Reading the first few posts in this thread makes me question the sport's constant trumpeting that it is "The Pinnacle of Motor Sports."
Can Am was perhaps best at allowing "run what you brung" racing. If some fool from Texas wanted to bolt a barn door to the back of his race car and use it as an air brake, fine. Let's see what you can do. if that same fool wants to stick a 2 speed automatic transmission into the same car and go racing, well, that was fine too.
Oddly, those Chaparrals did NOT blow away the competition. They were competitive but not dominant.
On the other hand, the active suspension cars Williams developed DID dominate and that's the difference. Competition? Sure, everybody's fine with that. Domination like Ferrari and Schumacher, Brawn for one year, and Red Bull for 4 years in a row? Not so much.
Finding the line between innovation and good racing that people will actually pay to watch? That's the hard part. I would be happy to see variable valve control and active suspensions allowed. But I am not happy to see one team be consistently a second a lap faster than the rest of the field. To me, it's just as boring watching Michael winning every race as it is seeing Jenson winning every race or Sebastien winning every race.
Oddly, I was fine with Mika winning every race. We race fans are a strange lot.......
