The 2010 season has come to an end with an exciting finish to it. Sebastian Vettel claimed a hard fought title battling until the very end with teammate Mark Webber and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. It was Red Bull Racing that secured
both the Driver’s and Constructor’s Championship. It was a very well deserved victory for the team. The next year will be as exciting as the 2010 Championship proved to be and there are also some technical changes which will be made for the new season.
The first change will be the change in the tyre suppliers from the next season. Pirelli will take over from Bridgestone and from next year all the teams will be running on the new Pirelli tyres. The initial tests have been conducted
as well which have been very positive and the drivers have taken some good data from the tests with their 2010 cars. Pirelli have returned to the sport after a 20 year gap and the only driver to have run on the Pirelli tyres is the seven time Champion Michael
Schumacher. It will all depend on how the teams adapt to the new set of tyres and who makes the most of these tyres to take advantage in the next season.
Another major change in the coming season will be the ban on the double diffusers and the F-ducts which have been an integral part of the last two seasons and teams have worked a lot on these to improve their performances. Teams
like Red Bull Racing, Mclaren, and Ferrari have used the diffusers and the F-duct to try and gain advantage over other teams and they have been successful in doing so. Last year’s champion team and driver Jenson Button and Brawn used the double diffusers to
full effect to gain advantage over their competitors and they won the title easily by gaining a competitive advantage over all the other teams.
To boost their overtaking, the drivers will now be able to adjust the rear wings from their cockpit. The drivers will be allowed to use it on predetermined parts of the track only when they are a little less than a second behind
the driver in front. As soon as they brake, the system deactivates. This will also be allowed to the drivers for the practice sessions and the qualifying as well to some extent.
The KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) will be reintroduced in the coming season to help the drivers in overtaking. The basic function of the KERS is to save the wasted energy which is produced by the brakes and then utilize
it as some extra power. The KERS was suspended by all the teams in the 2010 season. The system will be similar to that used by the teams in the 2009 season and the drivers will have a boost button on the steering wheel. When the KERS was used in the 2009 season,
refueling was not banned and the teams had some space to accommodate the battery packs. This time around it would be slightly different as the tanks will be larger and the battery packs will have lesser space to be adjusted with the cars.
All these changes will be interesting for the teams and the teams which adapt to the changes better than others, will benefit more compared. The inclusion of KERS and the adjustable rear wing will provide some extra overtaking
opportunities which will also provide some to limit racing maneuvers. The ban on the Double Diffusers and the F-ducts will be a loss for some teams who have used them well. At the end of the day, it will be the team which interprets the new regulations in
the best way and utilize the available resources in the best possible way winning the races and the championship in 2011.
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