Mark Hughes: Modern F1 is a breeding ground for conspiracy theories

More than most seasons of the past, there’s a real volatility of competitiveness in Formula 1 this year; the fall of Red Bull, McLaren’s changing fortunes, the strange yo-yoing form of Mercedes, the way a car can go from hopeless to competitive and back. Singapore qualifying was an example of that as the Ferraris fell away from their Friday form just as surely as Red Bull and Mercedes – in terrible shape on Friday – bounced back on Saturday, with Mercedes then sinking again.

This volatility is a breeding ground for conspiracy theories. More often – especially in the social-media age when mad ideas spread like wildfire – they are nonsense. There are often so many of them that the F1 community can feel like a place in which it’s impossible to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Rather like the outside world in which it exists.

In the wider world that phenomenon is often deliberately constructed – for political or ideological ends. Vladislav Surkov, the former Kremlin communications expert, was a master of surreptitiously releasing wild – often conflicting – stories to keep the population confused or ill-informed. His techniques have been embraced by manipulators across the world so that rival conspiracy theorists argue with each other about whose theory is real while the actual agenda plays out undetected. This, of course, is a conspiracy theory in itself… except that Surkov has described the process.

In F1 wild theories (some gain widespread belief) arise spontaneously from the fan community – as a reflection of the outside world and social media, yes. But also because the sport lends itself so well to them simply through being so complex. A big, but not exclusive, part of that complexity are the tyres. They are non-linear in their behaviour and puzzling enough to flummox even the best race car engineers.

Pirelli has provided them to F1 and its junior ladder series since 2011 on the basis of a supply tender, for which it pays. So logically, Pirelli has had to control the costs of this service. The tyres are not custom-made pure racing tyres as in the tyre war days. They are produced in bulk to a standard specification but one which allows for a variety of compounds. The compounds are used to give the variation in traits required for different surfaces, layouts, temperatures, etc. But the construction of the tyre tends to be relatively weak for reasons to do with the economically viable production method. What this makes for are tyres quite prone to thermal degradation, whereby the grip of the compound can quickly exhaust the core’s ability to support the tread. In such cases the tyre becomes slow, even when there’s plenty of tread left. Other times the tyres, particularly the fronts, can take a long time to reach working temperature while at the same time the rears are getting too hot.

They are a particular tyre capable of surprising even the best engineers. In the lower ranks, where junior drivers and engineers desperately need mileage to learn their craft, track time is extremely limited because the supply of the tyre sets is limited and each lap has to count. Once they’ve been pushed for a lap, they aren’t going to be quick again. So there’s not much learning going on.

The complexities don’t end with the tyres. Exacerbating the rubber’s intricacy are the aerodynamics. The ground effect regs in place since ’22 have created cars which understeer at low speeds and oversteer at high. You know the bit about how some conspiracy theories can be true? That’s where F1’s insanely intense competitive and richly funded drive comes into play. The ideal subject in which to express that drive is aero elasticity. It means that teams invariably stray into grey areas of compliance with the regulations, push up to the very edges of legality and maybe beyond.

This generation of car runs close to the ground and on super-stiff suspension. There is less scope than there used to be to use car rake to enhance the front wing’s performance at low speed (when the car would be nose-down) and reduce its power at high speed (when it would run more level). The focus has become getting the flaps to bend back at high speed, so the wing can be set to work powerfully at low speeds but not too powerfully at high speeds. To do this but still pass the regulatory load test requires clever aero elasticity. Some teams are better at this than others. Those who are less good suggest others must be cheating. A whole host of clever engineers constantly badgers the FIA about legality – and the conspiracy theories begin to form about the governing body or F1 itself favouring teams as a policy of manipulation. Couple that with the tribal aspects of the sport’s following in the modern age, and the poison comes.

“It’s been one of the most challenging times for the engineers I’ve ever seen”

“These cars are on a knife edge,” says Lewis Hamilton. “The aero characteristics are shifting every week. From having a bigger wing to a smaller beam wing. From having a bigger beam wing to having front wings that are flexing to having rear wings that are flexing. It’s been one of the most challenging times for the engineers I’ve ever seen. At Spa we had no understanding of why we were quickest – and still don’t. We just hope it comes back to us.”

Rather than worrying about a driver saying in a press conference the balance of his car was ‘f***ed’, the FIA would surely be better working with F1 in trying to make the whole racing programme – F1 and its support series including F2, F3 and the Academy – better in concept.

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Since he began covering grand prix racing in 2000, Mark Hughes has forged a reputation as the finest Formula 1 analyst of his generation
Follow Mark on Twitter @SportmphMark