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Symonds warns it will be too easy to get slashing downforce wrong

Symonds warns it will be "too easy" to get slashing downforce wrong

12-01-2019 10:03 Last update: 10:16
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Bobby Vincent

Formula 1 technical expert Pat Symonds has warned F1 that it will be "too easy" for rulemakers to be able to slash downforce levels and it will not improve the racing.

Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost suggested downforce levels should be cut by "at least 40-50%" recently.

Tost argued that the only people who benefit from the modern F1 cars are the drivers, with really quick cornering speeds.

However, Tost's suggestion was countered by Symonds at the Autosport International 2019 event.

"Often when you're trying to get your head around an argument you should take it to an extreme and see what answer you get," Symonds said at the event. "If you go to the extreme of having no downforce, you'd say well that's got to be better because you cannot lose something that isn't there.

So there's some logic in the argument. However, it's much more complex than that. You could produce a car with half the downforce of a current Formula 1 car but with much, much worse weight characteristics.

"It would be all too easy to do. Then you'd be no better off than you are now."