Ferrari once followed a weird F1 design trend that was banned after four races in 1998

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F1 is heavily restricted when it comes to car design these days, but back in the 1990s, it was much easier for engineers to show their ingenuity.

Teams are always searching for that extra bit of lap time, and while it doesn’t always come through a silver bullet like Brawn GP’s ‘genius’ double diffuser or the McLaren F-Duct, there can be moments where engineers exploit areas of the regulations through some bizarre methods.

Tyrrell gave F1 the six-wheeled car in 1977, and 20 years later, they would debut another quirky design that would eventually get taken up by other teams on the grid, including Ferrari.

Tyrrell introduces X-wings to F1 in 1997

Tyrrell were cash-strapped throughout the 1997 season and were effectively entering their final years before being sold to British American Racing in 1999.

Despite the adversity facing the team, Harvey Postlethwaite would go on to spot a loophole in the regulations that season, which led to the creation of ‘X-wings’ or wing pylons.

The idea behind the wing pylons was to increase the amount of downforce in the car, but F1’s rules were so prohibitive around installing these types of wings at various points on the car.

At the time, the space above the driver’s head was allowed to have bodywork, so Postlethwaite instructed his team to install these uprights with mini end-plates attached to the top.

Aesthetically, it was ugly, but who cares if it makes the cars go faster? The team debuted them in 1997 but it wasn’t until 1998 that rivals had spotted the same loophole and came up with their own concept for high downforce circuits such as Monaco.

Prost was one of these teams and found they couldn’t run wings on both sides because it prevented them from accessing the refuelling flap, so they would run a wing on one side at clockwise circuits and another on the other side for anti-clockwise tracks.

FIA moves to ban X-wings due to safety concerns after four races in 1998

By round four at the San Marino Grand Prix, Ferrari had their own concept for both Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine, followed by Jordan and Sauber. In qualifying, they were beaten by the McLarens by nearly half a second, while Schumacher and Irvine both finished on the podium in the race.

After Sauber had lost one of their X-wings during a pit stop when it was torn off by an air line in the pit lane, the FIA would subsequently move to ban them.

Eddie Jordan criticised the decision at the time when speaking to F1 TV, despite there being concerns over whether it impaired driver vision.

“When one takes into consideration the efforts made by a team to make these, it’s disappointing. We were one of the people who got some real advantage,” said Jordan.

“To be truthful, there was an impairment of vision in terms of what he could actually see and if there is a question of safety you have to side on the safety aspect.”

Safety was key after the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994, with F1 cars undergoing radical changes in a bid to improve the crumple zones on impact.

While the X-wings were an ingenious solution on paper, in reality they caused more problems than they solved, with the FIA moving to ban them in-season on safety grounds.