F1 a joke!

[M3user]

Love F1 , but with the engine freeze its a joke. Mercedes have done a fantastic job with development but give the other teams a chance. Open up testing and engine development , pure prototypes and racing at its best. Never liked Le Mans but it's looking more acceptable every day.

[Doink]

But if you open up testing you open it up to Mercedes as well so everyone moves forward the same, the fact is Mercedes have just done a better job than everyone else, why is that their fault?

Horner wants them reigning in a bit because they have too much horsepower, well that's not mercs fault is it, its Renaults for not having enough

Earlier in the week Horner suggested banning wind tunnels, hmmmmm let me think.....I wonder if that has anything to do with Adrian Newey taking a step back

At the end of the day its up to the other teams to catch up, its not up to merc to build a ste engine to give others a chance

[Darranu]

Loved F1, watched it religiously for as long as I can remember but I'm done.

Lift and coast! FFS this is meant to be the pinnacle of motorsport and their freewheeling around out there.
It should be flat out for as long as the driver / machine can sustain the pace, stop pandering to the eco mentalists they don't give a st that F1's now a tad greener, as far as they're concerned it's got an engine so it's the work of the devil.


Don't get me started on the artificial overtaking aids that seem to rob us of real risks been taken for every place.

This weekend was the first time since I was a kid that I haven't watched the first race of the season and from what I've read I'm glad I put the time to better use been dragged around garden centres

Rant over

[Inertiatic]

Darranu said:

Loved F1, watched it religiously for as long as I can remember but I'm done.

Lift and coast! FFS this is meant to be the pinnacle of motorsport and their freewheeling around out there.
It should be flat out for as long as the driver / machine can sustain the pace, stop pandering to the eco mentalists they don't give a st that F1's now a tad greener, as far as they're concerned it's got an engine so it's the work of the devil.


Don't get me started on the artificial overtaking aids that seem to rob us of real risks been taken for every place.

This weekend was the first time since I was a kid that I haven't watched the first race of the season and from what I've read I'm glad I put the time to better use been dragged around garden centres

Rant over

As an aside...I've never met one of these "eco-mentalists" who hate F1 - the environmentally minded people I know understand that racing can progress the breed...but lets not dwell on that

Anyway...

fuel saving has always been a part of F1 (and racing in general) - why would you carry more fuel than you really need when there will always be moments in a race when you aren't flat out. It just is much more apparent recently because of the increased radio comms. It certainly happened before 2014 though!

Artificial overtaking aids - you have a good point - but the development of aero has led to following a car close enough to overtake being very difficult. If you remove aero then people will moan about the "pinnacle of motorsport" Catch 22 - what do you do. DRS just needs to be used correctly - zones only just long enough to allow someone to get alongside. I'll agree it can look too easy at the moment.

The Aussie GP was not a good race but there were many factors that led to this that were unrelated to the specification of the formula - injuries (Bottas, Alonso), unexpected mechanicals (Grosjean, Kyvat), unfortunate crashes (Maldonado), pit stop mistakes (Kimi)...

Edited by Inertiatic on Sunday 15th March 18:45

[M3user]

I never said it was Mercedes fault, they have done a fantastic job but take Honda as a point. They have had to build a engine from scratch and submit the spec to the FIA by a certain date, that engine is now frozen bar the engine credits. There is no way in this world they will develop that engine as a race winner this year or next. Allow free engine development and the engine suppliers would eqaulize much quicker. Engine power, reliability is winning races at the moment rather than aero, good driver help as well. F1 is a show but the show only contains two cars capable of winning at the moment bar reliability, accidents. Boring!

[Inertiatic]

M3user said:

I never said it was Mercedes fault, they have done a fantastic job but take Honda as a point. They have had to build a engine from scratch and submit the spec to the FIA by a certain date, that engine is now frozen bar the engine credits. There is no way in this world they will develop that engine as a race winner this year or next. Allow free engine development and the engine suppliers would eqaulize much quicker. Engine power, reliability is winning races at the moment rather than aero, good driver help as well. F1 is a show but the show only contains two cars capable of winning at the moment bar reliability, accidents. Boring!

Aero is winning races though. Merc beat Williams and Force India and they have identical engines (ignoring the tin-foil).

The money has to come from somewhere though - development costs a fortune - and this will be levelled at the teams through the cost of the engines. This would have been the case in any engine era. Also means that a smaller PU manufacturer has no hope in hell of keeping up - I bet Merc has bigger pockets than Renault (for instance).

[Doink]

M3user said:

I never said it was Mercedes fault, they have done a fantastic job but take Honda as a point. They have had to build a engine from scratch and submit the spec to the FIA by a certain date, that engine is now frozen bar the engine credits. There is no way in this world they will develop that engine as a race winner this year or next. Allow free engine development and the engine suppliers would eqaulize much quicker. Engine power, reliability is winning races at the moment rather than aero, good driver help as well. F1 is a show but the show only contains two cars capable of winning at the moment bar reliability, accidents. Boring!

Wrong, read this below

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117259

---

For the 2014 season Mercedes didn't have the benefit of a loophole, the engine they homologated was THE engine and the same for the others, Mercedes managed to build this engine from scratch, no help from anyone, no drawings, no hints, no pro's or con's, the same can't be said for Honda can it, they had a whole season to take sneaky peeks at the merc lump in the back of a McLaren, Renault have had the same time looking at a Ferrari engine in the back of a torro rosso too

[MiniMan64]

Everytime this gets mentioned I can't help but think people have short memories. Ban things like DRS and you're going to have to give the aero rules a serious redesign because then it really will be a Mercedes led procession.

[M3user]

Thanks for the link to Autosport! As I said bar engine development credits which I belive Honda have 9. Engines can only be developed to a certain degree , hence Moro Gp going 4 stroke, and the dropping of F1s last engine, rule shake ups are good and I agree teams do dominate F1 at different times, but with current rules on testing, development etc its a 2 horse race for the foreseeable future even if you do have the budget you can't use it!

[Inertiatic]

M3user said:

Thanks for the link to Autosport! As I said bar engine development credits which I belive Honda have 9. Engines can only be developed to a certain degree , hence Moro Gp going 4 stroke, and the dropping of F1s last engine, rule shake ups are good and I agree teams do dominate F1 at different times, but with current rules on testing, development etc its a 2 horse race for the foreseeable future even if you do have the budget you can't use it!

But the 2-horse race is just an occurrence. Its not by design. Williams, FI and Lotus could theoretically match Merc but the chassis and downforce isn't good enough yet for those teams.

I'm not sure what the alternative would be without increasing costs significantly

[Defcon5]

In very simple terms, what are the rules on the engine? Is there a HP limit, or fuel,flow limit or something?

[Crafty_]

M3user said:

Love F1 , but with the engine freeze its a joke. Mercedes have done a fantastic job with development but give the other teams a chance. Open up testing and engine development , pure prototypes and racing at its best. Never liked Le Mans but it's looking more acceptable every day.

There is no engine freeze. Active engine development this year is permitted.

Did you have issues with the V8 engine freeze that F1 ran under for years ?

[Darranu]

Inertiatic said:

Anyway...

fuel saving has always been a part of F1 (and racing in general) - why would you carry more fuel than you really need when there will always be moments in a race when you aren't flat out. It just is much more apparent recently because of the increased radio comms. It certainly happened before 2014 though!

Edited by Inertiatic on Sunday 15th March 18:45

Yeh totally agree but in the last couple of years it's became a lot more prevalent especially with the introduction of fuel consumption graphics within the race program.
It just seem's they've tried to make it more appealing to the engine manufacturers to showcase how things can transfer to their road cars but with it going just a tad to far.

In the very brief moment I turned the race on today I caught the part where Nico was catching Lewis only to be told by his engineer to back off and save fuel for a push towards the end of the race.
It seems like we're getting robbed of some real entertainment just because the drivers can only drive at 9/10's due to fuel constraints.

[Inertiatic]

Darranu said:

Inertiatic said:

Anyway...

fuel saving has always been a part of F1 (and racing in general) - why would you carry more fuel than you really need when there will always be moments in a race when you aren't flat out. It just is much more apparent recently because of the increased radio comms. It certainly happened before 2014 though!

Edited by Inertiatic on Sunday 15th March 18:45

Yeh totally agree but in the last couple of years it's became a lot more prevalent especially with the introduction of fuel consumption graphics within the race program.
It just seem's they've tried to make it more appealing to the engine manufacturers to showcase how things can transfer to their road cars but with it going just a tad to far.

In the very brief moment I turned the race on today I caught the part where Nico was catching Lewis only to be told by his engineer to back off and save fuel for a push towards the end of the race.
It seems like we're getting robbed of some real entertainment just because the drivers can only drive at 9/10's due to fuel constraints.

But unless you FORCE them to use 100kg of fuel in a race, surely fuel saving is unavoidable. Its just we know about it. Maybe they should ban radio about fuel saving being broadcast - problem solved

[Darranu]

Think you could be right, ignorance is bliss and all that

[Troubleatmill]

Well... a couple of ways to solve.

F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport ... so how about an accurate fuel gauge.
Someday the technology will trickle down to normal road cars.

Or as well as points for finishing - we have a points scheme to reward drivers who gets the fastest lap every lap.

The concept being you drive the car as fast as you can..... I think we could call it "racing".

[The Moose]

Darranu said:

Inertiatic said:

Anyway...

fuel saving has always been a part of F1 (and racing in general) - why would you carry more fuel than you really need when there will always be moments in a race when you aren't flat out. It just is much more apparent recently because of the increased radio comms. It certainly happened before 2014 though!

Edited by Inertiatic on Sunday 15th March 18:45

Yeh totally agree but in the last couple of years it's became a lot more prevalent especially with the introduction of fuel consumption graphics within the race program.
It just seem's they've tried to make it more appealing to the engine manufacturers to showcase how things can transfer to their road cars but with it going just a tad to far.

In the very brief moment I turned the race on today I caught the part where Nico was catching Lewis only to be told by his engineer to back off and save fuel for a push towards the end of the race.
It seems like we're getting robbed of some real entertainment just because the drivers can only drive at 9/10's due to fuel constraints.

It's always been like that though...for as long as I can remember.

Conserving fuel, tyres etc and not just driving balls to the wall for 90 mins.

I don't see that as being anything new personally.

[Inertiatic]

I'm sensing a parrot , but...

Troubleatmill said:

Well... a couple of ways to solve.

F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport ... so how about an accurate fuel gauge.
Someday the technology will trickle down to normal road cars.

They do have fuel use on their steering wheel - Hamilton questioned his today. I suppose you could ban radio calls about fuel, but perhaps the comfort from the pit wall allows them race harder?

Troubleatmill said:

Or as well as points for finishing - we have a points scheme to reward drivers who gets the fastest lap every lap.

But wouldn't the fastest car/driver just build an even bigger points lead?

Troubleatmill said:

The concept being you drive the car as fast as you can..... I think we could call it "racing".

They do though. They drive as fast as they can given the circumstances like in all races - its like asking why Usain Bolt cant run a marathon in under an hour As you don't spend 100% of the race at full throttle you will always have to balance fuel weight and engine performance.

[SteBrown91]

MiniMan64 said:

Everytime this gets mentioned I can't help but think people have short memories. Ban things like DRS and you're going to have to give the aero rules a serious redesign because then it really will be a Mercedes led procession.

This. I have 2 words for the pre-DRS era:

Trulli train.

[Fire99]

Well no era is or has been perfect but things really do seem to have slid a long way down a path of 'artificial thrills' I remember fuel issues of the 80's Turbo era but it was still 'organic' racing and was genuinely exciting to see a car way ahead run out of fuel with half a lap remaining. I guess when they weren't running out of fuel, they were running up to about 1000bhp and a big difference from KERS (or ERS) and DRS was that if you overdid it with the boost then it would screw your entire race rather than having another go the following lap.

I can still go back and watch 80's races and enjoy them. These are easily forgotten.

Perhaps the big issues is (perhaps) that back then car development still came first and exciting racing etc was a natural reaction. Where as now in the 'appearances before integrity' age, they are trying to artificially generate excitement / overtaking / sparks etc and it shows.