Mercedes - New F1 regulations laced with "landmines" and "treasure"

Mercedes chief technical officer James Allison has labelled F1's new regulations for this year as being laced with "landmines" and "treasure".

After dominating the turbo-hybrid era by winning eight consecutive constructors' titles, Mercedes is now faced with the biggest threat to its supremacy.

The 2022 rules have radically altered the aerodynamic concept of the cars, hopefully allowing for them to more closely follow one another, and ultimately aid overtaking.

Allison has described the new rulebook as 'dwarfing' anything that has gone before.

"We've been buried in them, and the reality of making them real for so long that it's easy to forget sometimes just what a massive set of regulation changes these 2022 rules represent," said Allison in a Mercedes video entitled 'Road to 2022: Setting the Scene for F1’s New Era'.

"I've been working in the sport for over 30 years and they dwarf anything else I've ever seen.

"I suspect if I were to dig out Wikipedia and go through every season of the sport there has ever been there would be nothing to match the scale of the change that comes with 2022.

"The ruleset is not only enormous, the regulations are about twice the size of what's preceded them, but they're all almost entirely different to what came before them.

"That has meant we've had to reinvent the car tip to toe. Everywhere you look it's completely new."

The new rules, however, means there are opportunities to potentially steal a march on a rival or to miss something that could prove crucial in the grand scheme of things.

"When the regulations change in such large measure as these ones, we approach that with all the fun and relish that challenge deserves," added Allison.

"Our job is to look for technical opportunity in regulations, then use our combined wit and skill, and all the effort we make collectively to try to find a configuration of car that will be better than anyone else's approach to it.

"And when everything is as new as this, then everywhere you look in that regulation set - twice as thick as the old one - there is opportunity and, of course, there's jeopardy.

"So we try to pick our way through the potential minefield, picking up all the little boxes of treasure that may be set in amongst the landmines to end up with a car we hope will see us pitching up at the front of the grid."

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