F1 Tech should create an seasonal innovation award!

[BreezyRacer]

Every season something new comes along in aero or mechanical design and proves it's worth in race results at the end of the year. Those kinds of innovations have their own awards .. with race wins and points garnered.

But as engineers and people that appreciate new technology, I think there ought to be an award given for aero and mechanical innovations without regards to wins .. maybe even excluding race winning cars.

I think that F1Technical is a good place to do it for the moment, till it catches on and some big sponsor sees advantage in financing a big trophy and time on the FIA stage to present it. There isn't enough risk taking in F1 these days IMO, and maybe an award like that would serve to remind people of these innovations that made the year exciting for us and in the end were proven/dis-proven in the field of battle.

Readers could vote on it or it could be determined by the mods on F1Tech. Personally I would trust the mods more than the members (no offense guys but we do have our share of fanboys).

The idea came for this from a conversation on The Renault R31's front exit exhausts and the claim from the team that it was a "failed design".

[raymondu999]

Love the idea. This should be a poll

[beelsebob]

I'm not convinced. Surely if you innovate, and then don't win, it's because the innovation wasn't actually a good idea. Good innovation already has its rewards – you do well.

[bhall]

That doesn't make any sense at all to me. F1 is not a series of little contests to see who can come up with the most original solution to a problem; F1 is a series of races to see who can make the fastest car.

There was absolutely nothing original about Adrian Newey's car. Exhaust-blown diffusers, pull rod suspensions and tight packaging of bodywork had all been used in F1 before; sometimes successfully and sometimes not. But, Newey made those things work tremendously this year.

And we have an award for that:

[BreezyRacer]

I'm not convinced. Surely if you innovate, and then don't win, it's because the innovation wasn't actually a good idea. Good innovation already has its rewards – you do well.

The idea here is reward the risk taking, NOT the particular innovation. Without risk taking innovation dies.

[Mandrake]

While Newey's car was the best with regard to being able to win both titles, it was just a refined concept without anything innovative that stood out.

McLaren's U-shaped sidepods, Williams' incredibly small gearbox, MGPs double layer radiators and of course Renault's FEE where things that quickly cought attention. But as no single part can make a car a winner or loser, it's hard to give out an award for being innovative in one special direction.

I'm with bhallg2k this time, does not make sense to have anything other than the WCC award indicating: You have built the best car and you had capable drivers to deliver the required results.

[BreezyRacer]

That doesn't make any sense at all to me. F1 is not a series of little contests to see who can come up with the most original solution to a problem; F1 is a series of races to see who can make the fastest car.

There was absolutely nothing original about Adrian Newey's car. Exhaust-blown diffusers, pull rod suspensions and tight packaging of bodywork had all been used in F1 before; sometimes successfully and sometimes not. But, Newey made those things work tremendously this year.

And we have an award for that:

Actually there was a LOT that was innovative about the Newey blown diffuser .. the biggest one of which few people appreciate .. the blending of highly charged exhaust flow and lower airstreams in a way to create vortex to isolate tire turbulence from the diffuser box. Without that little step cut in the floor it wouldn't work like that. That was/is an innovation. Then you add "off throttle" enhancements .. I'm sure that to the guys working on that they discovered a bunch of new things. And yes, they got their trophies from all that .. Mfr and Driver Championships!

[bhall]

Yes, and you propose a failure beauty contest...

(It pains me to oppose such an idea, as a failure beauty contest is likely the only type I'd ever have a chance of winning.)

[Jersey Tom]

The latest spam attacks must have been innovative to have been so effective. I nominate the spammers.

[Shrieker]

Not everything in life is winning, even in F1 we see some ideas from the old days that weren't initially successful but once recycled and refined bring success.

Vote 'for', or 'against' ?

I'd definitely go for the former.

[kalinka]

I like the idea too.
Just watched the history of turbo-era video, posted by strad. In the beginnig, turbo-engine cars were a big LOL for other teams, because they failed spectacularly, but after they sorted out the problems, it becomes the holy grail for F1 teams. Everyone wanted a turbo engine, but IIRC Renault who first taked a risk to introduce it, never wins a WCC.
So they should get this award too if it existed then.
There are many other things every year : F-Duct,mass-dampers, flexi-wings...etc. They should be rewarded somehow.

[MIKEY_!]

I think it's a great idea. It should say that the top teams can't win it. Looking at previous years you'd have IMO Mclaren(2010) and BGP(2009). Boring! We'd need to exclude the top 2 or 3 placed teams at the end of the year.

Also there must be a way of judging when an idea is new and not a copy. TR's undercut thing has been done before so that's out. But using the exhaust to blow the diffuser was done before 2010 as well. We need to be able to judge whether any individual innovation is a copy of something earlier. And when does a copy that's been developed further by the copier stop being a copy.

[BreezyRacer]

I think it's a great idea. It should say that the top teams can't win it. Looking at previous years you'd have IMO Mclaren(2010) and BGP(2009). Boring! We'd need to exclude the top 2 or 3 placed teams at the end of the year.

I like the idea of excluding any cars that won a race that year.

[MIKEY_!]

I think it's to much. A close season would ruin it.

[N12ck]

I think we should include top teams, as to me in my opinion, the Torro rosso sidepods are more innovative than the Blown diffuser, Mclarens L-Pods are extremely innovative, LRGP's Forward exhaust to me is innovative more so than RBR's Blown diffuser, and I think Team Lotus + Force India had quite smart get arounds of the rules for their Roll 'hoop' blade thingy