When did F1 cars become non-viable?
Discussion
For many years, F1 cars and many other higher echelon machines have had finer tolerances, needed more specialist expertise and more complex electronics to run them.
So, just taking F1 cars (for simplicity), what is the cut-off where you could still campaign one by yourself in a club series or on trackdays with a couple of mates, with perhaps a bit of reading up and learning a few simple skills and theory?
1970s? 1980s? I have to think it would be one of those decades, possibly pre-Turbo.
What's the latest car that you could keep in your garage and run out on the weekend with just a bit of setting up?
So, just taking F1 cars (for simplicity), what is the cut-off where you could still campaign one by yourself in a club series or on trackdays with a couple of mates, with perhaps a bit of reading up and learning a few simple skills and theory?
1970s? 1980s? I have to think it would be one of those decades, possibly pre-Turbo.
What's the latest car that you could keep in your garage and run out on the weekend with just a bit of setting up?
I'm not sure that's ever been the case really. Retrospectively you can run those cars out a garage with a mate or two, but when they were current I think you would have needed some real expertise.
You could argue that Williams are a 'bunch of mates racing out of a shed', it's just a very big, very expensive shed and a lot of well paid (and not so well paid) mates. They buy engines, they build chassis, they go racing. I think that's all Williams do.
I'm not sure when the last time was that you could enter F1 races individually, but you still get quite a lot of privateers in most other forms of motor sport - F1 is the exception rather than the rule even in the top flights. WTCC, BTCC, WRC, GT racing and MotoGP all have privateers racing regularly and the first four all allow individual race entries.
You could argue that Williams are a 'bunch of mates racing out of a shed', it's just a very big, very expensive shed and a lot of well paid (and not so well paid) mates. They buy engines, they build chassis, they go racing. I think that's all Williams do.
I'm not sure when the last time was that you could enter F1 races individually, but you still get quite a lot of privateers in most other forms of motor sport - F1 is the exception rather than the rule even in the top flights. WTCC, BTCC, WRC, GT racing and MotoGP all have privateers racing regularly and the first four all allow individual race entries.
kevin ritson said:
I would say pre-turbo: after all it's become an F1 cliche that you could buy a Cossie, a ZF 'box, a chassis off March or build your own and have an F1 team. After Renault entered it became a battle between manufacturers and costs therefore spiralled.
You mean a Hewland box...I'd concur - just about anything with a DFV, maybe at the latest a DFR.
Though there are people out there running later cars with Judd V10's.
You need a team of about 3 to start up a modern F1 car - plus the driver!
One with a starter, one with a jack, one with a laptop to tell the engine that it's going to be started, and once running that it's now going to go racing (and turn on Menu 13 - which will automatically disappear again when the engine is turned off - whoops, did I say that...)
Better to go for a F5000 car, with a button market "START".
I wish that F1 would go back to self starters.
And wouldn't you like to see pitstops done like NASCAR - four blokes, two nut guns (on 5-stud wheels!), one trolley jack, and 11 gallon fuel churns, all doing 14 second stops. Better still, like the old days - 200L of juice to run the race at the start, and no stops - just R A C I N G.
Though there are people out there running later cars with Judd V10's.
You need a team of about 3 to start up a modern F1 car - plus the driver!
One with a starter, one with a jack, one with a laptop to tell the engine that it's going to be started, and once running that it's now going to go racing (and turn on Menu 13 - which will automatically disappear again when the engine is turned off - whoops, did I say that...)
Better to go for a F5000 car, with a button market "START".
I wish that F1 would go back to self starters.
And wouldn't you like to see pitstops done like NASCAR - four blokes, two nut guns (on 5-stud wheels!), one trolley jack, and 11 gallon fuel churns, all doing 14 second stops. Better still, like the old days - 200L of juice to run the race at the start, and no stops - just R A C I N G.
thunderbelmont said:
I wish that F1 would go back to self starters.
And wouldn't you like to see pitstops done like NASCAR - four blokes, two nut guns (on 5-stud wheels!), one trolley jack, and 11 gallon fuel churns, all doing 14 second stops. Better still, like the old days - 200L of juice to run the race at the start, and no stops - just R A C I N G.
And wouldn't you like to see pitstops done like NASCAR - four blokes, two nut guns (on 5-stud wheels!), one trolley jack, and 11 gallon fuel churns, all doing 14 second stops. Better still, like the old days - 200L of juice to run the race at the start, and no stops - just R A C I N G.
I couldn't agree more. I remember it used to be in the regs that the driver had to be able to start the car himself. All this waving a finger in the air while an army of technicians do clever-but-unfathomable-stuff-that-is-meaningless-to-the-average-viewer is totally absurd. In the old days a driver could spin, stall the engine, re-start and get going again. Now it's "oh the engine has stopped and he hasn't got hydraulic pressure to take it out of gear". What bo
cks!And I agree about pit stops too. Brought in to try and spice up the spectacle because F1 had got so anally boring, now I've seen many a good scrap spoilt because a driver has has to stop for fuel. Allow them to fuel for the race if they wish and let the teams do the calculation whether it's worth stopping. Then we might see some racing!
thunderbelmont said:
I wish that F1 would go back to self starters.
And wouldn't you like to see pitstops done like NASCAR - four blokes, two nut guns (on 5-stud wheels!), one trolley jack, and 11 gallon fuel churns, all doing 14 second stops. Better still, like the old days - 200L of juice to run the race at the start, and no stops - just R A C I N G.
And wouldn't you like to see pitstops done like NASCAR - four blokes, two nut guns (on 5-stud wheels!), one trolley jack, and 11 gallon fuel churns, all doing 14 second stops. Better still, like the old days - 200L of juice to run the race at the start, and no stops - just R A C I N G.
I couldn't agree more. I remember it used to be in the regs that the driver had to be able to start the car himself. All this waving a finger in the air while an army of technicians do clever-but-unfathomable-stuff-that-is-meaningless-to-the-average-viewer is totally absurd. In the old days a driver could spin, stall the engine, re-start and get going again. Now it's "oh the engine has stopped and he hasn't got hydraulic pressure to take it out of gear". What bocks!And I agree about pit stops too. Brought in to try and spice up the spectacle because F1 had got so anally boring, now I've seen many a good scrap spoilt because a driver has has to stop for fuel. Allow them to fuel for the race if they wish and let the teams do the calculation whether it's worth stopping. Then we might see some racing!
profstoff said:
And I agree about pit stops too. Brought in to try and spice up the spectacle because F1 had got so anally boring,...
Is that strictly correct? My recollection is that pit stops re-appeared in the early '80s with the development of turbos, and that Brabham were the first team to work out that (given the horrific fuel burn rate of the BMW motors with wick turned up) they could gain an advantage by running (relatively) light, keeping the boost pressure (relatively) high, and dumping a couple of churns of fuel in around half-way through.profstoff said:
...now I've seen many a good scrap spoilt because a driver has has to stop for fuel. Allow them to fuel for the race if they wish and let the teams do the calculation whether it's worth stopping. Then we might see some racing!
It would be quite nice to see a rule set in which there's more than one way to skin a cat (or at least an element of doubt over what's going to be best on the day). Stopping versus non-stopping actually produced some interesting racing between fast but thirsty cars and less fast but more frugal cars. As it is, if I recall correctly there's a cap on fuel tank capacity which makes it impossible to fuel a car for a complete race even if it was strategically viable.What I would really like to see is the end of the tactical pit stop. If someone comes up behind a slightly slower car I want to see them try to overtake it, not just dive straight for the pits and then hope to put in a few quick laps on fresh tyres before the car ahead stops. Whatever you do with aerodynamics, extending braking zones, etc, etc, if teams perceive a tactical pit stop as being a viable, less risky alternative to overtaking on the track then, as long as it's allowed that's what they'll do. I've occasionally wondered how it would work out if you required teams to declare strategy (to the stewards at least), nominate pit stop windows before the race starts and require any stops made outside those windows to keep the car stationary for at least, say, 30 seconds and/or not allow fuel to be added or undamaged tyres to be changed...
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JG
I was chatting to Geoff Page recently on this subject and he surprised me by stating that the smart money was gravitating to the turbo cars of the mid '80s. The default response would be "but these engines are grenades with rebuild times measured in minutes"...but with the advent of modern electronics, sensible rev limits and power restricted to 750 bhp, he says that these are tracatable and reliable. The added attraction is that the cars themselves are not megabucks to buy.
He's working on two Lola Haases right now - an '85 Hart engined one and an '86 Ford Cosworth. I recall at least one of those cars being sold not that long ago with a massive spares package....
That has to be good news for fans of cars of that era....
He's working on two Lola Haases right now - an '85 Hart engined one and an '86 Ford Cosworth. I recall at least one of those cars being sold not that long ago with a massive spares package....
That has to be good news for fans of cars of that era....
hostile17 said:
rubystone said:
The default response would be "but these engines are grenades with rebuild times measured in minutes"...
Did you mean to say 'life expectancy', rather than 'rebuild time'? 
An F1 engine rebuild time of a few minutes would be something to see...rubystone said:
I was chatting to Geoff Page recently on this subject and he surprised me by stating that the smart money was gravitating to the turbo cars of the mid '80s. The default response would be "but these engines are grenades with rebuild times measured in minutes"...but with the advent of modern electronics, sensible rev limits and power restricted to 750 bhp, he says that these are tracatable and reliable. The added attraction is that the cars themselves are not megabucks to buy.
He's working on two Lola Haases right now - an '85 Hart engined one and an '86 Ford Cosworth. I recall at least one of those cars being sold not that long ago with a massive spares package....
That has to be good news for fans of cars of that era....
That's cool He's working on two Lola Haases right now - an '85 Hart engined one and an '86 Ford Cosworth. I recall at least one of those cars being sold not that long ago with a massive spares package....
That has to be good news for fans of cars of that era....
Must say I'm surprised as I'd have gone with the preturbo era too.
Re: pitstops...just ditch the fuelling full stop and the stupid tyre rules as all it's done is turn F1 into a series of 15/20 lap sprints none of which have any bearing on anything except the last one cos that's when it all falls into place. Anything of interest up to the last person pitting has been based on completely false conditions. While I appreciate that in days gone by people also pitted for tyres that was their decision and they chose when to maybe eke out more or less from the hard/soft compound. They were able to keep someone behind them on fresh tyres and force them to create the overtaking chance, or the newly tyred driver could barnstorm people. Unlike now where the difference between someone fully fuelled and someone on the last laps of their stint means that an overtake is "easy"...then, when it pans out at the end that "overtake" wasn't actually real...it's just an artificially generated bit of excitement.
I'd be interested to know of the stats overtakes that actually "stuck" down the F1 years...that'll no doubt prove me completely wrong!
Gary Anderson (I think) said in todays Autosnort that one thing he'd like to see changed is that pitstops can be for tyres OR fuel, not both. Cat + Pigeons = fill em up!
Pitstops reappeared (for refuelling) in the 1990's to spice up the "racing", and it was a failure, yet it remained. If they want pitstops to be meaningful, then the fuel tank should be reduced to 50L so they HAVE to stop 4 times in a race! While they leave the size of the tank to the secret plans (ready to be photocopied later), it makes a mockery of the idea that "they do stops in Indycar for fuel..." They HAVE to on methanol/ethanol as they use about twice the amount per mile!
If you want to see pitstops - watch NASCAR. three guys, two nut guns, one trolley jack, 5-stud wheels, one gas man with 11gallons(US) per hit, 14 seconds! (and fuel running/leaking all over the place with no fires!)
Not half a battalion, one nut per wheel, an air jack at the front, a crank jack at the back, and still only 10 seconds....
Back to Turbo's - why ever not. Make the rules simple - you have a box, the car must fit in the box. That is the only dimension you have to meet, and you may only have 180L of fuel for your 200lap race. Now go away, design, build and race! Next year, you can have 170L of fuel.....
Pitstops reappeared (for refuelling) in the 1990's to spice up the "racing", and it was a failure, yet it remained. If they want pitstops to be meaningful, then the fuel tank should be reduced to 50L so they HAVE to stop 4 times in a race! While they leave the size of the tank to the secret plans (ready to be photocopied later), it makes a mockery of the idea that "they do stops in Indycar for fuel..." They HAVE to on methanol/ethanol as they use about twice the amount per mile!
If you want to see pitstops - watch NASCAR. three guys, two nut guns, one trolley jack, 5-stud wheels, one gas man with 11gallons(US) per hit, 14 seconds! (and fuel running/leaking all over the place with no fires!)
Not half a battalion, one nut per wheel, an air jack at the front, a crank jack at the back, and still only 10 seconds....
Back to Turbo's - why ever not. Make the rules simple - you have a box, the car must fit in the box. That is the only dimension you have to meet, and you may only have 180L of fuel for your 200lap race. Now go away, design, build and race! Next year, you can have 170L of fuel.....
thunderbelmont said:
If you want to see pitstops - watch NASCAR. three guys, two nut guns, one trolley jack, 5-stud wheels, one gas man with 11gallons(US) per hit, 14 seconds! (and fuel running/leaking all over the place with no fires!)
I love it when they throw the nut guns across the car, and hope not to hit anyone when they land.As per the viable question, I remember Alan DeCadanet saying that in the 70s, Cosworth would sell you an engine for £10K, Hewland a gearbox for £2K, you bought/built a chassis and entered GP racing. Didnt one race in the 1970s have something like 40 drivers trying to pre-qualify for the race???
profstoff said:
And I agree about pit stops too. Brought in to try and spice up the spectacle because F1 had got so anally boring, now I've seen many a good scrap spoilt because a driver has has to stop for fuel.
... and battles not even taking place as the drivers know they don't need to pass on the track when they can get the work done in the pit lane.Forums | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff