What happened to F1?

[Janesy B]

LukeKerr said:

For me I would like to see it be more about the drivers rather than the cars and how good they are. It will not happen with all the money involved in sponsorship etc.

The only way to do that would be to have everyone in the same car?

[007 VXR]

I had a great time watching this race, Roast dinner with wife and my boy glued to the tv
almost as much fun as 2 weeks ago being a Silverstone with them watching it live

[Dave Hedgehog]

Wills2 said:

DoubleSix said:

Ricciardo was a joy to watch yesterday. Add in Bottas, sublime work from Hamilton and it was a cracking watch. Enjoyed every minute.

Pistonheads: Moaning Matters

Yep it was a brilliant GP, overtakes everywhere...

artificially created with holes in the rear wing, a "turbo" button and tyres designed to fall apart after a set life, this is only one step away from the ridiculous viewer voted power boost that formula e is introducing

i wont deny it was a good race, but it would be much better imo if the rules where changed so that they did not need to do any of the above and they could just race properly like they used to

[Dave Hedgehog]

Lost soul said:

Pickled said:

Grand Prix (the film) is on BBC2 now, watching Spa from the sixties is an eye opener, no armco, racing between houses.

Watching the footage of Spa and Brands was quite a moment , not much in the way of crowd control was there

doubly so when you think they where surrounded by fuel tanks, even in the sides of the cars

[kambites]

I think "what happened" was the teams got too good at aerodynamic downforce, making it impossible to follow close behind another car through the corners.

[DoubleSix]

Dave Hedgehog said:

artificially created with holes in the rear wing, a "turbo" button and tyres designed to fall apart after a set life, this is only one step away from the ridiculous fan power boost that formula e is introducing

i wont deny it was a good race it would be much better imo if the rules where changed so that they did not need to do any of the above and they could just race properly like they used to

Pretty sure ALL the cars have the above available to them. A driver getting DRS'd simply needs to stay with the overtaking vehicle to repeat the trick in the next zone... if they can't then the faster car pulls away.

I think it's a clever solution to the problem of having cars where performance is only separated by hundreds of a second and overtakes become relatively impossible.

[BritishRacinGrin]

Dave Hedgehog said:

it would be much better imo if the rules where changed so that they did not need to do any of the above and they could just race properly like they used to

Oh yeah I forgot, they don't do this any more do they?

[Dave Hedgehog]

kambites said:

I think "what happened" was the teams got too good at aerodynamic downforce, making it impossible to follow close behind another car through the corners.

this is a big problem

but its been made worse by the banning of ground effect which is much more tolerant of nose to tail running. F1 cars deliberately have a very high (relativity speaking) ride height and a wooden plank to stop them using ground effect

indycars have no problems running nose to tail at 220mph around corners

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8v-X6S4wlU

[Dave Hedgehog]

DoubleSix said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

artificially created with holes in the rear wing, a "turbo" button and tyres designed to fall apart after a set life, this is only one step away from the ridiculous fan power boost that formula e is introducing

i wont deny it was a good race it would be much better imo if the rules where changed so that they did not need to do any of the above and they could just race properly like they used to

Pretty sure ALL the cars have the above available to them. A driver getting DRS'd simply needs to stay with the overtaking vehicle to repeat the trick in the next zone... if they can't then the faster car pulls away.

I think it's a clever solution to the problem of having cars where performance is only separated by hundreds of a second and overtakes become relatively impossible.

its a trite way to try an fix the problems the current aero regulations create, if they changed the aero regs they would not need any of this nonsense, they never used to need any of these fixes

[Dave Hedgehog]

BritishRacinGrin said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

it would be much better imo if the rules where changed so that they did not need to do any of the above and they could just race properly like they used to

Oh yeah I forgot, they don't do this any more do they?

they are racing within artificial created windows of available performance


all thou there is not point discussing it, the bureaucrats and accounts run F1 and that will never change now

Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Monday 21st July 11:29

[BritishRacinGrin]

Dave Hedgehog said:

BritishRacinGrin said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

it would be much better imo if the rules where changed so that they did not need to do any of the above and they could just race properly like they used to

Oh yeah I forgot, they don't do this any more do they?

they are racing within artificial created windows of available performance

What, you mean like the engine displacement limits of the 60s, for instance?

[ewenm]

Dave Hedgehog said:

its a trite way to try an fix the problems the current aero regulations create, if they changed the aero regs they would not need any of this nonsense, they never used to need any of these fixes

I guess it depends whether you think F1 should be amongst the fastest formulas. You could get rid of all the aero, make it easier to overtake, but lose the lap times. If it's the ultimate formula in circuit racing, shouldn't it be the fastest formula?

[scarble]

You timed this thread well, considering yesterday's race

I think the problem for a lot of people, people who yearn for the danger of yesteryear, is that F1 is safe now and without blood and guts and flaming death the only excitement left is the actual racing and clearly some people think this is a bad thing
Over the weekend we still saw two spectacular crashes, both of which resulted in no injury worth mentioning. Proves the driving is still on edge, the cars are still on edge, but no one dies, it's a good thing.. right?
DRS is a bit of an issue sure, but it only really helps a faster car pass a slower car, the Riciardo/Alonso battle carried on for about 5 laps despite DRS and the battle for 2nd showed us that superior driving can fend off a faster car, again despite DRS. I think with the skinnier rear wings it makes less of a difference.
Evidently Hock is good for some actual non-DRS passes too.

Edited by scarble on Monday 21st July 11:48

[Dave Hedgehog]

ewenm said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

its a trite way to try an fix the problems the current aero regulations create, if they changed the aero regs they would not need any of this nonsense, they never used to need any of these fixes

I guess it depends whether you think F1 should be amongst the fastest formulas. You could get rid of all the aero, make it easier to overtake, but lose the lap times. If it's the ultimate formula in circuit racing, shouldn't it be the fastest formula?

if you want them to be the fastest, remove most of the rules, red bulls X cars they created on their simulators would decimate the current cars if they where allowed to be built, but you would probably need new tracks to keep the drivers safe because of the massive cornering speeds

this is what newey can come up with no regs

[ewenm]

Dave Hedgehog said:

if you want them to be the fastest, remove most of the rules, red bulls X cars they created on their simulators would decimate the current cars if they where allowed to be built, but you would probably need new tracks to keep the drivers safe because of the massive cornering speeds

this is what newey can come up with

And if you had a GRID FULL of those, would the racing be exciting with lots of overtaking? Or would you have exactly the same issues you have now with following cars being unable to pass?

Of course you can build a car that's faster than the current cars - that's utterly irrelevant. The question is whether a full race of those cars would provide good racing.

[Dave Hedgehog]

ewenm said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

if you want them to be the fastest, remove most of the rules, red bulls X cars they created on their simulators would decimate the current cars if they where allowed to be built, but you would probably need new tracks to keep the drivers safe because of the massive cornering speeds

this is what newey can come up with

And if you had a GRID FULL of those, would the racing be exciting with lots of overtaking? Or would you have exactly the same issues you have now with following cars being unable to pass?

Of course you can build a car that's faster than the current cars - that's utterly irrelevant. The question is whether a full race of those cars would provide good racing.

which is a valid point, i do not know how much they rely on over wing aero downforce which causes the problems, they do have ground effect and fans to suck them onto the road thou which should be reasonably immune to the problem

although the fans are not new to F1

[The Vambo]

Dave Hedgehog said:

Wills2 said:

DoubleSix said:

Ricciardo was a joy to watch yesterday. Add in Bottas, sublime work from Hamilton and it was a cracking watch. Enjoyed every minute.

Pistonheads: Moaning Matters

Yep it was a brilliant GP, overtakes everywhere...

artificially created with holes in the rear wing, a "turbo" button and tyres designed to fall apart after a set life,

It's all artificially created, it's not like Bernie rounded up some wild F1 cars from their natural habitat and started to race them.

Engineering has advanced to the point where, left unregulated the cars could go so fast that the drivers would blackout in the corners and no crash structure could save you if you left the track at 250mph+.

[BarbaricAvatar]

And this is the problem.

Everyone has their own opinion of which direction the sport should be going and rarely will any 4 people all have matching ideas. Every time there is a big technical rule change, there are always going to be 75% of viewers who aren't happy with the outcome.

There have always been the people who argue F1 should be flat-out from lights to flag, but i don't know what planet you're from but F1 has NEVER been about that. There has always been a measure of preservation mid-race whether it be fuel or tyres.
And another thing. F1 has to remain relevant. If there were no rules then costs would go through the roof, ground-effect and high-G technologies would dominate, both of which have no carry-over to road cars whatsoever. The series will last maybe 1 or 2 seasons before it's forced to shut down for being utterly pointless in the world.
A1GP, GP Masters, Superleague Formula. Look them up, they're all dead.

Personally i don't really care what they do to F1 providing that the racing is good and the sport's survival is ensured. Most of this season's races have shown that the racing is still very good, if you disagree then you're watching the wrong sport. BTCC is much less professional and has a series of idiotic collisions every race, perhaps the rose-tinted brigade should watch that instead and stop pretending that they have any interest in F1.

P.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Brazilian_Grand_...
60% of the drivers retiring is not something that we should be remembering fondly.

[kambites]

Of course that there are still plenty of racing series which do have good close racing. These days my interest in F1 is far more for the technical side of the sport than the racing. If I want to watch wheel-to-wheel racing, I'll watch something else.

[Qwert1e]

The empty grandstands at Hockenheim were an embarrassment. F1 in Germany, German driver on pole, German team leading the championship - yett the spectators still weren't interested in turning up. Nice one Bernie.

If you want racing - watch NASCAR. (BT Sport shows the 1 hour ESPN highlights program each week.)