The new cars for the 2020 F1 season are the last which will be built to the current technical rules.

Next year the look of the cars which change drastically – and several teams have warned it could mean they all end up with very similar designs.

The current breed of machines still differ in some key respects as teams pursue different solutions to aerodynamic rules which will be much tighter in next year. The interactive images below gives the clearest impression yet of the key differences between the F1 cars of 2020.

Use the drop-down menus below to select which of the 2020 cars you want to compare and use the sliders to transition between the images. Note some images may have been altered for ease of comparison and should not be used as a reference for measurements.

Front

Select left image: Mercedes W11 Ferrari SF1000 Williams FW43 Red Bull RB16 Racing Point RP20 Renault RS20 AlphaTauri AT01 Alfa Romeo C39 Haas VF-20 McLaren MCL35

Select right image: Mercedes W11 Ferrari SF1000 Williams FW43 Red Bull RB16 Racing Point RP20 Renault RS20 AlphaTauri AT01 Alfa Romeo C39 Haas VF-20 McLaren MCL35



Change images

Front-on, the differing trends in nose designs are easy to appreciate. While Racing Point’s ‘pink Mercedes’ has drawn a lot of attention, it is not the only team which has traded a wider nose for a drastically slimmer nose this year: Renault has done the same.

The wider front wings introduced last year prompted a range of different designs initially. However teams have converged on a similar approach more rapidly than they have with the noses. The preferred approach is much steeper at the inside and tapered at the outside edges, the latter in a bid to recapture some of the lost ‘outwashing’ effect which was easier to achieve with pre-2019 wings.

As always, however, this is an area of the car which is likely to receive extensive attention during the season, with many detail changes once the cars hit the track.

Cooling the vastly complicated V6 turbo hybrids and their associated components remains a challenge, and one which is particularly difficult to assess in pre-season testing, where conditions are far cooler than at typical races. Teams will bring circuit-specific solutions throughout the years, especially at races where the temperatures are especially high (e.g. Bahrain) or the air density particularly low (Mexico).

But again there are clear fundamental differences in approach to cooling arrangements. The Mercedes-powered teams especially have substantial upper air intakes while Ferrari’s is noticeably slimmer. Renault’s airbox arrangement is novel, while its customers McLaren prefer something closer to the solution preferred by Mercedes, whose power units they will use next year.

Finally, all the teams have now adopted the ‘pod’-style wing mirrors, banking the slight gain in aerodynamic efficiency they offer.

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Side

Select left image: Mercedes W11 Ferrari SF1000 Williams FW43 Red Bull RB16 Racing Point RP20 Renault RS20 AlphaTauri AT01 Alfa Romeo C39 Haas VF-20 McLaren MCL35

Select right image: Mercedes W11 Ferrari SF1000 Williams FW43 Red Bull RB16 Racing Point RP20 Renault RS20 AlphaTauri AT01 Alfa Romeo C39 Haas VF-20 McLaren MCL35



Change images

The profile view gives better look at some more of the aerodynamic details which will be tightly restricted next season. Since the design rules were loosened in 2017, teams have ploughed resources into developing incredibly intricate and sophisticated barge board arrangements to optimise the flow of air around the car and generate huge downforce.

The engine cover dimensions have been changed for this season, bringing back some of the ‘shark fin’ which was outlawed after 2017, giving more space for teams to incorporate their car numbers.

Differences between the wheelbases can be discerned as well, though differences between how each picture was taken prevents us from calculating them exactly.

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F1 technology