Improving F1

[Peralta]

Here is my take on how to improve Formula One from my point of view of course. First off the tyres. These Pirellis are ruining the sport. Drivers have to conserve them making them more like endurance racers then real racers which in turn hurts Grand Prix. I suggest one tyre for the entire Grand Prix. A hard compound making it difficult for the driver to heats its tyres which should make exciting racing and at the same showing off their skills but also making them last the entire race. No more changing compounds for different GPs. Tyres should be neutral and not influence the championship suiting some teams and not others. One tyre also forces the drivers to pass instead of waiting for pit stops and while we add it enough of the DRS and its zones. Do Grand Prix drivers need assistance in passing. I don't think so. It also forces drivers to pass at other parts of the track. 75% reduction of the rear wing and increase rear diffuser dimensions. No pitstops will also reduce costs. KERS should also be banned and further reduce costs. And the most important thing of all is to give A.N. a long long sabbatical

[jeast]

I don't think thats fair to endurance racers some of them seem more flat out that the current f1 drivers.

My fix

Stop the gimmicks

1. No DRS zones if a team wants movable aero it should be allowed and not controlled.

2. They need a tire war.

3. Let them go crazy with Kers

4. Stop Banning ever f-ing innovative thing the teams come up with, there needs to be more freedom.

5. Stop banning sponsors who put up millions to pay for the innovation the teams come up with.

6. Better tracks some newer F1 tracks are boring.

[Peat]

Dust off the old regs from the mid to late 90's, add slicks and current safety improvements. Sorted.

[Armco Bender]

Dust off the old regs from 1976, add slicks and current safety improvements,a Ford DFV, Sorted.

[nicanary]

Dusting off old regs will mean F1 is no longer the pinnacle of the sport, unless you also dumb-down F2,F3,F4,FUncleTomCobbley - it's a vicious circle. You have to allow for technical innovation and advancement, otherwise it's no longer the very best.

As has been said before, the designers and engineers, together with modern technology, have become too good - that's why today's racing seems boring. Nothing we can do, short of a zombie apocalypse.

[mjkh]

Surely the cars would become quicker if olded rules would be adopted. Most of the rule changes have been about making the cars slower.

[nicanary]

Originally Posted by mjkh

Surely the cars would become quicker if olded rules would be adopted. Most of the rule changes have been about making the cars slower.

Let's go back to 16-litre engines in a cart-sprung chassis with 2 seats and virtually non-existent brakes. They were spectacular, and made lots of noise.

It's not about speed - without F1 being about tech advancement as well as entertainment, it might as well not exist. It's become too sophisticated for its own good.

[steve_r]

The rose tinted spectacle brigade are out again.

Ok - I'll play the game:

1976 regs today would not result in 1976 racing. It would just legalise ground effect cars, turbos and other expensive technology, which although were not necessarily prevelant in 1976, would have been legal nevertheless. This would bring about a new spending war between the teams, and seeing as loads of current teams are stuggling financially now, would be the death of F1. Bingo.

Late 90s was the worst era I can remember in F1 in terms of racing, so lets not go back to that please. Dont you remember the narrowing of F1 cars adn the introducion of grooved slick tyres. Yuck.

[spider]

Stumbled across this amateur footage of Larini shaking down the 412T1 at Fiorano - so, first-off, car's to sound like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAgSzhkt1Vc

Secondly, why have static engine regulations? Perhaps give the engine manufacturers environmental-based KPI's, but let them come up with whatever they choose.

Letting teams go mad with KERS is a good idea, and surely will help the automotive industry as a whole, by working out how to harvest energy faster and for longer?

Noone really is discussing, more interestingly from my point of view, where F1 will be as a series in 10 years time. Bernie will undoubtedly be gone by then. Who knows what state the economy will be in and the calendar can't keep expanding to more than, say, 25 races. Also, with the likes of the Marussia's probably long-gone by then, are there any emerging lower category teams or brands in the world ala Red Bull, who would be interested in getting involved? - so where will the series be in 2023?

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by jeast

1. No DRS zones if a team wants movable aero it should be allowed and not controlled.

Takes me back to the original 'budget cap' rules.

Originally Posted by jeast

2. They need a tire war.

Like a hole in the head. People have already grumbled too loudly about Pirelli's unintentional gaffs with their tyres. Allowing two or three manufacturers to push tyre endurance and speed to the limits is just asking for trouble.

Originally Posted by jeast

3. Let them go crazy with Kers

That could be dangerous. For 2014 the limits have been raised significantly, which would still make me very nervous of touch the car without rubber gloves on.

Originally Posted by jeast

4. Stop Banning ever f-ing innovative thing the teams come up with, there needs to be more freedom.

You would think that it wouldn't be possible for teams like Marussia to still be 4 seconds off the pace with the regulations as they are.

Originally Posted by jeast

5. Stop banning sponsors who put up millions to pay for the innovation the teams come up with.

Which sponsor was that?

Originally Posted by jeast

6. Better tracks some newer F1 tracks are boring.

Are you sure it's not just the cars? Because not all racing is "boring" on these tracks.

One tyre and compound for all races: The same tyre for Monaco and Monza? Even when you had to use one tyre to last for a whole race distance, you still had a choice.

EDIT: And the V6 turbo engines have been written into the concorde agreement until 2020, so anyone not happy with that should maybe think about watching something else instead.

What will come after that? Possibly not internal combustion engines of any type. Maybe fully electric F1 cars which make pit stops for a new battery pack. That should continue to drive our road cars to much longer distances on a single charge. Battery power is the future, so get used to it.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Marbot

That could be dangerous. For 2014 the limits have been raised significantly, which would still make me very nervous of touch the car without rubber gloves on.

Which sponsor was that?

That is exactly why the KERS limits should be raised, it is in an F1 environment that this technology should be pushed to the limit!

Funny you should mention which companies were spending millions on F1 technology development, I know for a fact that the fuel companies; Shell with Ferrari and Sasol with Jordan; were spending exactly that sort of money developing exotic jungle juice for F1. This was of course prior to a lot of moaning and the 1994 regulations that stipulated pump gas finger printing of fuel!

Ironic when the FIA is thinking of switching to one fuel supplier!

Anyway, there you go.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by wnut

That is exactly why the KERS limits should be raised, it is in an F1 environment that this technology should be pushed to the limit!

It's gone up to 10 times the current amount for next season, which should be interesting enough when it comes to circuits like Monza that have a high rate of fuel use and not much in the way of braking.

Originally Posted by wnut

Funny you should mention which companies were spending millions on F1 technology development, I know for a fact that the fuel companies; Shell with Ferrari and Sasol with Jordan; were spending exactly that sort of money developing exotic jungle juice for F1. This was of course prior to a lot of moaning and the 1994 regulations that stipulated pump gas finger printing of fuel!

Ironic when the FIA is thinking of switching to one fuel supplier!

Anyway, there you go.

The FIA have now stopped thinking about a switch to one fuel supplier.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/110276

[MarkG]

Originally Posted by spider

Stumbled across this amateur footage of Larini shaking down the 412T1 at Fiorano - so, first-off, car's to sound like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAgSzhkt1Vc

F1 continues to change of course, the sad thing though is the loss of glorious sounding engines. Thankfully youtube gives us our "fix"

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by jeast

4. Stop Banning ever f-ing innovative thing the teams come up with, there needs to be more freedom.

im not really sure how much of a problem i have with this and sort of think that the speed with which they ban things actually gives the teams more incentive to be creative so its actually a good thing (also a good thing in terms of keeping costs down).

looking at the double diffuser (which may have been designed by Super Aguri because they needed to be creative in order to overcome a massive spending deficiency) Brawn used it to tremendous effect but should that advantage have lasted more than a year?

by banning things you avoid complacency by forcing teams to be innovative year after year instead of giving them time to endlessly refine existing ideas (the aero problem for example) and the best way to force that on the teams is to force them to work under restrictive budgets.

restricting budgets will create a situation where innovation become necessary imo.

[Andrew2001]

Originally Posted by Peat

Dust off the old regs from the mid to late 90's, add slicks and current safety improvements. Sorted.

Couldn't have possibly said it better myself.

[mjkh]

Originally Posted by nicanary

Let's go back to 16-litre engines in a cart-sprung chassis with 2 seats and virtually non-existent brakes. They were spectacular, and made lots of noise.

It's not about speed - without F1 being about tech advancement as well as entertainment, it might as well not exist. It's become too sophisticated for its own good.

That's sort of the point I was trying to make. Those who say they want the old rules back probably actually mean they want the old cars back.

You can't make Newey and Co forget what they have learned in the past few decades.

Would be nice if the cars were made less aero efficient, give them more power and force them to use just one engine map and so on.
But it's not what the teams and FIA want. They rather have these DRS/KERS type gimmicks...

[JacobP]

My short-list (much already mentioned):

1. Ban the DRS. DRS enhances overtaking where the overtaking should have been possible anyways. DRS only works on the straight lines, but doesn't the following car have a tow speed advantage even without DRS? What DRS does is make the overtaking look fake. It also reduces the close racing. Instead of taking 2,3, or 10 laps to overtake the next car, the DRS makes overtaking look as easy as playing a Playstation game. Overtaking should be possible, but not easy.

2. Bring back the tire wars. I would rather see the tire manufacturers spend their energy on making their tires last longer and drive faster than spend energy on a high degradation tire to punish Red Bull and other successful high downforce cars. (And that worked great in both 2012 and 2013, didn't it? Not).

3. Make KERS more important. In fact, I am surprised we didn't see an outright KERS war in the last 2-3 years. With the frozen engine development of the last few years, I thought the main thrust of development will be in KERS, but it did seem to happen.

[Moneyseeker]

Change format to 2 x 40 minute races with a 15 min gap in-between - race 2 determined by finishing positions of race 1. Might actually encourage some racing as race 1 will effectively be a race and qualifying all in one

[steve_r]

Banning DRS would not work unless something is done with the aero regs that enable cars to follow each other closer through corners. Because otherwise we will be back down to 3 overtakes per season, like in the "good old days" of the early 2000's that some seem to want to go back to.

Tyre wars is not the answer, and would just result in yet another artificial way of differing cars paces depending on which supplier their teams signed a contract with. That would give us overtakes even more artificial than a DRS pass.

KERS is a good gimmick. Let the teams work on that - but that needs to be done within an overall cost cutting confine.

[Casper]

How to make F1 better? It might seem to have a simple answer but in fact it is a multi faceted problem.

Overtaking became impossible due to dirty air and the time/distance equation. Putting aside the aero issue for a moment we have to look at the cars and their development. Simply put the cars have become too fast and compressed the time available for overtaking under brakes to such an extent that it becomes a marginal thing at best without the assistance of DRS. The speed/distance issue has forced the promoters to seek other artificial methods to create interest as we know.

i asked the question in another thread, what does F1 stand for, ultimate racing or ultimate technical advancement withing the category. The technical stuff is always going to be confined to the category as a general rule as none of it has a chance of being transferred to a mass produced road car. They are in fact developing bespoke technology that is making them go faster and further reducing the time/distance envelope.

My answer is to limit the size of the tyres but free up the supplier issue and require that the cars have at least 800HP and no rev limit and no motor design limitations. Reduce the aero to the point that the cars rely primarily on mechanical adhesion and they also must use a mechanical throttle cable. They can use all the computer power they want but the cable limits the sophistication that can be implemented. The reliance on mechanical adhesion will force a new path of development and the upper power level will be dictated by mechanical adhesion and also by the individual driver. the driver will have a huge influence due to his ability to manage the motor output, clog it too much and it will go around in circles so the driver will actually have to use his brain which will be a strange thing for some of them.

The question remains, is it an ultimate racing (as in passing etc) category or an ultimate technical category, you can't have both if the latter keeps pushing speeds up and lap times down. Until the cars themselves become marginal in some respects the status quo will remain.

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by steve_r

Tyre wars is not the answer, and would just result in yet another artificial way of differing cars paces depending on which supplier their teams signed a contract with. That would give us overtakes even more artificial than a DRS pass.

If non-standardized tyres create differences in car paces artificially and are therefore not the right answer, the same counts for all other non-standardized parts. This thesis stated above implies Formula One should be standardized, making it a racing series like too many others.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

This thesis stated above implies Formula One should be standardized, making it a racing series like too many others.

It already is a standardised category, that boat has already left the wharf.

[steve_r]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

If non-standardized tyres create differences in car paces artificially and are therefore not the right answer, the same counts for all other non-standardized parts. This thesis stated above implies Formula One should be standardized, making it a racing series like too many others.

Thanks for taking my logic five steps too far.

[Pingguest]

I just came to the logical conclusion of your thesis. If you disagree with it, I am curious about your arguments.

[steve_r]

I was replying to the post above me. On the subject of DRS he said overtaking should be possible, but not easy, therefore DRS should be banned. I can understand the logic, although personally don't really agree that DRS is such a bad thing. But he then goes on to reccomend a tyre war, which could result in easy overtakes / performance advantages for teams on the right rubber, when compared with teams who were unfortunate to end up on a contract with the wrong tyre manufacturer.

I was picking up on the potentially mixed messages in the two seemingly seperate points.

And by the way, I would not call any one-paragraph musings on a message board a "thesis, which sets a rather high standard for any posts don't you think.