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What if Karun Chandhok/Bruno Senna (who would probably qualify last, thus starting from pole position ) are slow with the HRTs, but hell-good defenders, and no one gets through? Instant WDCs
Wouldn't that just encourage teams to try less hard in qualifying?
World Cup ski racing tried that a few years ago for the downhill, all that did was encourage the fastest guys to stand up through the last section of the course, slowing them down in an attempt to hit the "prime" starting positions for the race once the flip happened.
There could be an argument for flipping the top ten, according to their WDC standings, and the rest go in order of their WDC standing. Or, what is happening in ski racing now, where the top XX are a random draw, followed by the rest of the field in order of their championship points.
Well, who said the fastest cars were supposed to be at the front. If cars were as wide as moto-cross bikes, they'd all line-up beside each other, but they're not. Just 'cos historically they started fastest-first, why exactly is that 'correct'?
Here's the thing, for decades now we have had a revolving door of regulation and rule changes as the administration try to slow down the cars and keep the show interesting, and every winter, the engineers show how much smarter they are than everyone else, and claw back eveything that was taken away, and more.
But those claw-backs come at a cost, the cars are highly evolved and finely tuned for ultimate performance, and barely drivable when following another. That's the slightly unsatisfactory dynamic we've ended up with.
The solution is to acknowledge that ruthlessly efficient Darwinian process, and game-change the environment such that instead of constantly fighting against the engineers (and always losing), you switch it tai-chi style, and use their weight to help you.
Cancelling qualifying and lining up on the grid in reverse championship-order is that sort of switch. (The only reason we cling to qualifying is that some weekends it's the only guaranteed bit of excitement or tension, but that's not a reason to keep it, it's a reason to improve the racing).
Now you bring the whole weight of the research and development effort into engineering cars that can hustle, that are good in a crowd. That now actually perform at their best when following another. You've shifted the whole emphasis of car design. You'll have cars designed to mix-it, and built to withstand a reasonable bit of ol'fashioned rough and tumble.
All those supposed intractable aero-problems will evaporate as the real smart guys now spend their time finding ways to get past a grid full of cars, instead of burning millions to engineer nano-vortices to slow down the car behind.
I'll be honest, I can't say I am 100% convinced, but I am pretty close to it. There could be a weird flip-flopping in the championship order for the first coupla races ... Smaller teams start at front, gets points, get pinged to the back, big teams then score points, get pinged back. Might be a weird becalmed middle of the grid ... so that would need some thinking about, but I am fairly confident it would all resolve itself quickly.
Yeah I know it's a tough sell, but I figure you can keep your head in the sand and then act all surprised and disappointed when the fastest cars at the front keep disappearing and following each other home, when you spent all winter and all weekend designing and sorting them to do just that, or you can change the environment.
Given the choice: a season of Barcelona parades, or a season of Suzuka 05, whaddya prefer?
sometimes the simplest idea is the most effective idea. the past 2 race has prove itself that putting fast car at the back will create shows for race. which would we prefer to see? Vettel leading the race all the way and keep pulling off from the back runner or we see Vettel trying hard to past other 23 cars in the race. for countless time i have seen driver' quote saying we got pole in qualify and we will try keep leading the race, and lots of times they do without any kind of challenge, in my opinion, that is just driving not racing. in racing, you have to race with someone.
Paul Oz wrote:
Surely less efficient front wings is going to make things worse
yeah, I suppose regarding the brakes. As far as the wings...I don't understand your logic. Less efficient front wings would make the cars less dependent on them for downforce, therefore allowing cars to follow each other more closely through corners.
Points for qualifying results is a great idea that should definitely be brought in.
No one likes my starting grid lottery idea together with that?
Qualifying session lasts one hour, with 12 laps per driver.
Slow the cars down, reduce downforce and reduce braking efficency.
Get rid of the current 8 engines per year and the mickey-mouse tyre rules and give drivers and teams more freedom.
Forget ideas like KERS.
Get rid of tracks like Valencia, Monaco, Singapore, Abu Dahbi and Shanghi and bring back the A1 Ring, reinstate the old Hockenheim, bring back Estoril, Mexico and Kyalami.
Just a few of my thoughts on improving F1. Go back to basics and stop trying to so be fancy and pandering to those that want to be seen at high profile sports events. The F1 powers that be should meet the wishes of the true F1 fans.
Ultra hard tyres be the answer we so desprately seek. And I dont mean the "hard" compound bridgestones we currently endure.
Im talking of the rubber we get on our cars, that remains solid without feeling the need to shed "marbles" every time the driver dabs brake or throttle.
The cars would be sliding around more, and we would see drivers correcting lines with the accelerator pedal for a change!
I will leave you with this final thought for the night. When it rains and we have an exciting race, what are the common denominators?
Same aero(possibly more due higher downforce wet setups)
Same drivers
Same engines
Same cirquits
But crucially the tyre grip levels have changed! I thank Frank Durney for opening my eyes night all
raymondu999 wrote:What if Karun Chandhok/Bruno Senna (who would probably qualify last, thus starting from pole position ) are slow with the HRTs, but hell-good defenders, and no one gets through? Instant WDCs
raymondu999 wrote:What if Karun Chandhok/Bruno Senna (who would probably qualify last, thus starting from pole position ) are slow with the HRTs, but hell-good defenders, and no one gets through? Instant WDCs
best ever quote
if that is the case, Karun and Bruno are worth even points they deserve. defending off cars like redbull, that is what F1 should be!!
No one likes my starting grid lottery idea together with that?
Its just too.... random...! The problem is if you rely on luck you'll end up having a season where one driver, in a quick car, by chance always starts near the front, whereas the next quickest driver/car combo (the one that would've been his main title rival) by chance, always starts near the back... there'd be too many arguments. A proper fixed rule (either reverse championship order or determined by qualifying where the fastest driver scores points BUT starts at the back) would work quite nicely.
And why not put some extra weights in the cars that won the previous grand prix, the way they did (and still do?) in FIA GT series? Like, if you win a Grand Prix, you get an extra 20kg or so for the following race, 2nd gets 15kg and so on. This has proven to work quite well, hasn't it?
Fast cars behind slow cars going into turn 1 in a downforce dominated racing series, where track position is key. Sounds like a recipe for total chaos to me.
twoshots wrote:Fast cars behind slow cars going into turn 1 in a downforce dominated racing series, where track position is key. Sounds like a recipe for total chaos to me.
Why? You had four pretty fast cars start right at the back in Malaysia, arrive in a hurry, and everyone seemed to make it round a tight turn 1/turn 2 OK.
It's also a bit more subtle than that. The fastest cars at the very back would be behind the fairly quick cars, who'd be chasing the sorta quick cars, who'd be fighting the not so quick cars, who would be trying to edge past the slowest cars.
So it's not really "fast cars behind slow cars" as such, relative to each car, the one in front wouldn't be dangerously slower. In theory there might be a little concertina-ing, but they're all handy drivers, I think they'd soon enough get used to it, figure out what's what, and drive accordingly.
Oridori wrote:And why not put some extra weights in the cars that won the previous grand prix
.... this doesn't solve the problem whereby quick cars qualify at the front of the grid, and hence pull away at the beginning of the race creating a procession.... all this does is changes the order of that procession....
) are slow with the HRTs, but hell-good defenders, and no one gets through? Instant WDCs 
night all 
