Sir,

I know it’s a pipe dream to wish that modern race cars didn’t have wings, but wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise if a magazine like Motor Sport could get some of the modem F1 designers to sketch out what they thought an F1 car would look like without them? Would they still have sidepods, high noses, air scoops, etc? Where would the sponsor’s name go? Most importantly, would they all look the same?

I bet it would make a great wintertime read, especially if you got somebody to sketch their ideas in current team livery and told the designers they could use everything they know today about materials and aerodynamics, etc —just no wings.

I’m sure some bright spark would ask what you mean by ‘wing’, so you’d have to set some ground rules (say: horizontal surface whose primary purpose is aerodynamic). That’s the sort of vague, subject-to-interpretation wording that the FIA might use.

I am, yours etc,
Art McEwen, Kingston, Canada