F1 is falling down a slippery slope

[wiley]

I like formula one because it is the only form of motorsport that challenges drivers and engineers a like on a international stage, but the current leaders of F1 (Max and Bernie) are trying to sell a sanitary yet dramatised product, which I think will deter fans like me from watching. The sport's soul is dying. I am a F1 enthusiast. I love watching the development of the cars through the years, but the FIA is using interests of money, safety, and lack of driver skill as scapegoats to kill what is in my opinion, the most interesting aspect of the sport. I don't want to see sealed engines and mandated aerodynamics, I know you need to draw a line, but split wings, frozen engines, are you serious! There could be a better compromise that could be made to reach the goals of all parties, but the FIA is not doing it.

THE CARS ARE BECOMING BORING.

If I want to see uninteresting cars race and drama strait out of a cheesy reality show there are plenty options for me. I live in America, we have NASCAR, IRL, ChampCar, and ALMS. With the exception of ALMS, all of these serieses are dead technically, but they were thriving in that department at one time (yes, even NASCAR [at one point they had high wings and overhead cam engines!])

I DONT WANT MY FAVORITE MOTORSPORT TO FOLLOW THE SAME FATE.

Please post replys with solutions to this immenent problem.

[Ciro Pabón]

Please post replys with solutions to this immenent problem.

Wiley, first of all, welcome, my man. Let me tell this: some of us are tackling war and world poverty first as they seem easier to solve.

My theory: tracks are no longer suited to the cars. They were designed back in the 1900's and are under no pressure to innovate.

If you allow me, I would make a 30 meters wide track, giving TWO racing lines along the circuit: the same you had in USA when the FHWA started the Interstate highways program and sent the two-lane roads into history, even if oh-how-much I miss Route 66 and banked Monza .

This, and more tricky curves... if you wish I can go on for ages, but the people here are going to kill me, I guess they are fed up with my track-centric solutions. But try to understand me: I am ashamed of designing roads that are not innovated the same way cars are. You know, most accidents can be blamed (except for DUI and young-males-hot-on-the-wheel related ones) on the road design and we have around 1.000.000 people dead each year by cars (or roads, I should say).

About the sport dying, well, I heard the same history back in the 70's, the 80's, etcetera, not to mention the hard correction of the early 90's.

What I know for sure is that Mr. Ecclestone and Mr. Mosley surely are going to die. In my cynicism, I believe we are going to miss these characters once the money of the sport is in the hands of anonymous corporations: brace yourself for the ENRON-F1 world championship...

A little more seriously: I do not see that F1 is going to die technologically. Precisely by limiting the extrapolation of the most common options, we can (perhaps) avoid the dinosaur syndrome of getting bigger and bigger in just one aspect. The rpm or the aerodynamic thing is truly "dinosauric", I believe. Do not worry: the engineers of the future championships will find different solutions. Besides, (again, the people in this forum is going to kill me) F1 is going to change radically once the oil reaches the U$ 200/barrel mark after the Darfur and Iranian wars...

[DaveKillens]

Ciro, I also believe that change does happen, it's never static. I'm a bit older than some fans, and have seen Formula One over the years, in different eras and formats. At present, there are certain aspects in the sport that irk me, but I also recognize that most times, the races are very interesting.
Who knows what the future will bring, but usually we build on the mistakes of the past. Trust me, when the era of Max and Bernie expires, whoever generates the new environment will look back and say, "wow, that was crazy, we can do better".
Sadly, we are witnessing all the privateers being driven out, even Sir Frank has to be very careful these days. But the example of Toyota spending such a large amount of money with little return has to make the large corporations also be wary.
But if a rule sucks, it usually gets changed in a few years. Who knows what things like the engine freeze, or split wing will bring.
The track in Turkey gives me hope, I believe it's one of the few that truly challenges and brings out the best in Formula One cars. It's a shame the politicians over there have messed things up badly.
Politics and corruption have always been around. I don't condone it, but I've learned to live with it, because in the final tally, we're seeing some darn interesting racing.

[West]

If you really want some competition, everybody needs to have the same high-dollar budget like the big teams, but that's never going to happen. The retirement of Michael Schumacher may bring some fresh blood into the sport, but temporarily. I hope Kimi lets Massa do whatever he wants in the race.

Motorsport is the only sport in the world where money is, 90% or more of the time, directly related to results. That's what's draining my interest in F1; I'm sure the politics will completely kill it one day. 2005 was the best year I have seen in racing and hopefully we will have more years like that.

That said, my interests have been moving toward ALMS and Le Mans and MMA. At least everybody has a chance of winning.

[Saribro]

If you really want some competition, everybody needs to have the same high-dollar budget like the big teams

Actually, there's a much more logical way: limit the budgets
It forces teams to come up with smart stuff, instead of just throwing money at it. Look at the innovations Minardi brought, the poorest team on the grid for ages. A limit adds the advantage of keeping F1 'affordable' (to F1 standards) for private teams.
At least, that's what I think :)

[captainmorgan]

its is more logical, but impossible to enforce. Mfgers will just shift all research offsite somewhere, and give "hints" to the official team engineers, kind of like Honda and Super Aguri right now. .

I agree with Ciro completely. Mfgers have the money for $500M budgets, a mandatory pool could be introduced for track capital. If they do it on own organization, they would start receiving ticket income that they have been fighting so futilely for.

[mcdenife]

Saribro wrote:

Actually, there's a much more logical way: limit the budgets
It forces teams to come up with smart stuff, instead of just throwing money at it. Look at the innovations Minardi brought, the poorest team on the grid for ages.

I think the key word here is innovation. Budgets cannot and should not be limited. The reason teams throw money at it is because the design envelope is now so restricted that you need to spend large amount of money on R&D to fine tune what is allowed just to eek out the tinyest of margins. I still cannot understand why all the engines have to be v8's or v10's or a 72/90 degree config for example. Minardi brought innovation because they had no choice and are proof you do not need huge resources to be innovative but even they were very limited or restricted. You can guarantee that any innovation that suddenly put them in the mid field, let alone the front of the grid, would have been banned even if it was initially approved.

[Alexis]

The big problem in F1 is I think safety. F1 has always be the sport of technical evolution and engineering masterpieces. Indeed cars will get boring, I hate the grooved tyres, high front wing, v8 engine...... rules too. But they are bloody necessary.

Cars are getting better and better, the human body does not.

What if a pilot got killed crashing into a concrete wall doing 420km/h, now THAT would give a real bad name to the FIA.

And as a solution, (I don't know if it has already be discussed) why don't they simply introduce restrictors to limit power? Like that engines can still evolve, the search for more horses can still go on. And if power goes up too much, FIA just have introduce a smaller restrictor. Same restrictor for every team, that's the fairest you can get. I don't think the engine freezing rule is a good idea. It could indeed, I admit, give a slight advantage for Ferrari. (Perhaps, if Ferrari has the best engine, we don't know that for sure...)

Cutting cost is not a good idea as well I think. It's partly what is F1 about, technical evolution, and for technical evolution you need loads of money.

[mcdenife]

Alexis wrote:

What if a pilot got killed crashing into a concrete wall doing 420km/h, now THAT would give a real bad name to the FIA.

Remove the concrete wall, replace it or update cirtcuits to cope.
Yes the cars are getting better but shouldnt the circuits also?
Just as the cars are evolving so must the circuits. Yes I have no problems with the safety argument. but to my mind, it is a cop-out for the powers that be. You can only flog the cash cow so much. sooner or later it will die if you you keep taking and put nothing back in.

[Saribro]

I hate the grooved tyres, high front wing, v8 engine...... rules too. But they are bloody necessary.

I agree that keeping speeds in check is neccessary for safety reasons, however, I don't agree with the methods used to achieve it. F1 shouldn't turn into a spec-series.
There are other ways to limit power and downforce, not by limiting the way they are achieved, but by limiting the means to achieve them. This will limit speeds but still allow innovation. Your air-restrictors are a good example, don't say: you can only use this type of engine to produce power, but say: you can use this much air to produce power, use it wisely. This way you still have limitations, but also room for originality and innovation.
I've browsed through the 2008 technical regulations, and if I understood them correctly, they are formulated as such that you essentially have a body + front and rear wing, with very little room for winglets and aerodynamically shaped coolingchimneys and such.
These are much better limitations to maintain reason -and- the spirit of F1 IMHO.

[mcdenife]

You cannot limit speed only the rate at which it increases year on year whatever restrictor or restrictions are imposed since the cars themselves evolve. This will probably be more evident next year. Even with homologation and reduction in power due to the switch to v8, it very likely the the teams would have clawed back even more, if not all the laptime deficit relative to last year's laptimes. I think it can be shown that over time the general trend in laptimes vs year has been downward and will continue to be so. All the authorities can do is slow down this trend. The main safety issue to be addressed is the fact the a lot of the current circuits were designed for yesterday's cars.

[Alexis]

Alexis wrote:

What if a pilot got killed crashing into a concrete wall doing 420km/h, now THAT would give a real bad name to the FIA.

Remove the concrete wall, replace it or update cirtcuits to cope.
Yes the cars are getting better but shouldnt the circuits also?
Just as the cars are evolving so must the circuits. Yes I have no problems with the safety argument. but to my mind, it is a cop-out for the powers that be. You can only flog the cash cow so much. sooner or later it will die if you you keep taking and put nothing back in.

Indeed, some circuits need improvement, but still... If you don't limit the cars it will become dangerous. Ok circuits can be safe, the monocoque is gets safer and safer too. But if the cars become faster and faster, the G-forces become bigger and bigger aswel. At some point the cars will be so performant that pilots can lose selfconsciousness (like pilot's in jet fighters), how dangerous would that be.

Cars and materials get safer and better, the human body doesn't. That's why those rules are needed.

[mcdenife]

Cars and materials get safer and better, the human body doesn't.

True, but circuits, techology, materials, etc. improve precisly because the human body doesnt (or does depending on how you look at it). eg, the pilots you mentioned wear g-suits (I think they are called) that is technology or material improvement no? Compare the racing gear of the early years of racing to today...you have helmets, fireproofs(?), hans devices etc. etc.

[Ciro Pabón]

Do you want better tyres and at the same time better pilots? All you have to do to reduce G-forces is resurface the track with a more slippery asphalt. That would be fun and a real challenge. Remember Hungary? I can give you a track like that (with some help from Mikey_s, I'd say), but without rain...

Limiting tyres is like looking at the wrong end of the gun. Besides, you only postpone the next limitation until the tyre guys come with a solution to your limitation, normally making some fans to cry foul.

Do you want to limit the engine or limit the fuel for the race? Is your choice: the first one, well, I'd say, makes cheaters of the people trying to bend your rules, the second one makes engineers of them, trying to reach a better solution.

All I am saying is that if you want to keep the challenge the same, while the technology improves (and it will, it will... like mcdenife points out), you only have to make the environment harder.

Actually, I am wating for rocket races in the next 20 years, so I say we should limit technology as little as we can manage: just imagine the track they will use! A race to Jupiter anyone? I would love to design THAT track... and I can hardly wait for the Ferrari designs then! Just imagine that big, red, shiny rocket putting some pedal to the metal...

[Tp]

I think you first have to appreciate the scale of the problem the FIA faces. Wiley mentioned and maybe a few others that you dislike the freedom of design of an F1 car, where it comes to a point that the cars all look the same. In fact one of the lost interesting differences of a modern F1 car that we discuss on this forum is the mounting position of the front wishbones! So like you I would designers to have the opportunity to each make F1 cars with noticeable differences.

But this brings a problem. Teams need to spend a large amount of money to test which design is best - So the lower budget teams will be even further off the pace. This means that teams will not have similar pace, which results in a one (or maybe two) team domination. So while in effect you are ruining it for fans of F1 who couldn't care less about the technology of the sport and want to see a close and competitive sport.

So each team a change to the regulations occurs it conflicts with the people with an interest in the technology and the people who just like to watch a race. For example mandated aerodynamics, good for close races, bad for those who like the technology of F1.