browney wrote: ↑Mon Jul 15, 2024 11:22 am
Maybe controversially, I don't think restrictive rules reduce the engineering skill. Just means marginal gains and looking for other places for solutions
It's like I think sometimes budget cars are more impressive engineering than expensive cars. the Mazda 2 is a brilliant price of engineering, big cost and size constraints drove clever solutions to fit in the constrains.
(Speaking for experience doing design in some.very right specification spaces and have to work real hard to innovate inside that small window compared to if I had complete freedom)
NASCAR is probably the best example of the shiniest turd you ever saw.
Restrictive rules, but budgets of $20-$30mil / year (2006 dollars)… all that money has to go somewhere.
The problem is stuff isn’t exciting for most. A very slightly different header that makes more under car downforce or a small change in camshaft design that adds 2hp can’t be seen by fans or written about.
F1 fans and media want the big changes that they can see and over analyze.
Edit: hilarious downvote. Lack of big visual changes would remove a lot of upvotes here for doing nothing but sharing (other people’s) photos