Ranked: The 10 cleverest innovations banned from F1
10. Red Bull’s Onboard Camera Innovation
9. Red Bull Exhaust System
8. The Six-Wheeler Car
7. The McLaren Brake Steer System
6. The Fan Car
5. Lotus 78 – the ground effect car
4. Williams FW14B active suspension
3. Brawn GP Double Diffuser
2. McLaren F-Duct
1. Mercedes DAS System
https://www.planetf1.com/features/ranked-10-cleverest-innovations-banned-f1
Sites like this need to stop hiring teenagers for writers because they got no historical perspective.
Red Bull’s blown diffuser might have been better, cleverer, but it wasn’t the first. The Renault RE40 had a blown diffuser in 1983. Before there was Red Bull, Newey was blowing the McLaren’s diffuser in Y2K.
Similarly, Brawn might have been the first to put the double-diffuser on the track but Adrian Newey already had considered it but passed on the idea because to his interpretation the TR prohibited it.
And he complained bitterly to the FIA when it ruled the DD was legal but that didn’t slow him down retrofitting one to the RB5. Both Red Bulls were competitive by the third race of the season and the seventh would be Jenson Button’s last win. Sebastian Vettel’s 3 DNFs on the season (vs. Button’s one) prevented him taking the WDC, but Newey had made his point. ‘I can build a double-diffuser better than anyone else in F1.’
Lotus’ ground effects and “The Fan Car” both are overrated (on this list) because neither was the first. Both those features were incorporated in the 1969 Chaparral 2J Can-Am “sucker” car. The fact that the author doesn’t seem to know back then it was popularly called a “sucker car” goes to my point about perspective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_Cars#2J
I also think the Tyrrell P34 deserves better than 8th but its legacy is hampered by the fact that they could never get Goodyear to take developing 10” tires seriously. Back then, Leo Mehl, Goodyear’s sports director, was the most powerful man in motorsports. Goodyear wanted their tires to be on the winning car in every major form of motor sports — F1, Indy Car, Nascar, IMSA, Cart, drag racing, go-karting — and you couldn’t make the most meaningless of rules changes without running it past Leo first to see if he (and Goodyear) would support it. And Leo apparently never saw any future in 10” tires. But the P34 did have a 1-2 finish (Sweden, 1976) so it definitely had potential. And it was IMHO the most shocking-looking car ever in F1. I remember Road & Track running a photo of it when they debuted with the caption, “Okay Ken (Tyrrell), where’s the REAL car?”