Formula One news

Wheel 'covers' likely to be banned

Wheel 'covers', or 'fairings' under their technical term, are likely to be banned in Formula One next year, Sam Michael revealed in Germany. The devices, often spinning and used to assist airflow and create more downforce, are believed to reduce chances of overtaking.

Sam Michael, technical director of Williams F1

First seen in F1 in 2006, the wheel fairing devices have been analysed with a general belief now being that overtaking opportunities would be greater when cars are running without the components, allowing competitors to follow more closely, thus creating more chances to pass.

"One of the things that has been discussed for next year is to remove wheel fairings and not have static or rotating wheel fairings," Williams technical director Michael said at the Nürburgring, before explaining how CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) research led to the conclusion. "It is the sort of thing where you need to find three or four little things like that and that will add up to a difference, so I think it is going in the right direction but it just needs more."

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