In 2024, many Formula 1 teams have once again unveiled cars that will look completely different at the season opener – but why is that actually the case?
When a Formula 1 team officially presents its car before a new season, you can usually assume that the car will look completely different at the first race of the season, or in some cases even at the test drives beforehand.
But why do the cars that are presented by the teams often have little to do with the cars that actually race on the track a few days later? The most obvious reason for this game of hide-and-seek is obvious.
“Because it’s a game that’s about performance, and why would you ever want to give anything away?” explains Lando Norris at the presentation of the McLaren MCL38. In other words, it’s all about not showing too much to the other teams.
Because while the fans are eagerly awaiting the new cars, the competitors are naturally also watching very closely when a new car is unveiled. And nobody wants to lay all their cards on the table before the first test drive.
Because the sooner you show the complete car, the longer your opponents have to recognize and copy possible ideas. That’s why the teams often don’t show everything at the launch or even deliberately distort certain elements of the car
Cars are not even ready this early in the year
Alfa Romeo, for example, showed an underbody before the 2023 season that later turned out to be a complete fake, and this year some teams have again thrown smoke and mirrors to mislead the competition.
But that’s not the only reason why the cars often differ at the launch and the first race. Because even if the teams wanted to show the same car at a presentation as later at the season opener, this would usually not be possible
Expert Bernie Collins, who worked for McLaren and Aston Martin and the predecessor teams from Silverstone for many years, explains on Sky that the cars are often simply not even ready at the time of the presentations.
“For a lot of teams, some of the parts will be prototypes at launch, so basically plastic parts of the right component because the right component isn’t ready yet,” says Collins, who reminds us that there are still a few days between presentation and testing.
Development continues even after the launch
“Every week that the car can be in the wind tunnel to refine the parts and development means one more week of development on the car,” she emphasizes. This year, all teams had around a week between launch and testing, sometimes even more.
And during this period, development naturally continues behind the scenes. Collins reports from her own experience: “When we tested in Barcelona [in the winter], we always had an upgrade for the last day, so you only had the same car on that day as you did for the first race.”
“And some teams even have upgrades for the first race,” she recalls. This makes the discrepancy between the car that is presented and the car at the first race, which sometimes takes place weeks later, even greater.
From a sporting point of view, the launches are of no interest to the teams anyway. Helmut Marko, for example, once said that a presentation is “important for fans and sponsors”. For the racing team, however, it is nothing more than a compulsory event.
