F1 Wheels Going Bigger in 2022

Yes, you read it right. Possibly the new F1 wheels are getting a major changing as their size would go from a 13 inch to 18 inches. But bigger is not always better so let us have a closer look as to how will bigger wheels affect the performance of upcoming F1 wheels.

Why are F1 wheels getting bigger?

Getting bigger tires results in slower wheels which results in a reduction of 125hp while driving. James Allison the technical director of the Mercedes Formula One Racing team says that the larger car wheels will make the drive slower by increasing the time by 2 seconds per lap. In technical terms, it is equivalent to a reduction in engine power up to 125 horsepowers.

What is the correlation between a car's wheel size and its performance?

Well, let's just say weight is the enemy of speed so more the weight lesser the speed of the car while driving. Reduce the mass of the car and the performance enhances while adding mass makes it more difficult to move a car quickly. Let’s look at an example 17 inch car wheels which on average are 9 kilograms while 18-inch car wheels weigh 10 kilograms. This 1 kg difference in weight per wheel now as there are four of these on the car this makes a difference in mass of 4kg. Now based on the power to weight ratio this additional mass is equivalent to losing 5 horsepower. In the world of racing cars, this 5 horsepower drop in performance is significant and be the difference between winning or losing a race.

What is the difference in the performance of F1 wheels?

But F1 is not increasing by 1 inch only. They as already discussed are increasing from 13 to 18-inch car wheels a difference of 5 inches as a whole. If we take a 13-inch F1 wheel it almost weighs at 4 kilograms. And an 18-inch wheel on the other hand if made from the same material would weigh 15.7 kilograms. This is equivalent to losing 17 horsepower. Now every horsepower lost means increasing the time of a lap by +0.0016 seconds. So according to this data, the difference in our wheel weights should increase a second per lap.

What is the science behind wheel weights?

The wheel weights are a combination of linear and rotation masses. So normally when we are talking about a weight it is a linear mass which is just a measure of how difficult is it to lift that object upwards or to move it linearly in the forward direction. This is just like taking away horsepower. The car wheels rotate driving and dragging the car forward. Lighter wheels result in increased acceleration. A lot of power is lost in rotating a car wheel initially of they are heavy. The more the wheel is smaller the weight of the wheels will be closer to the center of rotation. But if the wheels are bigger it results in increasing the car rims size and the center of rotation moves further away.

The current size of car wheels is 13-inch wheels having a diameter of 330 millimeters having a sidewall of 170 millimeters. This more sidewall helps absorb the shocks and vibrations which maintains the grip of the car.

Conclusion:

The new tires for the F1 are bigger, although the sizes have not been finalized yet but they will be wider and will have a diameter of 725 mm versus the 670 mm current wheel diameter. So basically F1 wheels were small as the wheels were lightweight and they could fit thicker sidewalls. Thus going towards bigger wheels is a good decision or not is what we will have to wait and watch.

 Factory Wheel Warehouse has to offer a lot of different wheel options depending upon the model, year, style, color, and finishing of the car wheel. For professional customer services about rims and wheels call us at +1 518-579-9260. For car rim repair services Elite of Albany is the best in town so make sure to check them out.

Related Articles: Tips for prolong use of car wheels and car rims