My apologies for having to disagree with regard to wider front wings but a couple of things ...
The higher, wider front wings and narrower rear wings were introduced in 2009 in order to further inhibit the teams in their never-ending search for aerodynamic downforce, and with the explicit intention of slowing cornering speeds - ostensibly for safety reasons (pish and tosh) . Extending the width of the front wing to the outer edges of the tyres was a compromise to compensate for the concurrently stipulated increase of the minimum height from the ground. Consequently the larger and higher front wings were in fact more vulnerable to being stalled by the wake of car ahead. In terms of the cars running closer together the difference wasn't necessarily that marked and was mostly to do with the smaller rear wings creating a weaker and perhaps less disturbed wake behind the car.
The really significant improvement enabling a car to run closer to the one ahead was the development of the double diffuser pioneered by Brawn. The DD significantly increased ground effect conferred by the aerodynamic characteristics of the undertray thereby compensating for the loss of aerodynamic downforce. Although the double diffuser was later banned, the teams - most notably Red Bull Racing - were able to compensate for that by introducing hot blowing of the rear diffuser. In addition, Red Bull found a trick by making the front wing flexible by clever cross laying of the carbon fibre weave. This meant that the wing could pass the FIA deflection tests which only tested vertical deflection, because the flexing was actually a lateral "twist". The key fact there is that the leading edge of Red Bull's wing was able to twist down closer to the deck at speed below the stipulated minimum height, thus compensating for some of the aero' losses in other areas. At the same time Adrian Newey's brilliant and beautiful sculpting of the "coke bottle" and tight packaging of the engine regained some downforce that had been lost due to the stipulation of the narrower rear wing.
In other words, whilst Brawn lost their advantage as other teams caught up toward the end of 2009 and then, in its reincarnation as Mercedes, lost their DD altogether for 2010 (as did everybody else), Red Bull stole the march to become the dominant force. Another innovation was of course McLaren's "F-Duct" which helped them play catch up to Red Bull, as did Ferrari with their version to make the end of 2010 a tighter battle. Of course the FIA couldn't take this lying down and along cam DRS and KERS and the impending death of V8's in F1.
The new formula for 2014 on seems to be working out quite well. Okay, we have the usual pattern of a one team domination, this time Mercedes, but the cars are running much closer together, often in packs, with mechanical grip and torque playing a more important role in the handling and pace of the cars this season. The emphasis has shifted a little away from aerodynamic downforce and ground effect and toward mechanical grip, efficiency of the power units and braking.
It's turning out to be a very different challenge, particularly for the engineers and the drivers. Yes we may say with some degree of certainty where the titles are headed. Yes we had a scare when a couple of dud races made it look for a while like the season was going to settle into a processional walkover ...
... yeah, but no, but ... watching what is going on throughout he field now is a lot more interesting than it's been for quite some time. Mercedes may well be in command of the season as whole but the others are improving and the return from the summer break sometimes throws up more surprises.
I think I've said this before but it doesn't hurt to say it again ... if something isn't broken, then don't fix it. Let's have the inquest at the end of the season when all the facts are in. Maybe then we won't fuck it up for a change.
