What would you do to F1?

[ptclaus98]

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

A homage to the threads in other forums (Sportscar, touring car). What technical and sporting regulations changes do you think would be good for F1 for 2011, 2012 and 2013? My ideas in a while.

1.8 liter turbodiesel hybrids(Yeah I said it. It's time for F1 to retake the title of most advanced. When they're getting outteched by GT and Prototype cars there has to be something done)

Return to low noses, with single plane adjustable front wings

Wide rear wing, also single plane.

Ban suspensions with exotic materials

Wider and harder tires, with 18 inch wheels

Single diffuser

Steel Brakes

20 races

T cars allowed

1 lap Q3

Test the Monday and Tuesday before the race at the race venue, reserve driver mandatory


That's what I'd do.

[chunder]

Steel brakes would be little different to carbons, so that works, in biies the stopping distances are obviously longer with steels, but surely that helps! And they are might cheaper!

No more stupid carbon gearboxes and pointless carbon componnents.

But in all honesty, F1 teams will always find a way to spend insane amounts of money on something to get in front, be it testing, CFD, designers, wind tunnels, engine development, tyres.

So, unless you have a real go, what cna you hope to achieve?

[wnut]

Ban wings in front of the front axle and widen the front tyres.
Legislate max nose width, height and eliminate all ducts or openings before front axle.

Legislate smooth body work with ni trim tabs and vanes.

Single element rear wings at current size, leave everything else the same and lets see if they can race. Revisit next year.

Steel or iron discs a good idea.

[ptclaus98]

Originally Posted by chunder

Steel brakes would be little different to carbons, so that works, in biies the stopping distances are obviously longer with steels, but surely that helps! And they are might cheaper!

No more stupid carbon gearboxes and pointless carbon componnents.

But in all honesty, F1 teams will always find a way to spend insane amounts of money on something to get in front, be it testing, CFD, designers, wind tunnels, engine development, tyres.

So, unless you have a real go, what cna you hope to achieve?

Basically any thing that isn't part of the tub isn't carbon fiber.

[JeremySmith]

Hold every race at Paul Ricard and change the scenery ....Hang on!

[neiltb]

budget cap with luxury tax ($$ spent above threshold has 100% tax) split between teams under cap.

single plane rear wing, all other devices will reduce to match.

reduced telemetry, 4 channels transmitted, all available to driver (take the engineers out of the race).

5cm flat spine down airbox, longitudinal to direction of travel (proper term has escaped me), to reduce rear wing efficiency.

limited engineers at track (cap and telemetry should provide this)

reduced 'superstar' (models etc) TV time.

[ptclaus98]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

Hold every race at Canada and change the scenery ....Hang on!

Fixed.

[ECW Dan Selby]

Originally Posted by neiltb

reduced 'superstar' (models etc) TV time.

I tell you what, that's a really good point. How many more times do we have to see Nicole Schzwijfeiofjeifjso playing up to the camera despite her "totally forgetting it's there!!!". Yeh, right, love...

Lewis - ditch that bit.... i'll stop there, you get the picture

Selby

[ASCII Man]

I would prefer to get rid of pretty much all those buttons and dials on the steering wheel, just the radio, clutch/neutral and push-to-drink buttons.
Also a return to stick shift would be neat. (either sequential or H shifting)

[boyracer019]

Cap of £75m - all up, for the full season, full stop

Mandatory crash test requirements as we do now

Run what you like - you want to run a 100 litre diesel engine from a ship and tuned to 50,000 horse power, go for it

[ECW Dan Selby]

Originally Posted by boyracer019

Cap of £75m - all up, for the full season, full stop

Mandatory crash test requirements as we do now

Run what you like - you want to run a 100 litre diesel engine from a ship and tuned to 50,000 horse power, go for it

As fun as it sounds, there'd just be a mirrad of safety issues

Selby

[Bonanza]

I love these type of threads. commence F1 operation bonanza:

-engines: 2 litre V8 turbos. greener 'alternative' fuels must be used.
-wings: wider rear wings, with the same height
narrower front wings perpendicular to the car, but wings wider parralell to the cars centre-line (if that makes sense)
-sidepods: come foward more, must have large air intakes like in diagram1 (attachment-the view is from just behind the front wheels, just a sketch) this is to cool the turbos. sidepods sides must be vertical to the floor of the car (this reduces clever aerro-hopefully reducing dirty air) top of sidepods must be perpendicular to this, with a small curved edge in between (like in diagram 1. well, at least i would if i could insert an attachment)
-wheels:fatter rear tyres, fatter front tyres
-driver aids:none at all
-engine covers:wider at the bottom. shark fins banned. with turbo engines, whole cars are longer and the extra length would be behind the driver in the engine department, making engine covers longer and sleeker
-winglets:no winglets permitted
-safety: slightly bigger side head protectors
-nosecones: strust in between nosecones and front wings banned, nosecones must come all the way down to wings (like the 'old days'. hopefully this will make overtaking easier, like in the 'old days'). drivers footwell lowered slightly to accomedate nosecones going lower.
rear of cars: DDDs banned. diffusers must be based from the back of the engine/gearbox covers, nothing else added on.

tyres: suplied in 2 compounds per race, total of 4 different compounds produced by tyre suppliers. the 2 compounds take to each race must be 1 harder and 1 softer compound, with each being stretched in race distance.

entrants: maximum of 18 teams of 2 cars each allowed to enter each race weekend. all cars qualify on road courses, but only top 28 in street course races.

oval races: If I were in charge, I'd seriously consider this on 2+ mile speedways, maybe 2/3 a year. however, I might decide against it if teams didnt like it.

qualifying: part one: split into two groups of 18 (1 car from each team). top 10 in each session qualify for the next round. bottom 16 (8 in each group) qualify for race in fastest time order in the last 16 places. for street races, slowest 8 (regardless of placings in groups) fail to qualify.
part 2: remaining 20 cars all in one session. top 10 qualify for top 10 shootout
part 3: top 10 shootout, just like now

seasons: 22 races per season. ideally:
1.Australian (melbourne)
2. Malaysian (Sepang)
3. Indian or Singapore (Jaypee or Marina Bay Streets)
4. North African (Ain Diab streets)
5. South African (Kyalami)
6. Spanish (Catalunya)
7. Monaco (Monte Carlo Streets)
8. Turkish (Instanbul)
9. North American (Indianapolis Oval or Road America)
10. Canadian (Montreal)
11. British (Silverstone)
12. French (Toulouse airport or a safer clermont ferrand)
13. German (Nurburgring or Eurospeedway lausitz)
14. Italian (Monza)
15. Portuguese (Portimao)
16. Belgian (Spa Franchorchamps)
17. United States (Austin)
18. Mexican (Mexico City)
19. Japanese (Suzuka)
20. Middle East (Yas Marina)
21. Argentine (Potrero de los Funes)
22. Brazilian (Interlagos)

points:
1st:25
2nd:18
3rd:14
4th:12
5th:10
6th:9
7th:8
8th:7
9th:6
10th:5
11th:4
12th:3
13th:2
14th:1

[duke_toaster]

If other people are proposing calendars, here's mine.

R1 - Australia GP - Albert Park
R2 - Korean GP - Korea International Circuit - the maps don't look bad, giving it the benefit of the doubt.
R3 - Portuguese GP - Portimao
R4 - French GP - Paul Ricard
R5 - Spanish GP - Jerez
R6 - Monaco GP - Monaco
R7 - Canadian GP - Ile de Notre Dame
R8 - British GP - Silverstone
R9 - German GP - Hockenheim
R10 - Finnish GP - Helsinki street circuit
R11 - Italian GP - Monza
R12 - Belgian GP - Spa
R13 - Japanese GP - Suzuka
R14 - Singapore GP - Singapore
R15 - Argentinian GP - Potrero de los Funes - in the event of it being able to get a Grade 1 licence (mid-afternoon race)
R16 - Brazilian GP - Interlagos
R17 - GP of the United States - Austin (3pm start)

First reserve is Abu Dhabi, but please not as the first or last race of the season. I've selected certain venues to go at the ends for start times reasons.

[TRuss]

You know what: I've spent many years thinking and daydreaming to myself about what I would like to see, what I think would be cool and good for F1 and sports cars. But over the last year I finally got over myself. Nobody is asking me what I'd like to see. The regulations are what they are. Good or bad there is nothing that I can do about it, except to chose to watch or not. I almost always watch. Whatever the future brings will be brought by someone other than me or any of us most likely. Good or bad it will be what it will be. Will I watch? If history dictates, most likely.

[boyracer019]

Cup half empty tonight russ?

[TRuss]

No not at all. Having read my post I can see as how one could reach that conclusion though.

I've simply decided to stop thinking about this stuff and other non-motorsports related things that I have no control over so much. Eventhough I haven't cared for F1 regs so much over the last decade plus I still watch the races. And I do feel that things are gradually headed in the right direction. I like that we have slick tires again. And I like the thought of adjustable aero. I've always thought that this was the best way to recoup lost downforce when following another car. Especially in tighter corners. I do feel that it should be fully active instead of driver controlled though. Muchlike FBW in an F16. Ask Jim Hall about how sketchy driver control can be. And on an unrelated note I am excited about the future ACO regs as well. I think they are headed in the right direction also. To me the most exciting thing about green technologies in racing cars is seeing something new and more open regs to encourage development of new technologies instead of stifling them.

So my motorsport glass is fairly full, and without my having anything at all to do with it.

You guys have a nice evening, it's time to get a heat stroke on the bicycle.

[bjohnsonsmith]

I would like to see:

1. Engine capacity fixed for 10 years.

2. Engine configuration up to manufacturers; V8s, V10s, V12s, Flat 12s etc.

3. Chassis spec fixed for 10 years.

4. Increase front and rear track.

5. Reduce wing elements and remove aero appendiges.

6. No more engine/gearbox penalties.

7. Off season and in season testing.

8. Keep tyre options but no compulsory pitstops.

9. More European GPs; thus cutting travel costs and bringing F1 back to the fans.

10. 1 oval GP.

[Casper]

The current cars look abominable in a side on view from the cockpit forward due to the way the body is built like a crocodile with its mouth open, it must turn many people off as it makes me cringe every time I see one. That is what I meant with my caricature statement. No one is going to be drawn to a sport where the cars look like they have been hit with an ugly stick so the first thing to do is make them look better, spectator appeal either on TV or at the track is important.

Free up the rules with no limitations except a fuel limit, I bet that will result in a return of complimentary systems like KERS to overcome that limit. Get rid of the majority of the pit crew by limiting the tyre changers to only two people working on the car at once and allow freedom of tyres. By restricting the allowed tyre crew the teams will then have too assess whether hard or soft tyres are and advantage and with less people on the pit crew costs will reduce.

Modify the aero rules to reduce the air disturbance and make passing a possibility and along with that make the brakes less effective, SACRILEGE I hear you say. Simply put if the braking distances are longer then there is more opportunity to pass under brakes.

In the older and fondly remembered days all the cars were a bit dodgy with brakes, tyres and handling and it made for interesting racing as some drivers managed their cars better than others and this made for spectator appeal, accept it or not that is exactly why they were more interesting to watch. Fortunately things are never going to go back to that but if the drivers were made to manage their cars because of artificially introduced short comings then real racing would return, that in the end is what is needed.

[Marbot]

F1 rules to be decided by 'fans' and the races to be watched only on 3D TV. What more could you want?

Not sure what all this fuss about HD is. It's still too easy to 'kid' people into thinking that they are watching HD when actually they are not.

Changed my mind. Let's go for 'full on' techno overload.

I think that we can forget 'V' engines, as a short in-line engine can be packaged better anyway. Much easier to manufacture as well. Wings will be retained, but hopefully made to help rather than hinder racing more. Wings need to give something back to the sport IMO.

[chunterer]

I've longned for a major cut in technology on the cars and less aero dependency and at long last we might get the latter of those whilst I doubt we'll ever see the former.

BJS's list makes a lot of sense from a purists perspective as most of what Duke's listed a page or so back.

I don't want to go too far OT but for our new improved F1 series how about this for a calendar!!

1 AUS - Phillip Island
2 CHN - Shanghai
3 ARG - Oscar Galvez
4 BRZ - Curitiba
5 MEX - Hermanos Rodriguez
6 USA West - Long Beach
7 SPN - Aragon
8 RSM - Imola/Mugello
9 Monaco
10 CDN - Gilles Villeneuve
11 USA - Watkins Glen
12 GB - Brands Hatch
13 FR - Paul Ricard
14 GER - Nurburgring
15 BEL - SPA
16 ITA - Monza
16 POR - Portimao
17 ZA - Welkom/Kyalami
18 Singapore
19 MAL - Sepang
20 JAP - Suzuka
21 Dubai
22 Abu Dhabi

[Yannick]

F1 needs more tracks that require different car setups from the average track (Barcelona, Sakhir, etc.). Especially, more low downforce tracks such as Monza and Spa are needed on the calendar. On these, there is less aero dependancy and the sophisticated aero of the big teams becomes less important, as the mixed-up results on these tracks in previous years have shown. That adds to the exitement big time. Besides, slip stream battles are interesting to watch.

Pre 1991, there were more low downforce tracks such as the old Silverstone (which is getting back there with its current reconfiguration despite the "arrowhead" section being so slow), the old Hockenheim with its long straights, the old Österreichring.

Hey, even the much criticised Indianapolis infield road course and the new Fuji Speedway required a medium to low downforce setup because of their long front straights.

Bernie's desire to bring the look of corporate identity to the pictures of the races on TV by having Hermann Tilke design tracks that are all similar conceptually, might make for good advertising but not good racing. The latter is created when you must run the very same car on tracks that are decidedly different from each other. But nowadays, the big teams often develop B and C models of their cars for different circuits with the big budgets they have, whilst the backmarkers cannot afford that.

[ECW Dan Selby]

I don't see how advertising should come in to it. What about big hoardings (sp?) way above and across the track on the long straights? That surely has the same value as a slow corner?

Selby

[Birddog07]

Just reading the first page, I like these posts alot. With exception to bringing back the old points. This new points system is keeping the titles (atleast drivers) very close, and could potentially come down to having multiple drivers going for the drivers titles the last race.

Originally Posted by ECW Dan Selby

*Fat rear tyres
*Drop the top 10 qualifying/tyre ruling
*Ban shark fin engine covers
*Simplify the front wings/make them less wide
*Ban those vanes in front of the air intakes on the side pods
*Make tyres marginal such as in Canada
*Ban DDD's

I'm not too fussed about a return to KERS, and i'm also not convinced the whole adjustable rear wing is the way forward, either.

Selby

Originally Posted by duke_toaster

Getting rid of wings is ridiculous for several reasons, just as ridiculous as suggesting American football should get rid of the past. Even though they haven't always been there F1 wouldn't be F1 without wings in the same way that American football wouldn't be American football without the forward pass.

I'd go for the following changes. They wouldn't all be able to be done for 2011, but some would be for 2012. The new powertrains could come in for 2013 if 2012 is too soon.

Aerodynamics

• No outwash front wings, front wing adjustability scrapped. Front wing to be generally simplified
• No shark fins, no sidepod vanes.
• Wider bodywork between front and rear axles.

Powertrain and electronics

• Four or six cylinder 1800cc turbo engine with engine speed and turbo pressure limits - if these don't keep power to reasonable, we'll just have to start playing around with intake restrictions. Three year engine freeze as per current rules. Five engines per season in the first year, then four thereafter.
• KERS as an integral part of the powertrain rather than just a bolted on kit, at a higher level than now.
• Standard telemetry system, with the FOM TV crew having full access to it.

Wheels and tyres

• Overall front wheel size to remain at 660mm diameter and 355m wide, but on 15 inch rims. Rear wheels to become 748mm diameter 380mm wide, 17 inch rims. This means slightly lower profile tyres (but not paint-on types like Michelin whinged for), the same overall size at the front and larger rear wheels.

Sporting regulations

• Return to 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 points system,
• Give the bottom three teams on a three year WCC average extra testing.
• Remove two types of tyre rule, but generally make the tyres quite soft, like they were in Canada.
• No car may be refuelled during a qualifying component.
• Scrap the same set of tyres in Q3 rule.

My input, basically a repeat of what's been said:

A budget cap on the cars would be nice, 10,000 Euros for a tenth is rediculous. And what ever happened to smooth body work of 2009? We're starting to see shark gills, shark fins, winglets, side mirror posts (where most of the cars had them mounted before the ban, yet the ugly aero pieces still remain), and wing sizes need to return to normal, perhaps a wider tire next too.

Lastly, some serious thinking needs to be done with the tracks. Modern tracks are 'unsafe' without a parking lots worth of runoff, but classic tracks are still raced safely, even with crashes (like we saw in Monaco). Remove all these stupid chicanes on classic track layouts.

Lastly, everything needs to be less expensive. Hosting a GP, tickets, cars, etc.

[Knowlesy]

Originally Posted by Marbot

Not sure what all this fuss about HD is.

People who say this... Reminds me of my dads (long deceased) mother saying colour TV and gas fires were overrated.

Do you still wash your clothes in the sink?

[Mercurochrome]

change the schedule: introducing more tracks means nothing if they're all exactly the same. singapore, valencia, and abu dhabi all mish-mosh together as the same boring, bland, slow, processional piece of crap to me. add imola and magny-cours and then you'll have a more diverse schedule and it will make the schedule seem like it has more variety.

as far as the cars are concerned, lift the rpm limit. since the double diffuser is going away next season, that is the only thing that needs to be done. the current formula is excellent.