The Race F1 Podcast How will the outgoing cars - and the racing they produced - be remembered?
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Dec 22, 2025 
Join seasoned motorsport journalist Jon Noble and Formula 1 technical analyst Mark Hughes as they dissect the 2022-2025 rules era. They explore the unintended consequences of regulations, from choppy aero wakes to the challenges posed by ride-height sensitivity. The duo debates the balance between downforce and overtaking, highlighting mastery by teams like Red Bull. Most intriguingly, they discuss how the cost cap reshaped F1's business model, stabilizing teams and enabling competitive revival, notably for McLaren and Williams.
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Ground-Effect Rules: Partial Success
- The 2022–25 ground-effect rules partly met goals but produced many unintended consequences.
- They improved following initially but teams found new aerodynamic tricks that restored turbulent wakes.
Closer Yet Still Locked In
- Reducing downforce loss helped but left following cars still in a difficult window for overtaking.
- Small improvements shifted the problem rather than eliminating the overtaking threshold.
Ride-Height Became The Battleground
- The cars became extremely ride-height sensitive, making porpoising a central engineering focus.
- That shifted development towards ride control rather than more visible aerodynamic innovations.