So who makes the rules?

[xpensive]

Mind your language, the suggestion of grooved tyres was possibly stemming from a tyre-company, who knows, but it was championed
by a technical dilletant, indeed MrM, and definately not the teams, try and get your ducks in line will you.

[andrew]

Whilst I don't have any time for Mosley and I am glad he is on the way out, he is now in the dark dark history of F1. Instead of looking back at his attempts to improve/ruin (delet as appropriate) the sport, lets look forward to Jean Todt helping to fix F1.

[andartop]

I think what F1 needs is to realize they don't have to change the rules every year, as I keep saying every year..
The benefits would be substantial the way I see it:
a) Stability in the rules would facilitate more teams/manufacturers to invest in the sport as they could plan ahead and manage budgets easier.
b) The top teams would keep spending billions to gain an ever diminishing advantage over their rivals, until they would run out of billions, so budgets would be self-limited.
c) The smaller teams would eventually close the gap to the big ones by copy/pasting rather than developing from scratch, which would be relatively cheaper and would improve the competition.
d) The fans would stop arguing all the time about what needs to be done and why the new rules are rubbish.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Andrew +1

F1 needs to be looking ahead.

[xpensive]

Naah, knocking the past is much more fun for an old geezer...

[ISLAMATRON]

Not correct, most of what I mentioned was forced upon the teams by MrE for "safety reasons", no engineer would come up with such stupidity as the grooved tyres and open scoops. "Safety reasons" or "bringing the sport into disrepute" was the pervert's equivalent to
"un-american activity" or "counter-revolutionary activites" in other dictatorial situations.

Same old BS posts by x

The grooved tires were not Max's idea, Bridgestone engineers put the idea towards the teams and they accepted and as usual the FIA rubberstamped it.

It was well known that it was Ferrari that advocated the banning of turbo'd engines

[xpensive]

Utter bollocks of course, as if anything else was xpected from that end of the sewer, the idea might have been hatched by Bridgestone,
but was forced upon the teams against their will by MrM.

[ISLAMATRON]

It was not forced on them, the teams were told to reduce speed and that was the path they chose, as usuall a poor one, the FIA did not even put it forward as an option

[Pup]

I wouldn't go too far down this path, X. To these two, everything that is bad is FOTA and everything good is the FIA. You'll never change their mind, nor their need to insert this tired old argument anew into our lives each week.

[WhiteBlue]

Of course it is more convenient to keep the old myths about the bad black wolf than accepting the truth.

http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft00253.html

Max Mosley tasked the Formula 1 Technical Working Group with making proposals for a means of regulating, and if necessary reducing, all aspects of performance to a level that cancelled out performance gains due to normal development. At the same time, research was to be carried out into ways of improving overtaking, particularly enabling drivers to race their cars close to each other without loss of aerodynamic stability. The Group members (Technical Directors and Chief Designers of all the teams) were given the opportunity to avoid scrapping all their R&D and design work every few years, as had often been the case in the past, and suggesting a means of regulating performance by adjusting some "low cost" feature of the car.

....

By the end of the last year's racing season (1996), no solution to reducing aerodynamic loads had been found. The FIA backed a proposal from some teams for an active front wing - the incidence would be actively controlled to permit a change of balance in the wake of a leading car. Some teams rose to the challenge, while others recoiled from it, and without unanimity it did not get accepted. At the eleventh hour (World Council ratification was needed by the end of the year for introduction in 1998) the suggestion was put forward to narrow the cars by 200 mm, as a means of reducing downforce and even making slightly more space available on the track for overtaking. Within 24 hours there was unanimous agreement and it was put to the World Council. So much for low cost solutions - teams will be lucky if the steering wheel is a carry-over part for 1998!

......

With a view to controlling the performances of the cars the following regulations will come into effect:

� All dry-weather tyres must incorporate circumferential grooves square to the wheel axis and around the entire circumference of the contact surface of each tyre.

� Front dry-weather tyres must incorporate 3 grooves and rear dry-weather tyres must incorporate 4 grooves (the grooves will be 14 mm wide tapering to 10 mm and 2.5 mm deep. They will be 50 mm apart and arranged symmetrically about the middle of the tyres).

� The FIA Technical Delegate will monitor wear of tyres and after use, at least 50% of the length of each groove in every dry-weather tyre must be evident unless the absence of a groove is due solely to abnormal wear caused by damage to the car.

Dimensions

In order to reduce cornering speeds and assist overtaking:

� The overall width of the car including complete wheels shall not exceed 180 cm (previously 200 cm) with the steered wheels in the straight ahead position (Article 3 of 1998 Technical Regulations).

� There will be minimum complete front and rear wheel widths of 12'' and 14'' respectively. The maximum complete wheel width of 15'' remains (Article 12 of 1998 Technical Regulations).

The Wright testimony makes it clear that the team experts were asked to propose means to improve the aerodynamic problems. The FiA did by no means dictate what was supposed to happen. The have the responsibility to curb excessive performance and that is what they did. They only implemented the solution agreed by the teams. Naturally those responsible for the F1 commisson's proposals conveniently forget to mention their own involvement and blame the FiA.

[xpensive]

@ Pup; I know xactly what you ara saying, but som things are simply to stupid to let pass.

I've read the Peter Wright text three or four times and there's nothing there to suggest that the grooved tyres were proposed by the teams. Moreover, it is said that unanimity between the teams were needed, when I know for a fact that Patrick Head and many others hated the idea.

[WhiteBlue]

• It is an undisputed fact that the FiA and Max Mosley in particular commissioned the team's technical directors to come up with a convenient and affordable way to curb increasing performance for safety reasons. Cornering speeds were the main concern!
• It is also undisputed that the teams dominated the F1 commission and had every opportunity to decide on other means to curb cornering speeds.
• Wright gives testimony that the teams were unable to reach agreement on reducing aerodynamic forces.
• In the absence of a solution on aero forces they reduced the track width and introduced the grooved tyres.
• When the whole scheme backfired badly they turned round and blamed the FiA and Mosley.

The teams have been playing this game for many years. The OWG disaster is only the latest installment in a charade that has been going on for fifteen years.

Prior to the team proposals of the OWG the FiA proposal was the mandatory limitation of downforce to 1.25 metric tons. At the moment we have about or more than twice the downforce which was proposed by the FiA as an upper limit. I'm very comfortably predicting that the cuts in diffusor height and the ban of the DDDs for next year will not reach this target either. I have said it often enough: Only a physical downforce limit online controlled by the SECU or a restrictive fuel budget will finally force the teams to build cars which comply with the downforce and drag limits and will allow proper side by side racing.

The users here at F1technical should not listen to the lies of people denying the obvious facts.

[autogyro]

+1
FOTA is the problem.

[timbo]

Only a physical downforce limit online controlled by the SECU or a restrictive fuel budget will finally force the teams to build cars which comply with the downforce and drag limits and will allow proper side by side racing.

But what about FIA banning Group C prototypes (with fuel flow limits) and putting forward of unified 3,5L formula instead? It was made clearly to lure more manu's into F1.
FIA does what it suits.

[WhiteBlue]

Only a physical downforce limit online controlled by the SECU or a restrictive fuel budget will finally force the teams to build cars which comply with the downforce and drag limits and will allow proper side by side racing.

But what about FIA banning Group C prototypes (with fuel flow limits) and putting forward of unified 3,5L formula instead? It was made clearly to lure more manu's into F1.
FIA does what it suits.

This is F1 and not sports car racing. F1 has its own set of rules with the concord agreement and the RRA. Sports cars don't have that and it appears to me that the ACO rules are more important there anyway.