Post here all non technical related topics about Formula One. This includes race results, discussions, testing analysis etc. TV coverage and other personal questions should be in Off topic chat.
A long but what I consider and excellent take on how to get F1 back on track to greatness by Stefan Johansson.
Yes it's long and I don't expect everyone to agree with everything he says but overall I do and I find it very interesting. https://www.speedcafe.com/2019/04/25/jo ... ome-again/
To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.”
Sir Stirling Moss
in the last 30 years there have been 8 seasons where more than 3 teams won a race. '89 '90 '97 '99 '08 '09 '11 '12.
It seems to go in waves and coincides with the end of one team's period of dominance and beginning of another. I found the complaint that hybrids are responsible for monotony to be laughable as periods of dominance in f1 are a pretty regular occurrence. The early 2000s were a terrible time to be an f1 fan.
I couldn't really bring myself to keep reading past that.
I read about the first half of the first article when it came up on motorsport.com. It sounded like just a very long internet forum post by a crusty old man who grew up watching F1 in the 70s.
When he trotted out the bit about painting all front wings white and not being able to tell the difference between them I stopped reading, because it's a poor fallacious argument. I thought the rest of the article would be more rant than reasoned argument.
(It's a fallacious argument because the front wing is not meant to be a part of the car that lets you tell the difference between teams, hence it can't be judged to be failure on that matter. Using this line of reasoning you could say then that if all drivers had white helmets, we couldn't tell the difference between them and thus the driver is also irrelevant).
Stefan Nils Edwin Johansson is a Swedish racing driver who drove in Formula One for both Ferrari and McLaren, among other teams. Since leaving Formula One he has won the 1997 24 Hours of Le Mans and raced in a number of categories, including CART, various kinds of Sports car racing and Grand Prix Masters.
To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.”
Sir Stirling Moss
His argument that limiting downforce will prevent aero spending wars isn't really true. If the teams can't add downforce then they'll spend money taking off drag.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
Stefan Nils Edwin Johansson is a Swedish racing driver who drove in Formula One for both Ferrari and McLaren, among other teams. Since leaving Formula One he has won the 1997 24 Hours of Le Mans and raced in a number of categories, including CART, various kinds of Sports car racing and Grand Prix Masters.
Doesn't qualify him as a rule maker of a racing series.
His insight as a driver is light years behind the engineers that are currently making the rules, and thus, is hot air at best.
Most of us have stated our "dream" formula, and those have exactly as much credibility as the one in the article. And just like many on here, he made sweeping statements with no answers for the Devil in the details.
I read the article and I think that hiring Ross Brawn was a mistake. This guy has answers to all problems. I completely agree with everything what he proposed. Way less aero, powerful noisey engines, and standard elements. Like someone cares if Ferrari and Racing Point will have same chassis, uprights, brakes, gearboxes,...
Serious questions guys: How can we start a petition so this rules can be implemented for 2021. We have to see drivers like Hamilton, Raikkonen, Vettel battling those kind cars against new generation kids.
Last edited by bucker on 28 Apr 2019, 11:47, edited 1 time in total.
Make F1 great again? first... watch a few F1 seasons from the past back to back instead of highlights of a decade and you discover that F1 was always like this, mostly boring races with a few highlights per season. What was different that car's rarely brake down again and, just like MotoGP for instance, the advancement in material and understanding of design gives us cars that can cope with the stresses of the engine (no more bendy aluminum tubs with a big turbo trying to torque it).
When you look at more standard items, going so far to introduce standerd chassis and aero, to attract new sponsors, manufacturers and investors: well... there are a few international racing series that have a system like that: Indycar and DTM. Both of them don't have a ton of manufacturers. F1 has twice as many engine suppliers than Indy.
I think F1 is in a pretty good place at the moment. Teams have never been this close, you have two multiple wc battling it out with two brands with lots of history and a cocky young team that challenge them. As for finances, there is enough money in F1, there is no real reason for cost reduction. Daimler, Philip Morris, Fiat, Renault and RedBull invest a lot. I would go for a different system of cost distribution across teams so you can run a team within 107% without extra sponsors if necessary.
