After a demo run of Fernando Alonso’s title-winning R25, Mercedes’ Toto Wolff says F1 has “something to learn” from the car’s outing.
The 2005 title-winning F1 car drew a positive reaction from the paddock, with scores of mechanics rushing to the pit wall to witness its fly-by, and fans around the world viewing its laps of the Yas Marina Circuit in the Abu Dhabi GP weekend.
Invoking a particularly emotive response was the successful car’s V10 engine and nimble appearance, as it darted around the circuit with flamboyance, despite being considerably slower than cars of the modern era. Many attributed its small dimensions and especially narrow width with its superficial pace, but wondered why F1 cars of today couldn’t replicate the reaction of the 15-year-old machine.
Mercedes team boss Wolff suggests F1 should take lessons from the excitement around the old car, and attempt to learn from it in order to possibly yield the same zest in future regulatory eras. “I think first of all, the car with the V10 engine, on the one side is a relic of the past when reducing CO2 emissions wasn’t on the cards, and electric mobility didn’t exist,” he said to media including F1, Motorsport Network, Racefans.net and more.
“I think we’re just moving into a new era, and that also means making compromises. But I agree with you that the car looked spectacular. It was very agile, very small, 150kg lighter, a screaming engine, and you can see that although the car was going… how much slower did the car go? Four or five seconds slower than us? When you look at the TV pictures, it looked like they were going much faster. So there is something to learn.
“I don’t think anybody regrets from Formula 1 to have had the car out there, because we need to analyse now that we saw it live what is so attractive? Is it the audio and visual experience that makes it attractive? But then I saw the pictures without the sound, and it still looked great, so why is that? We need to analyse that,” said Wolff, who says that those financially invested in the sport should push for and enact change on this front.
“We are stakeholders in the sport, and we need to improve everywhere. But I think all of us, including F1 and the local guys, will look at it and see what we can do,” Wolff promised after the show run. While he reckons that the sport can learn about the ‘show’, but for now the hybrid engines is here to stay. They are trying to standardise parts or even remove of them – there was a call to remove MGU-H but they went back on their decision.
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