FIA reveal 'a few surprises' when inspecting teams' cars for 2022 F1 campaign

The FIA’s Nikolas Tombazis has said that they have seen a few surprises when inspecting the Formula 1 teams’ new cars for the upcoming season, but nothing as dramatically revolutionary as the double diffuser that caused such a storm in 2009.

New rules and regulations are coming into force for the 2022 season with the cars looking drastically different to their predecessors as F1 and the FIA bid to generate much-closer racing with an all-new aerodynamic philosophy.

As ever with sweeping rule changes in F1, though, there is the opportunity for some creative interpretation of the regulations by the cleverest of engineers to try and get their team an advantage and so the FIA is trying to be hot on that from the get-go.

Indeed, it sounds as though there’s been nothing really outlandish put forward so far by one of the teams, though Tombazis has said a couple of surprises have still come up.

“We have seen a few surprises here and there,” said Tombazis.

“Some areas where cars are a bit more different between them than what we expected and where engineers have applied their innovative skills to come up with a solution.

“I think you will see a lot more differentiation than maybe you were expecting to start with.

“I wouldn’t say there’s been any massive alarm bells so far. It’s been relatively mild – still within what we think is a completely fair interpretation of the rules.

“We haven’t seen anything equivalent to a double diffuser or anything like that!”