it no real favors at all Ferrari has made some very pretty cars over the years by the 156 the 641 and to the F 2004 but for every one of those as a few that weren't quite so good-looking the F 2012 is one of those as nose heights in Formula One got higher and higher the FIA got concerned about driver head safety in the event of crash for 2012 f1 s rule makers lowered the maximum height of the crash structure in the nose but didn't address the maximum height of front chassis bulkhead to make the most of the airflow going under the car a large collection of Formula One teams created a sudden transition between chassis and body work dubbed as the steppes nose although Force India Lotus and Caterham made some attempt to address the looks Ferraris version immediately looked like it was made from bricks in a step no solution looked particularly blocky what was worse the early indication from testing seemed that it wasn't a particularly competitive car so how Fernando Alonso dragged that Ferrari into championship contention is still one of f one's biggest mysteries against the Red Bulls lotuses and the McLaren's it looks significantly more lumbering in the past everyone used to run their radiators at the front of the car until Lotus moved them to the flanks with the successful 72 design and they've remained there to this day perhaps the unfelt see Tolman outfit was a fan of retro culture and tried to bring the front mounted radiator back the team's 1983 car at the TG 183 and the later B spec turned up with two radiators mounted inside a giant front wing a bizarre solution that the idea was presumably to improve the turn instability by adding a larger concentration of mass at the front as well as providing extra cooling to the thirsty heart turbo engine unfortunately it proved to be quite a skittish car and the sequel the TG 184 was a far more conventional design catapulting some chap named diet and center into the limelight although he got up to after that in 1978 safety measures were still pretty new to the game but for the first time the chassis bulkhead size was properly defined now that everyone was using some variation of an aluminium moniker ATS new to Formula 1 the previous year turned up with a remodeled Penske PC for chassis changed to fit the new regulations this became known as the HS one and first emerged looking like a big yellow bathtub with a front air intake seemingly inspired by a construction vehicle after an early season overhaul the HS 1 looked far less ridiculous losing the front scoop and the bathtub cockpit but it was still a very angular looking machine and was not a particularly successful design the d1 chassis that turned up to the last C races of 78 also looks incredibly boxy with bigger side pods to buy into the ground effects phenomenon it was hardly any better even in the hands of future world champion keke rosberg and failed to finish a race Joe or B said a few minutes together ugly Ferraris well here's another one looking to improve driver safety for the second half of the 1990s the FIA mandated higher cockpit sides for 1996 to protect the drivers heads via three rules trickery or just through clever design most teams seem to integrate them well into the design of the car using little fins to satisfy the dimension requirement it's fair to say Ferrari didn't pick up on that one and the F 310 resembled a red armchair cruising through the f1 pack it was a very odd-looking car with an unconventional side pod package and for the first part of the season at least the only one with a low nose in the middle of the season the nose was raised in line with the rest the field and ended up looking even more peculiar it resembled a pelicans bill making the car look even more strange compared to its competition thankfully the successor the f3 10b was far less of a strain on everybody's retinas the 2014 regulations mandated a very low crash structure leading a number of teams to a very inelegant interpretation of the new rules looking to bring as much air flow under the car as possible to work the floor harder actually can we flavour out thanks Lotus on the back of two strong seasons decided to throw caution to the wind and turned up with a rather mad adaptation a twin tusk design one longer than the other to satisfy the regulations it was the stroke of madcap genius that would either be successful or fail miserably and it was the latter as the team struggled with just about everything that year the initial breed of Renault turbo hybrid engines were lacking reliability and the e22 had a horrible tendency to completely lose rear-end downpours with a stalling diffuser resulting in horrible handling worsened when it's trick suspension systems were banned by the FIA the car was consigned to the history books after scoring just 10 points 305 points short of the previous year's tally you can see mid 70s formula 1 cars coming from a mile away especially as the outrageously tall air intakes would frequently leave local giraffes with an inferiority complex but those the lessee AJ s5 was undoubtedly the worst a lot arriving in 1976 with a told bulbous airbox that looked like a novelty teapot Lachey managed to score three points in its first four races with a solitary driver Jack Lafitte thankfully the two layer boxes were chopped off after the Spanish Grand Prix but the js5 still managed to find a way to be particularly unsightly creating a new air intake that looked like the gaping mouth of a giant blue blob fish that's a technical term by the way looks are however sometimes deceiving and Lygia gaze first f1 effort was actually pretty successful yielding three podiums enroute to sixth in the Constructors Championship the following year's js7 was a race winner though and a lot more easy on the eye when a team principal says his team's new car looks like something from a science fiction novel it's probably cause to be a little concerned and so it's emerged when the sitio 5 was wheeled out of the garage in an alien green color scheme but that wasn't the most alarming part the nose section meeting the new 2014 rules was a horrendously inelegant solution and a conservative cooling package for the problematic renault power unit resulted in the car looking particularly bulky easily the slowest car on the grid Tony Fernandes gave up on the team halfway through the year although the car looked a lot less awful by the midpoint of the season the less clumsy looking knows the team hit the wall before the end of the year save for a late crowdfunded cameo in Abu Dhabi which was the last race for the not so lean not so mean green machines you [Music]

Channel: Autosport

Views: 1,643,054

Keywords: F1, Formula 1, formula one, ugly F1 cars, worst F1 cars, bad F1 cars, F1 rule changes, F1 history, F1 technical, F1 list, F1 countdown, Autosport, Ferrari, Lotus, Fernando Alonso, F1 2012, F1 ugly noses, F1 step noses, F1 2014 noses

Id: ulmvzzRcZt0

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 30 2019