The tech battlegrounds for F1 2024

Red Bull got the concept right when ground effect returned in 2022. Can its rivals hone their packages to challenge after belatedly following suit?

Updated Jan 22, 2024, 9:51 AM

In days of yore, the response to a single team dominating a Formula 1 season might have been met with an arbitrary rules change with the intention of closing the pack for the following year. Remember when Ferrari’s run of dominance in the early 2000s was ‘miraculously’ ended by 2005’s no-tyre-changes rule, and Bridgestone got its compounds wrong?

There have been no such kneejerk reactions to Red Bull’s total and utter devastation of the rest of the field in 2023. Unlike last year’s tweaks to the ground-effect formula, which detailed a small change to the floor height dimensions to limit the deleterious effects of porpoising, the 2024 rules are effectively the same as last year’s.

Author Jake Boxall-Legge

Jake Boxall-Legge Autosport’s Technical Editor. Having studied Automotive Engineering with Motorsport at the University of Hertfordshire, West Country-born Jake's original ambition was to design racing cars. During a year between studies in which he accidentally rekindled a love of writing, he took up a Master's in Motorsport Engineering at Oxford Brookes. Halfway through his master's year, he was offered a place on the Autosport Academy, conducting occasional freelance duties before becoming the press officer for Formula 2 and GP3 in 2018. Autosport offered him a return to the fold later that year to serve as its Technical Editor. His voice appears on a number of videos and podcasts, and can often be found writing about terrible Formula 1 cars in excruciating detail. In his spare time, Jake enjoys baking and blames his failure to make it past the Great British Bake-Off interviews on his tenuous grasp on choux pastry. His dream is to open a brunch cafe - and his willingness to make outrageous puns in inappropriate situations has earned him the contempt of his colleagues.