[Rules] Future Rule Changes

[F1Guy]

Interview with Ross Brawn.

https://www.formula1.com/en/video/20...ure_of_F1.html

Brawn looking to keep things simple. As you can see, he only bought the one cardigan to the Barcelona test.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

Interview with Ross Brawn.

https://www.formula1.com/en/video/20...ure_of_F1.html

Brawn looking to keep things simple. As you can see, he only bought the one cardigan to the Barcelona test.

A very interesting 'interview'. Ross Brawn always seems to talk a lot of sense in my opinion and certainly appears to think things through. I'm also happy that he doesn't possess the knee-jerk reaction philosophy that previous management had which generally led to further knee-jerks to try and put things right that their previous attempts had made even more wrong!
Let's see how this pans out with time, but I'm optimistic at the moment...

[Richard C]

Similar content as in the Sky/Kravitz interview, but a bit more scripted. More confirmation of taking the long view and validation of solutions prior to implementation.

Two things that I don't think has been discussed here yet...

1. The technical team Ross plans to put together to do the analysis.

2. The idea of testing out ideas in non-championship races.

I don't have much thought regarding the first, other than it is the right thing to do if done correctly. Regarding the second, I sort of like the idea, but it will be interesting to see how much they could experiment during the course of a racing season. Would they have just one non-championship race? How much experimentation could take place in one event? And would one event be enough to really prove or disprove a particular idea?

Oh... Kudos to FOM for releasing this.

Richard

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

What we really need is cars that can follow each other with relative ease. I really dont think we need DRS.

There is great footage of a German GP where Schumacher is stuck behind Berger in about 1993-1994 and he is really close behind him, however he struggles to make a pass.

I think thats one thing you see from footage of 30 years back is that the cars can follow a lot closer than they can at the moment.

In an interview in Barcelona Lewis says that the 2017 cars are more difficult to follow another car in than the 2016 cars.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by wnut

In an interview in Barcelona Lewis says that the 2017 cars are more difficult to follow another car in than the 2016 cars.

I never understood why the front wing is so wide. Surely the more aero you give it, the more it'll hurt when following another car?

[Richard C]

I may be wrong, but I believe the primary goal of the changes was to increase the speed and make them harder to drive, not improve the quality of the racing (such as ease of overtaking).

Richard

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

I may be wrong, but I believe the primary goal of the changes was to increase the speed and make them harder to drive, not improve the quality of the racing (such as ease of overtaking).

Richard

I thought the idea was to do both.

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I never understood why the front wing is so wide. Surely the more aero you give it, the more it'll hurt when following another car?

Yep. They should have narrowed it and reduced the depth of the wing to reduce the reliance on it.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

I thought the idea was to do both.

I looked back at news items from a year or so ago when they were talking about this. My opinion it seems to boil down to...

* Removal of token system
* Increase the speed of the cars
* Better aesthetics

IMHO, while people (rightly so) complained about quality of racing, it seemed that the larger topic was that everyone was loosing their minds around the sound of the cars, that the speed didn't allow them to stand out from the GP2 cars and that the cars remain ugly. There was also the ongoing dominance of Mercedes and the (probably correct) feeling that with the token system the others were really prevented from catching up (with respect to the power unit design)

Here are some random news articles from a year or more ago about the 2017 changes...

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/124...nging-for-2017

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...r-2017-675381/

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/h...017-tyres.html

While they may occasionally touch on the topic of close racing, they clearly focus on the increased speed and new look of the cars. The Sky article has some interesting discussion including frank talk about how the 2017 cars may in fact NOT help with the quality of racing (such as the difficulty of following the car in front of you). The Autosport article link directly below from about a year ago is more telling IMHO. It talks about the "roll of the dice" to improve overtaking and that the design by committee nature is clearly a non-optimal way to do things. The result is that maybe nobody really agrees on the approved solution, but it was what could be agreed upon. It all points to why we now have Ross Brawn and his team to try to be a single voice on how things should be done in the future.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122916

Also, the last line from the article linked below (late 2015) is interesting. It is a quote from Pat Symonds...

The brief from the Strategy Group was to make the cars quicker and to make the styling a bit better, I think we've done those two.

Nothing about quality of racing.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122342

Richard

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Nothing about quality of racing.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122342

Richard

Fortunately Ross Brawn seems to have quality racing firmly on his agenda.

If he manages to achieve the objectives he has set out in this interview with Martin Brundle, F1 will be in a much better place than it is at present.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNtxdzZhaVk

[Taxi645]

Could someone please explain something to me?

The new generation Pirelli's are longer lasting as they don't degrade as much from heat built up (at least that's the way I understand it). Now there is fear that we will see too little degradation with many 1-stop races. Indeed we saw Verstappen quite easily manage the race on a set of ultrasofts and supersofts.

So I wonder why didn't Pirelli's make the whole range of tyres one compound softer? Wouldn't that increase degradation?

[wolfhound]

I expect it was Pirelli being extremely conservative for fear of the new cars chewing up their new wide tyres in a couple of laps. At least the drivers did not have to spend too much of the race looking after their tyres.
I suspect there will be races where the ultra soft might last 3/4 of the race based on what we saw in Australia. At least it will push the drivers into passing on track (if they are able to) rather than waiting for the next pit stop.

[F1Guy]

Not Pirelli's fault. The tyres were made for low deg so that faster lap times could be done by the cars. Instead, teams are choosing to do slower lap times, and only one stop. The cars are well and truly capable of doing faster speeds, as we saw during FP. Sucks that teams have chosen to take the conservative approach. Again.

To fix this issue, FOM should mandate 3 tyre changes, not just the one, during a race. Teams/drivers then wouldn't have to conserve tyres, and drivers can push on at full speed. Which is what everyone wants to see.

[Richard C]

Weren't we just complaining that the tire degradation was too much and that drivers spent too much time managing their tires?

I agree with the post above that the cars can go faster during a race. I believe fuel management during races (particularly on fast power tracks) will be the new problem. The cars can be on throttle more than before and are using more fuel.

Richard

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

Not Pirelli's fault. The tyres were made for low deg so that faster lap times could be done by the cars. Instead, teams are choosing to do slower lap times, and only one stop. The cars are well and truly capable of doing faster speeds, as we saw during FP. Sucks that teams have chosen to take the conservative approach. Again.

To fix this issue, FOM should mandate 3 tyre changes, not just the one, during a race. Teams/drivers then wouldn't have to conserve tyres, and drivers can push on at full speed. Which is what everyone wants to see.

They should mandate 3 tyre changes, during the race? They would have been pitting every 19 laps at Melbourne, if that were the case.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

To fix this issue, FOM should mandate 3 tyre changes, not just the one, during a race. Teams/drivers then wouldn't have to conserve tyres, and drivers can push on at full speed. Which is what everyone wants to see.

How about the following scenario (given the tyres available in Melbourne)....

Mandate that:
The softs should be capable of lasting >90% race distance,
Supers lasting >75%,
Ultras lasting >50%,
Teams have to use all three compounds during the race.

Therefore, the drivers would have to push hard to try and fit into pit windows.

[Richard C]

How about maybe less mandates? Especially knee jerk ones? Any any comments to the fact that teams are likely managing fuel more than tires? "Pushing hard" means using more fuel. They can't do that already.

Richard

Edit: Woohoo post #2000!

[Greem]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

How about maybe less mandates? Especially knee jerk ones? Any any comments to the fact that teams are likely managing fuel more than tires? "Pushing hard" means using more fuel. They can't do that already.

Mandate fewer mandates

In all seriousness: F1 should have fewer, or simpler, technical rules. There should be some 'sets' (for want of a better word) of tech regs that allow more free reign over (say) aero while minimising fuel allowance; another which allows bigger, thirstier engines but minimises aero elements on the wings; another which allows 100% electric drive thru all four wheels but smaller tyres. Or something like that.

Right now F1 is so tightly controlled it's essentially a spec series, and every time someone makes a better thing the rest of the teams whine until it's banned. Then the wheel turns, another team invent a better widget, and round we go again.

We all want "better racing". Let's have "different designs".

[Sodemo]

They just need to move more towards an underbody aero solution. Lose the massive front wings and put in place something a fraction of the size.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

They just need to move more towards an underbody aero solution. Lose the massive front wings and put in place something a fraction of the size.

This 'should' be straightforward in practice but the trade off might be something like allowing the teams continued use of the Fins so they have more branding space! Not sure what that would do to aero stability though!!

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Greem

Mandate fewer mandates

Originally Posted by Greem

In all seriousness: F1 should have fewer, or simpler, technical rules. There should be some 'sets' (for want of a better word) of tech regs that allow more free reign over (say) aero while minimising fuel allowance; another which allows bigger, thirstier engines but minimises aero elements on the wings; another which allows 100% electric drive thru all four wheels but smaller tyres. Or something like that.

Right now F1 is so tightly controlled it's essentially a spec series, and every time someone makes a better thing the rest of the teams whine until it's banned. Then the wheel turns, another team invent a better widget, and round we go again.

We all want "better racing". Let's have "different designs".

Originally Posted by chunterer

This 'should' be straightforward in practice but the trade off might be something like allowing the teams continued use of the Fins so they have more branding space! Not sure what that would do to aero stability though!!

Is that really a problem? Lack of space on the car for branding? You have cars like the poor Sauber with the big empty white spaces on the side that effectively say "Your name can be here". McLaren is about as bad.

Richard

[wnut]

How about, there was a perfectly good race developing before Hamilton/ Mercedes tried to undercut Vettel. If the tyres lasted the GP distance they would have had to race, aero permitting.
The problem is the aero, tyre changes simply ensure that equal cars seldom if ever run against one another. The harder more durable tyres are a step in the right direction.

Now for the fuel saving and aero, front wings.

Fuel is self limiting, you have to carry it!

Reliability also becomes more marginal as power increases, the reason there was unreliability in earlier times was that the engines were stressed to and beyond their limits not safely run at 4000 rpm below what they could stand.

As Bernie said, "the regulations basically say, do not race."

[Taxi645]

I wonder if they'll add a softer compound than ultrasoft in a few months and then just rename all compounds one compound harder. Doing 2/3 of a race on a second softest compound is ridiculous.

We asked for tires that were less sensitive to overheating to allow drivers to fight through the dirty air without throwing away their stint, not for too hard compounds, but perhaps I'm oversimplifying the issue.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

Doing 2/3 of a race on a second softest compound is ridiculous.

I can agree that doesn't seem right at all.

Richard

[wolfhound]

It looks like there is going to be a new type of power unit in F1 from 2021 but as yet we do not know what it will be.

http://classic.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/128744