By 2008, Formula 1 cars looked like something HR Giger would sketch during a Red Bull bender. Winglets on winglets. Flip-ups, flaps, fins, fences — it was less “racing machine” and more “aerodynamic peacock having a panic attack.”
So for 2009, the FIA nuked the whole concept of downforce bloat.
They didn’t just trim the fat. They ripped off the face and started over.
What Changed?
The 2009 regulation shake-up was one of the biggest design resets in F1 history — a three-part attempt to reduce aero turbulence and improve overtaking. The key changes:
- Wider front wings (from 1400mm to 1800mm)
→ Lower, flatter, wider — like a table you could serve brunch on. Designed to redirect air around the tyres more cleanly. - Narrower and taller rear wings (from 1000mm to 750mm)
→ Higher than your hopes in pre-season testing. It looked weird, and honestly still does. - Ban on upper-body aero clutter
→ Goodbye bargeboards, flip-ups, chimney stacks, and spaghetti vortex generators. The bodywork had to be clean and simple. - Return of slick tyres
→ After a decade of grooved rubber (those weird rain-treaded tyres we used in the dry, because reasons), slicks came back. More grip. More mechanical drama. More fun.
Why It Happened:
Because racing was becoming processional.
Following another car closely meant driving into an aerodynamic black hole. You lost front-end grip, the tyres overheated, and the only passing you saw was in the pits or on highlight reels from 1990.
The 2009 overhaul aimed to:
- Reduce dirty air effects
- Encourage closer racing
- Reset the arms race
- Make the cars look less like angry IKEA chairs
It was also the first big push from the Overtaking Working Group — yes, that was a real name, and yes, their PowerPoint must’ve been intense.
Who Benefited?
Well… Brawn GP.
Ross Brawn bought Honda’s abandoned F1 team for one (1) pound, bolted a Mercedes engine into their car, and showed up with a double diffuser — a legal loophole that gave them more downforce without breaking the flat floor rules.
Other teams stared at it, blinked, and then rage-designed for the rest of the year. But it was too late.
Jenson Button won 6 of the first 7 races.
Rubens Barrichello remembered he was fast.
And Brawn GP — the team that technically didn’t exist six months earlier — won both championships.
Who Struggled?
- McLaren and Ferrari: They got the aero regs wrong. Big time.
- BMW-Sauber: Bet everything on KERS and then chickened out.
- Renault: Had Fernando Alonso, and… not much else.
Red Bull, however, figured it out halfway through the season — and that was the beginning of the era to come.
The Legacy:
2009 didn’t fix overtaking overnight, but it did prove that regulation resets can shake the order, brutally and beautifully.
The slicks stayed. The aero simplicity? Not so much. By 2011, the winglets were already creeping back in new forms. Engineers are like raccoons — you can take away the shiny bits, but they’ll always find a new way to get into the garbage.
