These May Be The Worst Formula 1 Videos Ever But...

...anyone serious about following the sport absolutely needs to see all three, beginning to end, probably more than once.



Designer Enrique Scalabroni, ex Dallara, Williams, Ferrari and Peugeot, is not shall we say, a natural on camera but, get passed that as I'm guessing you will and be rewarded with knowledge from someone with true command of the language of race car.  
Kudos to Peter Windsor, quietly making his way back from the USF1 wilderness, for making these fantastic pieces available, more please!

You may have noticed we expressly avoided talking about the first tests at Jerez,  it's completely pointless to try and make any guesses, not that that has stopped anyone apparently.

Even if the cars (save for a heavily reworked Ferrari and a very different Mclaren) are mostly evolutions from last year, with the aero rules essentially the same for 2013, some themes have emerged.

The first and maybe most obvious is the move to make the sidepods and the bodywork around the back of the car somehow even smaller and tighter.  Tradeoff for the additional "floorspace" will be cooling and to that end interesting Ferrari did not, as had been anticipated by some, have the the radiators at an angle the way Red Bull has.    Ferrari did make some pretty amazing work creating space under the gearbox and differential.

Another area you will notice more development in are the small vertical fins on the floor just in front of the rear wheels.  Their function is explained in one of the videos.

Finally, if I had to guess, this year a big prize will go to the team that best develops a passive F-Duct or DRD (Drag Reduction Duct), the trick there is finding a way to tune it so that it functions only when you actually don't need the downforce.   Lotus and Mercedes tried all last year without getting it quite right.  
The second test at the Circuit de Catalunya this week might shed a bit more light trough all the sandbagging.