Pirelli tyres

[hairykrishna]

Rude-boy said:

We would all love to see that but the problem is that we have reached a point where the cars would be so fast it would be impossible without the H&S mob shutting the sport down.

Now tell them all they have to have stock 1 litre engines and that they are allowed any other form of propulsion they like to supplement this so long as it does not rely on the combustion of hydrocarbons to produce/release that energy other than those which are used to fuel the 1000cc lump and you might have a 1/4 chance of keeping the speeds in check. You can then drop the 1000cc to 750, and so on until we have a 100% green fuel F1...

I think having a set, restrictive, amount of fuel per GP and having engine choice free would be the real way to extract 'green' tech from F1. Reduce the amount every year and you'd push development forward. Never going to happen of course as the development costs would sink all of the smaller teams.

[Johnboy Mac]

Rude-boy said:

Johnboy Mac said:

So, Monaco should have been cancelled years ago?

Yes if you are talking from a pure sporting POV. Brands hatch Indy is more suited to F1 cars than there.

Johnboy Mac said:

The turbo era should never have occurred?

If the turbo era and the cars from it were brought out today it would never happen.

We live in 2012, not 1982, and we have to get over the fact the nanny has our sport by the balls and play with what we have.

1. So you say yes, Monaco should be cancelled!

2. Eric, has been talking about the 60's, 70's & 80's which is the past. Thus on the back of his comment that I quoted, I was talking about the turbo era which is in the past also. And, yes you are correct it's 2012!

[Scuffers]

Rude-boy said:

Scuffers said:

take off the limit's, watch them develop new stuff, racing get's 'real' again.

We would all love to see that but the problem is that we have reached a point where the cars would be so fast it would be impossible without the H&S mob shutting the sport down.

once again, the same arguments have been used for 20+ years.

it's really quite simple, if you want to slow them down (and I don't) then do something constructive, ie. NOT:

1) screw about with grooved/crap/stupid tyres
2) DRS
3) gimmicky KERS with stupid limit's (if you want new tech, let them develop it freely)

if you want to actually slow them down, LOOSE THE WINGS

It's really not that hard....

[stephen300o]

entropy said:

Kimi never raced last year so he doesn't know what he's talking about.

lol.

[shunaphil]

The main complaint of the current situation seems to be unpredictability of the tyres, and lots of people harping back to the 'golden era' of the 80s etc.

Back then the tyres were predictable, but the cars were NOT - meachanical failure rates were very high, and endless races/places/champs were lost due to UNPREDICTABLE mechanical failure. I remember those races well.

The current situation might be equally unpredictable, but at least the majority of cars keep running, and we get a 'fuller' race.

With regards to the regs and slowing the cars, technology is such now that cars could easily be made to go much too fast, so the regs are all about tightening the envelope - F1 should be about developing new technologies to extract maximum power from a minimum spec.

A simple 'quick fix' for now would be to up the fuel limit slightly, thus allowing the cars to run on 'full wick' for longer, giving the teams more options in exploiting what they can from the tyres, and relying on a speed/tyre compromise - whereas they are currently compromised BOTH by tyres AND fuel.

[Scuffers]

OK, enough!

so, without going off into nanny state crying, just what's wrong with the idea of 300Mhp F1 cars?

[Scuffers]

Gaz. said:

Killing marshalls & spectators mainly.

I said without going all nanny state....

[Ahonen]

rdjohn said:

No, I agree with him!

BRING BACK REFUELING - it will make the event more of a race; preferably, bring back refueling and durabe race-tyres as well.

Teams sitting around in the pits or doing safe laps to save tyres in Q3 is all wrong

He didn't say 'bring back refuelling' though. The voices in your head made that bit up.

During the days of refuelling F1 really was dull - a series of 15-20 lap sprints where the overtaking was done purely in the pits.

[Ahonen]

Scuffers said:

are you blind?

seriously, by lap 15, the cct was covered in 'marbles', kind of reminded me of what Silverstone looked like after a 24H race (with 80+cars)

yes, there is always going to be some, but never this much, and the point is, it makes going off line very hazardous, and thus discourages people using odd lines to make passes etc.

Can't believe the general guff posted in this thread, particularly the people going on abut Moss and Fangio days, like there is any relevance at all, also, going on about wet's is also meaningless.

As said, we are seriously at risk that the GP2 cars will be faster than some of the F1 grid this weekend, and just how pathetic will that look?

I can't believe how angry you are all the time. It's really rather funny.

Firstly, were there ever 80+ cars at the 24 at Silverstone? We never shared a box and I know the other big teams like Rollcentre didn't either, so some of the others must've been crammed in like sardines, but I'm happy to be corrected.

Now, about those marbles. There are quite a few, but it doesn't seem to affect the overtaking which isn't, despite your assertions, all carried out on the straights. There were a few round-the-outside moves into Turn 1 last weekend and various moves have been pulled in interesting places this year. Button on Alonso in Bahrain springs to mind immediately.

[Scuffers]

Ahonen said:

I can't believe how angry you are all the time. It's really rather funny.

Angry? really?

Ahonen said:

Firstly, were there ever 80+ cars at the 24 at Silverstone? We never shared a box and I know the other big teams like Rollcentre didn't either, so some of the others must've been crammed in like sardines, but I'm happy to be corrected.

quite right, my mistake, I should have said 60, mind you , your clearly luckier than me, I always ended up sharing a 'box' as you put it.

Ahonen said:

Now, about those marbles. There are quite a few, but it doesn't seem to affect the overtaking which isn't, despite your assertions, all carried out on the straights. There were a few round-the-outside moves into Turn 1 last weekend and various moves have been pulled in interesting places this year. Button on Alonso in Bahrain springs to mind immediately.

looked like a lot to me?

[Scuffers]

Gaz. said:

Scuffers said:

Gaz. said:

Killing marshalls & spectators mainly.

I said without going all nanny state....

Jesus. I don't think it's nanny state to want cars to be contained within the circuit if they crash or the spectators & marshalls to go home at the end of the event.

not sure the difference between 220 and 300 would really make that big a difference in that respect.

[AreOut]

1500 HP is quite OK, I mean F1 cars in 80s were sooo much faster than street legal cars that was even uncomparable, now a street legal Veyron is even faster in straight line speed...

[Eric Mc]

Johnboy Mac said:

Eric Mc said:

we simply can't have cars that are too fast for the venues they use or too fast for the drivers to be able to control.

So, Monaco should have been cancelled years ago? The turbo era should never have occurred?

Monaco is an anachronism and has been for decades.

The turbo era began in 1976 so is still in the era I would refer to as the "learning" era. By the mid 1990s the "learning" era was over. When I mean "learning" I am talking about engineers looking for ways to make cars faster, engines more powerful and downforce more effective.

They still would like to do these things but the regulations are much more about holding these aspects back rather than encouraging them.

Any "learning" now is going tyo be about reliability, economy, fine tuning aerodymnamics within strict parameters and improving environmental impact. The days of designing racing cars to go faster and faster are over.

[Scuffers]

Eric Mc said:

Any "learning" now is going tyo be about reliability, economy, fine tuning aerodymnamics within strict parameters and improving environmental impact. The days of designing racing cars to go faster and faster are over.

how so?

and how does Bloodhound SSC figure in your theory if we already know everything?

[MissChief]

Scuffers said:

how so?

and how does Bloodhound SSC figure in your theory if we already know everything?

Ok, would you prefer he said 'as fast as possible round a circuit'?

[Scuffers]

MissChief said:

Scuffers said:

how so?

and how does Bloodhound SSC figure in your theory if we already know everything?

Ok, would you prefer he said 'as fast as possible round a circuit'?

no, but it illustrates the point that we never know everything, and un-shackled, who know what engineers would come up with?

Gaz. said:

OK Eric...

The legislators hold them back, the engineers & designers find new ways to get their performance back, it happens every year or so in a cyclic pattern since the turbos were banned in 1989.

Brazil is the only track that has barely changed since 1990, the only real problem to compare times is the weather:

Race day fastest laps:

1990: 1:19.899
1991: 1:20.436
1992: 1:19.490
1993: 1:20.024
1994: 1:18.455
1995: 1:20.921
1996: 1:21.547 (dried track)
1997: 1:18.397
1998: 1:19.337
1999: 1:18.447
2000: 1:14.755
2001: 1:15.693
2002: 1:16.079
2003: 1:22.032 (rainy, qually was in the 1:13's)
2004: 1:11.473
2005: 1:12.286
2006: 1:12.162
2007: 1:12.445
2008: 1:13.376
2009: 1:13.733
2010: 1:13.851
2011: 1:15.773

Ever decreasing capacity, cylinders, banning of driver aids, limited tyres and specific compulsory compounds, ever tighning aero rules, reduction in tyre sizes and track width, increase in weight, banning of exotic metals, banning of this, banning of that, reduction of something else yet the engineers just keep on trying. It took high-wear tyres to really reduce the 2011 lap times and I'm sure by next year the engineers will have found more time over the 2011 cars.

Good illustration, so, based on that, 2004 was the peak, at which point the cars were some 7 sec's faster than 94, the last year anybody was killed in F1 (Roland Ratzenberger @ Ayrton Senna, RIP).

since then, we have lost 4 sec's, so we are going backwards....

[Adrian W]

Scuffers said:

Good illustration, so, based on that, 2004 was the peak, at which point the cars were some 7 sec's faster than 94, the last year anybody was killed in F1 (Roland Ratzenberger @ Ayrton Senna, RIP).

since then, we have lost 4 sec's, so we are going backwards....

But they are managing to spend considerably more to achieve so much less

[Scuffers]

Adrian W said:

Scuffers said:

Good illustration, so, based on that, 2004 was the peak, at which point the cars were some 7 sec's faster than 94, the last year anybody was killed in F1 (Roland Ratzenberger @ Ayrton Senna, RIP).

since then, we have lost 4 sec's, so we are going backwards....

But they are managing to spend considerably more to achieve so much less

to a point, so what?

let's face it, the teams with the lowest budgets are the ones at the back getting in the way (Thanks Spankie), I guess time will tell, but do you honestly think they bring anything to the party?

F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of single seater racing, yet at this rate it's heading to be slower than other 'cheaper' formulas..

eg. engine regs, the move to the new V6 engines will be costing a small fortune, to go slower? what's the point?

[Eric Mc]

Scuffers said:

Eric Mc said:

Any "learning" now is going tyo be about reliability, economy, fine tuning aerodymnamics within strict parameters and improving environmental impact. The days of designing racing cars to go faster and faster are over.

how so?

and how does Bloodhound SSC figure in your theory if we already know everything?

I was talking specifically about circuit racing rather than out and out LSR attempts.

I think Bloodhound is great and I hope it succeeds. But it's not F1.

[Eric Mc]

Gaz. said:

OK Eric...

The legislators hold them back, the engineers & designers find new ways to get their performance back, it happens every year or so in a cyclic pattern since the turbos were banned in 1989.

Brazil is the only track that has barely changed since 1990, the only real problem to compare times is the weather:

Race day fastest laps:

1990: 1:19.899
1991: 1:20.436
1992: 1:19.490
1993: 1:20.024
1994: 1:18.455
1995: 1:20.921
1996: 1:21.547 (dried track)
1997: 1:18.397
1998: 1:19.337
1999: 1:18.447
2000: 1:14.755
2001: 1:15.693
2002: 1:16.079
2003: 1:22.032 (rainy, qually was in the 1:13's)
2004: 1:11.473
2005: 1:12.286
2006: 1:12.162
2007: 1:12.445
2008: 1:13.376
2009: 1:13.733
2010: 1:13.851
2011: 1:15.773

Ever decreasing capacity, cylinders, banning of driver aids, limited tyres and specific compulsory compounds, ever tighning aero rules, reduction in tyre sizes and track width, increase in weight, banning of exotic metals, banning of this, banning of that, reduction of something else yet the engineers just keep on trying. It took high-wear tyres to really reduce the 2011 lap times and I'm sure by next year the engineers will have found more time over the 2011 cars.

And think how much the times would have come down if we were still running to (say) 1993 regulations.
I'm not saying the cars WON'T end up gradually getting faster. What I am saying is that the regulations are trying to STOP them going faster rather than ENCOURAGING them to go faster.

Contrast the way the regulators work today compared to the decision they made in 1965 to INCREASE engine capacity from 1.5 to 3 litres for the 21966 season. We will never see a move of that nature again.