All F1 2005 Discussions

[andygrif]

I don't wish to over-simplify issues here, but we need less rules, not more.

All these ideas are very creative and I salute you all for coming up with them.

But this is the premier league of motorsports - talk of handicaps of drivers, inhibiting technical developments and the introductions of even more rules are not necessary or desirable. You wouldn't start Arsenal off with a minus point score becuase they won the leage last season, or chop of Henry's left leg becuase he can run faster.

its not a bad idea, but then you would have some teams using it all the time, or one team developing a system that has it on preminantly
and anyway sometimes the racing at the back is realy good!
The problem is quite clear the morew you look at it, the team with the most moeny will eventually win! toyota keep plowing money in, and are climbing the tables, ferrari...say no morew.....mclaren say no more and as for renault!
equal distribution of revenue and parading max before the start of each race is the only answer , or alternativly.....cover him in bbq sauce and feed him to the americans..... ill leave you all to think about that one

and yes, more public interaction would be a great idea....what about a lucky ticket holder at every race being able to hand over the winners trophy, or wave the chequered flag or something along those lines

Originally Posted by Graham

The problem with ground effect was that it would literally clamp the car to the track. It meant you could corner like you were on rails, but also reduced manoeuvrability at the same time.

thinking back, that was certainly the case when the cars were running side skirts to maximise the effect, but regulating the ground clearance 'should' mean a compromise could be reached.

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by andygrif

I don't wish to over-simplify issues here, but we need less rules, not more.

All these ideas are very creative and I salute you all for coming up with them.

But this is the premier league of motorsports - talk of handicaps of drivers, inhibiting technical developments and the introductions of even more rules are not necessary or desirable. You wouldn't start Arsenal off with a minus point score becuase they won the leage last season, or chop of Henry's left leg becuase he can run faster.

There are a lot more variables in football than F1. I think that we all agree that as things stand races are more of a procession than a race. Something has to be done to alter this. Other motor racing has handicapping, push to pass, etc and these things have been introduced for a purpose. Why not have F1 introduce something to spice up the race experience?
__________________

Originally Posted by blackpoolgran

its not a bad idea, but then you would have some teams using it all the time, or one team developing a system that has it on preminantly
and anyway sometimes the racing at the back is realy good!
The problem is quite clear the morew you look at it, the team with the most moeny will eventually win! toyota keep plowing money in, and are climbing the tables, ferrari...say no morew.....mclaren say no more and as for renault!
equal distribution of revenue and parading max before the start of each race is the only answer , or alternativly.....cover him in bbq sauce and feed him to the americans..... ill leave you all to think about that one

and yes, more public interaction would be a great idea....what about a lucky ticket holder at every race being able to hand over the winners trophy, or wave the chequered flag or something along those lines

If its the push to pass system that you are talking about then it is a time controlled boost that you can activate to give you chance to overtake or resist being overtaken. You have only so many seconds per race where you can use it which is preset by the race organisers and cannot be altered or extended.

and as for feeding max to the americans?

[paulyoung666]

Originally Posted by homealone

thinking back, that was certainly the case when the cars were running side skirts to maximise the effect, but regulating the ground clearance 'should' mean a compromise could be reached.

personally i think skirts should never ever be brought back , ok they work very well , but ............. , all you need to do is to catch a bump mid corner or maybe get nudged and most of the downforce goes , period , very dangerous in my opinion

[keithwalton]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

If its the push to pass system that you are talking about then it is a time controlled boost that you can activate to give you chance to overtake or resist being overtaken. You have only so many seconds per race where you can use it which is preset by the race organisers and cannot be altered or extended.

eh? its not controlled by the race organisers at all. The push to pass, or overtake button. Temporarly raises the rev limiter, and uses a more aggresive engine mapping. The only reason there is a limited amount of it is because it puts a high strain on the engine and is not sustainable. The engine engineers know how much (or so they reckon) how much it can safely take before going bang.

Personally i think they should scrap the one engine should last x many races and such. BUT impose a limit on how many NEW engines can be used per season.
At present practice sessions are abit of a joke since they do so little running in them because engine milage is limited.

In terms of fan appeal going to friday / saturday at silverstone used to be appealing to me because you got to see alot of running for not alot of money. (20 cars * 12 laps for qually, + 20 or so more laps per car in the morning on sat) It was allways more interesting in qualy to see more than one car out on track going for it at the same time and there was allways the risk of being borked by a slow car.

To me circuit entrance on a sunday is just ludicrus. I have only ever gone when i've managed to get some freebies of f1 teams £100 odd quid a head is just silly. I'd much rather pay a tenner and goto a 750motor club event. The racing is closer the paddock is open and you can get alot closer. The main bit being its cheap!
Fridays / saturdays used to be about £20/ head with sunday being £80 odd

I thought it was funny when they interviewed some of those at indy saying it was a waste of $80 or so (£50 BARGAIN compared to silverstone)

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by keithwalton

eh? its not controlled by the race organisers at all. The push to pass, or overtake button. Temporarly raises the rev limiter, and uses a more aggresive engine mapping. The only reason there is a limited amount of it is because it puts a high strain on the engine and is not sustainable. The engine engineers know how much (or so they reckon) how much it can safely take before going bang.

The time that push to pass is operable in Champ cars is set at 60 seconds per race and the time available WAS set by the organisers. Read a little about it at http://www.carkeys.co.uk/features/sport/3673.asp

This was fairly easy to introduce in Champ cars as they all use identical Ford Cosworth engines. F1 cars could be fitted with electronic speed limiters to slow them down with a similar push to pass system which could remove the limitation for a set number of seconds per race.

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by ian@huth

There are a lot more variables in football than F1. I think that we all agree that as things stand races are more of a procession than a race. Something has to be done to alter this. Other motor racing has handicapping, push to pass, etc and these things have been introduced for a purpose. Why not have F1 introduce something to spice up the race experience?

I don't mean to sound rude, but if you need a button to make your sport more interesting, might I suggest that you are watching the wrong sport? I don't have a problem with what you're suggesting, but on the Scaletrix track, not the F1 track.

[sherer]

for all those that say refueling makes the race interesting i'll try and explain why the races would be better without it

think back to the 77 French GP at Dijon. I'm sure you all remember the battle for second between Villeneuve and Arnuux. That battle is still talked about today.. imagine if instead second place had been decided by strategy and refueling and neither driver had overtaken the other one would that still have been talked about now ?

think back to Hakkinen's pass on Schuey at Spa the other year as they passed Zonta on either side going up to Les Combes.. would that still be talked about if they had passed in the pits under refueling ?

go back to the Sam Marino GP this year.. Schuey had a car that was 2 seconds a lap faster but it was safer to stay in 13th rather than overtake on the track.. imagine if there was no refueling and he had to fight his way past on the track.. that would have got people talking.. how many people have said wow what a strategy by Ferrari that day..

go back to the race yesterday and Schuey's pass on Trulli.. you might not remember it so i'll recap the move for you.. Schuey went quicker than Trulli when his car wasn't there so after they had both stopped he was first.. amazing and i'm sure you've been talking about it for all of 0 seconds.. how many people have said wow what strategy to pass Trulli at the stops.. people won't even remember it by Tuesday..

more importantly the casual viewer wants to see overtaking rather than cars passing the pits.. we have been starved of this over the past few years and so everyone says refueling is great but if it wasn't there the action would have to take place on the track and proper overtaking is better than going quicker than the car you are racing during a fuel stop

[MovedGoalPosts]

I have to agree that with the need to change tyres, why do cars have to refuel. Make them stay out for the whole race.

However until something can be done that allows effective overtaking - many cars loosing aerodynamic grip when they get close to cars in front - and make perferomance of cars more evenly matched, F1 will always be a procession. It's why "lesser" race series such as Touring Cars, is a much more interesting spectator sport. Just a shame that F1 gets the lions share of the publicity and money in the UK.

[sherer]

yes refueling and no tyre changes was always a strange choice from the FIA.. also it has led to some of the problems this year as the cars "sprint" between the stops for refueling instead of having to stay out the whole race and go abit slower and judge their pace over the whole race better

the FIA introduced refueling in a bid to fool the fans into thinking there was overtaking, or at least changes of positions, during a race but it's never worked for me.. yes it can make races interesting but overtaking is even more interesting and will generate more publicity for the sport

The FIA need to take away from the aero side of F1 so they can follow other cars and overtake instead of trying to fool us into thinking it takes place with refueling.. no one talks about a great strategy after a race but they do talk about overtaking

Think back to 94 and Estoril. Schuey was going to overtake Damon Hill and for a few laps before went onto the part of the curcuit he was going to use to clean it up so when he used it to overtake he had the grip he needed.. if a man with that ability in a car 2 seconds faster decided to "wait for the stops" at Imola something is wrong

[ian@huth]

I think that yesterdays race showed one of the problems with F1 that desperately needs sorting. The procession following Trulli meant that there could only be one winner. It is one thing saying fuel cars up for the entire race so that they have to pass on the track but that can be virtually an impossibility on some tracks.

Qualifying needs something doing to it to make it fairer. The one lap system favours the later running cars so maybe have two sessions again but have them back to back to lay some rubber down in their first attempt to make it fairer in the second.

Only having 20 cars competing these days may be part of the problem. I am sure it was better racing when there was 26.

Blue flags can have quite an affect on the race with cars having to get out of the way or be penalised. This can destroy some good racing lower down the field. I bet it would make for better racing without them.

[Chrysalis]

I would agree with the following.

Bring back tyre changes.
Stop refuelling.
Points for qualifying 1st, winner of qualifying starts at back so reverse order.
Replace tracks where overtaking is impossible.

[sherer]

i think we do need more cars on the grid and yes getting rod of blue flags might be a good idea.. not only do the front running cars not overtake but they don't even have to overtake the back markers anymore

it is possible to overtake on track.. particularly at france into the hairpin but with an artifical means of overtaking i.e in the pits during refueling drivers won't take this risk.. hence the problem

as for qualifying all these rules about changing engines and penalties was meant to spice up the racing but again that is an artificial means.. i'd go back to the one hour session and get rid of the refueling.. also get the FIA to look into the aero \ electronic side

was thinking that if they don't want to change or dumb down F1 why not have a sister series running on the Sunday as well with the F1 stars, more cars but how the fans want to see it. call it F2 or F5000 or something