[Rules] Future Rule Changes

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

thanks for the response and link Richard.

Originally Posted by chillibowl

definitely like the idea of a cheaper simpler solution but what happens if everyone is fast in the corners as well as fast in the straights? rather where would one find the performance and speed differences needed to affect overtaking? is this trading one solution for another problem kind of situation?

I think F1 has this issue in which they want performance parity between team as the idea is that they will close up the gaps and create "Good Racing ®", but this is also going to likely create not just performance parity over an entire lap, but likely at most places on the circuit as teams figure out there is typically one way to get to the "fastest lap". So no "some cars optimized for speed" and "some optimized for cornering". I expect most will have broadly similar performance characteristics/goals. Not to mention drivers not making mistakes, car reliability being high, short pitstops, etc. Meaning it may still be hard to pass as the other guy is just as quick as you. Which is why something like DRS or a "push to pass" is going to likely remain. F1 technical regulations are this long term experiment that never quite gets to the perfect answer. Not to mention I am not sure we even agree on what the question is!

Originally Posted by chillibowl

about the porpoising issue...i guess this will also be a problem for the post 2026 cars hence why they are looking at active suspension?

As long as they continue to use the underbody aero, the potential for porpoising remains. That article I linked is from 2022 when the porpoising was a problem and there was talk about how active suspension would fix it (which it would). I don't know if 2026 cars are expected to be more susceptible or not, but they might be. If they have active aero that is reducing drag, it's likely that this will impact downforce as well. So I can imagine that as the active aero is switched on/off it might create dynamic increases/decreases in downforce which might aggravate or trigger porpoising or not! What do I know, I am not an aerodynamicist! Again, I think the talk of active suspension is likely "instead of" and not "in addition to" active aero in the article posted earlier.

Richard

[Skam85]

I'm still firmly in the position that they need to un-restrict testing.

If a team wants to boot around a test track as part of their BUDGET CAP then why shouldn't they be able to?

I liked the 2003 season when four teams chose to run extra on Friday instead of in-season testing too, that was a cool concept. Did nothing for any of them except maybe Renault but cool nonetheless

[Richard C]

Regardless of how much testing they should do (unrestricted or just more), I feel they have too little testing as it is. So I agree they should be allowed more. I however suspect that short of teams that are having serious correlation issues (reality not matching their models and/or scale testing) they may feel it's more cost effective to do a combination of inhouse physical unit/component testing (shaker rigs, chassis dynos, etc.), virtual integration testing (simulators) and testing at events (laps during FP1).

Richard

[PanozDP01]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

What about unbanning things like the mass damper? A great mechanical innovation that I think suffered from a political game and then got banned.

Mercedes was spending 100's of millions a year making the perfectly tuned damper for each track. They got too complicated and expensive. But they would be fine as a spec part. Like the wheel covers are now. The same happened to wheel covers. They got banned and made spec later.

[PanozDP01]

This is what happened to a car with a slight DRS failure. A front wing mechanism would have to have 2 actuators. One for each side. So at minimum, we are increasing this risk by 3x. It is not even safely feasible to even think about doing this. Imagine one half of the front wing stays open or finds itself out of sync with the other ? It would make this crash look like bumper cars. Or the front out of sync with the back. There would need to be fighter jet level redundancy. Which means weight.

Unless something changed fundamentally with these regs, we will either have extremely dangerous cars or cars that are heavier than the 2022-25 cars. Slower, quieter and heavier.

[v8supes]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Well there is seemingly no wheel spin any more or nothing like the blazing blue smoked wheel spinning starts of a few decades ago. My thoughts on that was that most teams are running some kind of “start map” which mimics traction control.

I cant explain what i mean but you kinda summed it up. Its too "perfect". Like in Suzuka both the initial start and the second start looked identical by both Red Bulls for example.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by PanozDP01

This is what happened to a car with a slight DRS failure. A front wing mechanism would have to have 2 actuators. One for each side. So at minimum, we are increasing this risk by 3x. It is not even safely feasible to even think about doing this. Imagine one half of the front wing stays open or finds itself out of sync with the other ? It would make this crash look like bumper cars. Or the front out of sync with the back. There would need to be fighter jet level redundancy. Which means weight.

I get your point, but I think that is maybe a bit hyperbolic. If you look at causes of crashes, I expect DRS related failures is very low on the list of causes. Instead of extreme levels of redundancy, I can imagine a focus on failure modes that are more likely to place aero in a more risk neutral position or design out some failure scenarios. Its also a technology that is somewhat mature in road cars (granted, supercars). Will they be able to guarantee no crashes? No, the risk is never zero. Will the risk go up with more active aero than just DRS? Yes.

Originally Posted by PanozDP01

Unless something changed fundamentally with these regs, we will either have extremely dangerous cars or cars that are heavier than the 2022-25 cars. Slower, quieter and heavier.

I do agree there is a risk of things going badly. But less about active aero safety than about unintended consequences that impact the quality of the fan experience. 2026 is right around the corner and they are still figuring out key technical regulations. It is a bit worrying.

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by v8supes

I cant explain what i mean but you kinda summed it up. Its too "perfect". Like in Suzuka both the initial start and the second start looked identical by both Red Bulls for example.

In short, its the maturity of the solution and the level of knowledge and resources teams are able to apply to the problem.

You would hope that given how advanced these cars are that they are not doing blue smoke launches! You have massive data about the tires, the grip level of the circuit, the weather conditions, the clutch (including it's activation point). With all of that you can get very controlled hard launches with no or minimal wheel spin. This would be an open loop system that is not directly measuring wheel slippage. It's complex, but doable as you see at each race.

The rules say...

9.2.2 Traction control
No car may be equipped with a system or device which is capable of preventing the driven wheels from spinning under power or of compensating for excessive torque demand by the driver.

Any device or system which notifies the driver of the onset of wheel spin is not permitted.

So no doubt there are many "aids" to make it work short of preventing wheelspin or letting the driver know when wheelspin is about to happen. I expect the main reasons for poor launches these days is that someone got the input parameters wrong, the driver did just apply too much throttle or was slow to react to the lights.

A purely closed loop traction control system (which does measure wheelspin and acts upon it) can be brutally simple to implement, highly effective, highly consistent and would not require any driver skill which is why it would be the first choice if not banned.

The rules could be tightened, but it would be an arms race and hard to regulate. Even without all of the explicit aids, it would be generally easy to create some optimal procedure that if followed by the driver would still produce pretty good launces. I think the FIA knows it's a loosing battle to try to regulate out the ability for teams to generate good launches.

Richard

[bathurst77]

As to testing. I still not sure whats stopping a team building a "Formula None" car.
It not an f1 car even though it looks amazingly like one, then sticking it on a non f1 track like donnington or whatever on random days.

Hell if the owner of the F1 team also happened to own a F0 team, that got to "borrow" f1 teams factory and personel some days, for $1 a day, then its out side salary cap and nothing to do with f1

if mclaren/williams etc can own f1 team touring car, supercars, or indy car, they could also own a f0 division

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by bathurst77

As to testing. I still not sure whats stopping a team building a "Formula None" car.
It not an f1 car even though it looks amazingly like one, then sticking it on a non f1 track like donnington or whatever on random days.

Hell if the owner of the F1 team also happened to own a F0 team, that got to "borrow" f1 teams factory and personel some days, for $1 a day, then its out side salary cap and nothing to do with f1

if mclaren/williams etc can own f1 team touring car, supercars, or indy car, they could also own a f0 division

Because the auditors that monitor the budget cap already scrutinise spending on alternative spending and income. They have to because it's not on McLaren that produces supercars, it's also Red Bull plus, of course, Mercedes with their luxury/AMG type vehicles and engines that they supply to supercar producers.

All the teams already have to show the auditors how they allocate spending that streams from the overall business to make sure that they are not bending the cap rules.

[P38 in workshop]

I just read this on motorsport.com https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/s...mula/10597236/ .Interesting and strange prospect to contemplate.I find myself wondering if the MGU-H should have been made a standard part and supplied by the FIA to keep the efficiency level high and avoid the need for costly development.I find the prospect of watching mobile generators racing to be only a tiny bit more appealing than watching Formula E.Or any other spec car formula come to that.

[Skam85]

Originally Posted by bathurst77

As to testing. I still not sure whats stopping a team building a "Formula None" car.
It not an f1 car even though it looks amazingly like one, then sticking it on a non f1 track like donnington or whatever on random days.

Hell if the owner of the F1 team also happened to own a F0 team, that got to "borrow" f1 teams factory and personel some days, for $1 a day, then its out side salary cap and nothing to do with f1

if mclaren/williams etc can own f1 team touring car, supercars, or indy car, they could also own a f0 division

Maybe Andretti can do this, hire out their cars to the teams, they aren't allowed in F1 so there's no budget cap. They raise the money for an entry fee, everyone wins!

[Taxi645]

Originally Posted by P38 in workshop

I just read this on motorsport.com https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/s...mula/10597236/ .Interesting and strange prospect to contemplate.I find myself wondering if the MGU-H should have been made a standard part and supplied by the FIA to keep the efficiency level high and avoid the need for costly development.I find the prospect of watching mobile generators racing to be only a tiny bit more appealing than watching Formula E.Or any other spec car formula come to that.

We've already touched upon that subject at the bottom of reply 4245:
https://tentenths.com/forum/showpost...postcount=4245

That said, even if it stays in turbo boost mode braking for and going through the corner, the drivers will feel much more disconnected from the ICE. There is no audible connection any more between the sound of the engine (rpm and volume) and what output the driver is getting from applying the throttle. This is part of the critique that Max Verstappen has shared on the 2026 engine 50-50% ICE/electric regulations.

I'm sure that all F1 drivers will manage, but is it still an enjoyable racing and the pinnacle of motorsport? I'm a bit sceptical on that and also dislike the missed weight reduction opportunity by ditching the MGU-H, but we'll see how it goes.

For me after the first hybrid engine's which were too heavy, large, complex and expensive or the whole 18'' sage it is the zillion's example of marketing triumphing over basic technical and motorsport logic.


The manufactures were dead set on a 50/50. Well it's exactly this high percentage of electricity is what causes problems. Problems regarding efficiency and with regards to it being basically a generator not being a combustion engine any more in a normal motorsport/ petrol head sense. As said the RPM and volume will not correspond any more to the drivers input, which to me is the foundation of combustion based motorsport. The decisions to stick with the larger wheels, will also cause more drag, forcing to go more extreme on the active aero to compensate for the lost efficiency elsewhere. This in turn has compromised the aero balance even more due to the active aero only working on the rear, so now they need it at the front as well to keep it balanced, making things again heavier and more complicated. All this mess because the manufacturers are so dead set on their 50/50 split.



If the drivers were organized and savvy enough they would collectively point out "no we're not gonna go along with that". That's not gonna happen though and because the decision making process is not changing, this stuff will keep happening. For me personally if 2026 indeed turns out like I fear, I probably will stop following F1.

[broadrun96]

If every expert and I'm gonna turn off from F1 online actually did F1 wouldn't have made it out of the 70s. For all the doom and gloom over the last 20 years amazing drivers and teams have figured everything out each time

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

For me personally if 2026 indeed turns out like I fear, I probably will stop following F1.

What would this 2026 look like - if it were to cause you to stop following?

[Richard C]

I think the Motorsport article that P38 linked to is spot on. As to 2026+ being a disaster. I tend to think it will not be a massive "oh no" moment, but rather a series of "oh, that's weird and not ideal" scenarios such as the one Newey calls out about the engines acting as generators in very low speed corners. As I mentioned earlier, I think it was a mistake to not try to solve chassis and power unit rules at same time. It seems they pushed hard on the power unit ones to attract the likes of Porsche, Audi and even Honda. The ICE vs. electric split seemed pretty arbitrary. They should have set car performance goals first. Things they wanted to see (cars not slower on straights) and things they didn't want to see (maybe something like excessive "ICE as generator") and then worked backwards to see what might have been an appropriate power split between the two. I think there was a desire to NOT mess with the basic architecture of the ICE short of removing MGU-H.

I think as long as we have large manufactures in the sport... and are in the sport to showcase "road relevance" this is going to continue to be an issue.

As to being a fan and what I will do for 2026. I hope it does work out. I expect that short of it being an absolutely unwatchable disaster I will stay. Frankly if there is drama, sadly that is another reason to watch. Sometimes watching a dumpster fire can be entertaining!

Richard

[Richard C]

Unrelated to 2026 technical regulations, there is some rumors around the 2026-2030 Concorde Agreement. Saward comments on rumors in this most recent update...

https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2024...rom-kankujima/

Key points...

* Mostly same as current agreement
* Some teams looking to reduce financial bonus for Ferrari
* Talk about preventing anyone from owning more than one team
* Limit to just 10 team.

So the last one is interesting in that is just avoid the entire topic of "how much higher does the anti-dilution fee need to be for Andretti or anyone else". Basically just no new entries! Problem solved. As these are reported by Joe and not yet a finalized agreement, things might change, but if true, it pretty much confirms the speculation of "Andretti, just try again next time" as being a completely empty offer. I have no clue what level of anti-competitive aspects might apply to this (if any). Can Liberty even do this arbitrarily? Would they need to have FIA agree to this? If it doesn't get limited to 10 teams, I expect the anti-dilution fees to be so high/onerous as to still effectively prevent any new teams.

The next to last item on preventing anyone from owning two teams. IMHO, if they limit F1 to just 10 teams, they absolutely need to stop anyone from owning more than one team. I expect if that makes it through, it might have to be some long term divestiture plan to ensure the current owner is able to sell at a premium vs. it being a distressed sell. Even then, it might be hard to get them to agree to this new limitation.

Richard

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Richard C

I think as long as we have large manufactures in the sport... and are in the sport to showcase "road relevance" this is going to continue to be an issue.

that has certainly been the logic in the past, but do manus still need F1 to showcase road relevance or is being in F1 now days more about the benefits from branding, linking your brand up with celebrities, and matching premium brand expectations?

speculation on my part, but full electric, self driving tech, desire to turn everything into a SUV/crossover, their car's ability to sync to your cell phone and sound system...none of which are things you are going to develop within a racing series (i hope).

sure some of their higher end offerings (more for Ferrari and the others with hypercar programs) the engineering experience carries over but that alone doesn't make for relevance for the vast majority of cars they sell.

Originally Posted by Richard C

* Limit to just 10 team.

imo its very possible to argue that going forward, the manus reason for being in F1 is so far removed from road relevance/technology transfer to road cars that they dont really need to be in F1 for that reason. more so if they are losing (Renault/Alpine for example) because then it just hurts their brand image.

while F1 is a hot commodity today, then sure they can sell their team for a premium but what happens if the 2026 regs fall flat or the fickle social media crowd move on to the next cool thang?

the purpose of more than 10 teams is precisely because manus come and go and you need to hedge against there being less than 10 teams...

Bernie knew this but Liberty may have to learn about it the hard way?

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

As said the RPM and volume will not correspond any more to the drivers input, which to me is the foundation of combustion based motorsport.

The RPM will still be based on the road speed in gear as the engine is still physically connected to the wheels. The engine will just be on moderate volume & load (Newey is mistaken, it's max 100kW worth of fuel flow off throttle so moderate load, not the full 550kW "flat chat") generating electricity that doesn't go to the wheels but is rather braked by the generator unit.

It might be bad, but it also might be no worse than blown diffuser sounds.

By all means the 2026 might be a disaster or they might (just) make it happen (Renault teams could hardly complete 2 laps during testing in 2014, yet most Renault cars finished the opening Grand Prix of the season) -- all we know is it WILL be amusing spectating!

Originally Posted by chillibowl

the purpose of more than 10 teams is precisely because manus come and go and you need to hedge against there being less than 10 teams...

If the teams have a guaranteed substantial profit under the budget cap & 10-team system, the likes of Ford and Honda are not going to be off-loading teams for £1 anymore. I wouldn't worry about any of the current teams not continuing under the robust, profitable 10-team system that Liberty have created -- if Renault chooses to offload their team, I am sure there will be a buyer and it won't be a desperate 1 EURO deal.

It's much more difficult for a team to go bankrupt than in the days of Prost, Jordan or Manor, when the below 10th place teams were specifically at greater risk of going bankrupt due to no prize money for11th, 12th and 13th WCC.

Originally Posted by Richard C

The next to last item on preventing anyone from owning two teams. IMHO, if they limit F1 to just 10 teams, they absolutely need to stop anyone from owning more than one team.

Why should Honda and Red Bull be condemned for owning two teams instead of McLaren, Renault and Mercedes condemned for not buying their own (very useful for placing Piastris and Ocons) second team when they had the chance?!

What next, condemning Honda and Red Bull for being committed enough to Grand Prix racing to own Grand Prix circuits and host Grand Prixs, where other entrants like Mercedes-Benz don't even both to sponsor their own domestic German Grand Prix let alone own the circuit...

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

The RPM will still be based on the road speed in gear as the engine is still physically connected to the wheels. The engine will just be on moderate volume & load (Newey is mistaken, it's max 100kW worth of fuel flow off throttle so moderate load, not the full 550kW "flat chat") generating electricity that doesn't go to the wheels but is rather braked by the generator unit.

Nicely explained.

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

By all means the 2026 might be a disaster or they might (just) make it happen (Renault teams could hardly complete 2 laps during testing in 2014, yet most Renault cars finished the opening Grand Prix of the season) -- all we know is it WILL be amusing spectating!

Agree

Originally Posted by chillibowl

that has certainly been the logic in the past, but do manus still need F1 to showcase road relevance or is being in F1 now days more about the benefits from branding, linking your brand up with celebrities, and matching premium brand expectations?

IMHO, if they wanted to just link to celebrities, etc. they would cut out the F1 side and just do deals directly with the celebrities. I think they want some "defendable" link to their core products. Even if we know the true link and level of "road relevance" is tenuous. It needs the appearance of road relevance. So F1 gets hobbled by half baked solutions that tick marketing check boxes.

Originally Posted by chillibowl

the purpose of more than 10 teams is precisely because manus come and go and you need to hedge against there being less than 10 teams...

Bernie knew this but Liberty may have to learn about it the hard way?

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

If the teams have a guaranteed substantial profit under the budget cap & 10-team system, the likes of Ford and Honda are not going to be off-loading teams for £1 anymore.

Agree with V8 Fireworks here. "At this moment" I think manufacture fickleness is not a worry. Previously an entry could be worth next to nothing. Even the worst team has high value "given the current market conditions within F1". However, imagine something changes such as 2016+ is some type of extreme mess, etc. Then team values could drop and create problems of manufacture exodus. But the risk of that seems to be pretty small. To be clear, I don't agree with limiting it to 10, but I see their logic.

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

I wouldn't worry about any of the current teams not continuing under the robust, profitable 10-team system that Liberty have created -- if Renault chooses to offload their team, I am sure there will be a buyer and it won't be a desperate 1 EURO deal.

It's much more difficult for a team to go bankrupt than in the days of Prost, Jordan or Manor, when the below 10th place teams were specifically at greater risk of going bankrupt due to no prize money for11th, 12th and 13th WCC.

Agree. And along this line of thinking, I scratch my head when I see people commenting in the Williams thread that they think Williams is going to be gone before end of this season!

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

Why should Honda and Red Bull be condemned for owning two teams instead of McLaren, Renault and Mercedes condemned for not buying their own (very useful for placing Piastris and Ocons) second team when they had the chance?!

What next, condemning Honda and Red Bull for being committed enough to Grand Prix racing to own Grand Prix circuits and host Grand Prixs, where other entrants like Mercedes-Benz don't even both to sponsor their own domestic German Grand Prix let alone own the circuit...

I think if it were an open system (new entries being allowed), you can do what you want. But with a closed system with only 10 teams, I think they should have a much ownership diversity (team independence) as they can. While junior teams say they are "in it to win it", I think there is always doubt as to if that is true or not. For example, lets say that hypothetically RB managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat and perform better than RBR. Do we think that RBR would not be ensuring at the ownership level that technology flows from RB to RBR in a way that wouldn't if both teams were independently owned? I know that teams are required to own their own IP on specific names items, and transfer of IP to other teams is not a "winning solution", but I see no reason why a way couldn't be found, within the rules, to move knowledge and staff (such as not enforcing gardening leave if staff move between jointly owned teams) around to ensure RBR gets the RB secret sauce. Is this happening today? For sure not at the level I say above, but I think the potential exists and while this ability may benefit the owner of multiple teams it is not a benefit for the sport or the commercial side of F1 for things like that to happen.

Richard

[S griffin]

We do need to open it to more teams. We can’t 100% rely on the current teams

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Richard C

Nicely explained.




I think if it were an open system (new entries being allowed), you can do what you want. But with a closed system with only 10 teams, I think they should have a much ownership diversity (team independence) as they can. While junior teams say they are "in it to win it", I think there is always doubt as to if that is true or not. For example, lets say that hypothetically RB managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat and perform better than RBR. Do we think that RBR would not be ensuring at the ownership level that technology flows from RB to RBR in a way that wouldn't if both teams were independently owned? I know that teams are required to own their own IP on specific names items, and transfer of IP to other teams is not a "winning solution", but I see no reason why a way couldn't be found, within the rules, to move knowledge and staff (such as not enforcing gardening leave if staff move between jointly owned teams) around to ensure RBR gets the RB secret sauce. Is this happening today? For sure not at the level I say above, but I think the potential exists and while this ability may benefit the owner of multiple teams it is not a benefit for the sport or the commercial side of F1 for things like that to happen.

Richard

with all due respect Richard, I don't agree with this for the reasons that teams can buy gearbox/suspension/engines from another team legally.

The only 'technology' that actually seems to differentiate the teams is intellectual aerodynamic understanding.
And that is creating differences measured in tenths of a second between the ten teams over a 3-4 mile distance, less on some circuits.
The relative differences are very small in terms of overall time and speed, and in my opinion, aerodynamic understanding should not be the sole issue deciding whether championships are won or lost.

That is why I don't regard the current regulations and millions spent on development as particularly useful.
We need a ruleset that will actually focus more on mechanical knowledge in roadholding/handling engineering.
It would be far more useful.

One of the problems is that we want 'close racing' and 'overtaking' so the rule makers fiddle with creating a formula that creates artificially close racing and overtaking because appearance means more than anything substantial....

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

with all due respect Richard, I don't agree with this for the reasons that teams can buy gearbox/suspension/engines from another team legally.

The only 'technology' that actually seems to differentiate the teams is intellectual aerodynamic understanding.
And that is creating differences measured in tenths of a second between the ten teams over a 3-4 mile distance, less on some circuits.
The relative differences are very small in terms of overall time and speed, and in my opinion, aerodynamic understanding should not be the sole issue deciding whether championships are won or lost.

That is why I don't regard the current regulations and millions spent on development as particularly useful.
We need a ruleset that will actually focus more on mechanical knowledge in roadholding/handling engineering.
It would be far more useful.

One of the problems is that we want 'close racing' and 'overtaking' so the rule makers fiddle with creating a formula that creates artificially close racing and overtaking because appearance means more than anything substantial....

I assume you are referring to my comments as to why if they only allow 10 teams that they should consider NOT allowing someone to own more than one team?

I struggle to understand the link between that opinion and your comments? They feel like two unrelated topics.

Per the regulations components fit into four categories...
* Listed Team Component (LTC)
* Standard Supply Component (SSC)
* Transferable Component (TRC)
* Open Source Component (OSC)

The secret sauce for teams exist in the LTC items. I am not worried about the other items. So for LTC, aero is listed as LTC. That is an example of what I am talking about. The regulations are pretty strict about transfer or replication of a teams LTC designs. However you can't stop people from knowing what they know. For example if I am an aerodynamicist working along side Newey, and assuming he doesn't keep secrets from me, I expect it would be quite the education! If I am to leave to go to another team, RBR is going to require gardening leave for me. In the hopes that by the time I can take my new knowledge elsewhere, that it is stale. That is how LTC knowledge passes around in a legitimate way. They are not taking a "design" with them, but there is a technical concept that defines the secret sauce. They are taking knowledge of how it works with them. Common ownership creates unhealthy squishiness in how easily this can happen.

That is more of what I was trying to cover. To your comments...

Previous regulations seems to be overly power unit focuses. So Mercedes got it right and dominated for a long time. The pendulum has swung to an aero focuses solution. Red Bull Racing got it right so they are dominating. So you say that aero knowledge should not be the deciding factor. What if I say I agree? But you say the rules should reward mechanical design and elevate "roadholding/handling engineering". What happens when history repeats itself and some team figures out some new trick, others can't replicate and then dominate in the new "suspension era"? You might argue... Well suspension design is well understood and there are no big tricks left. I personally think that a big part of Red Bull Racing's dominance is how the have made their aero solution work in coordination with excellent mechanical solutions. For example look at how well Red Bull is able to manage tire degradation to a level that other teams struggle with. That is likely as much a mechanical solution as it is an aero one. It could be that Red Bull Racing is laugh up their sleeve as teams focus heavily on trying to replicate their aero solutions when maybe the secret is elsewhere! Red Bull changed their aero concept for this year and are still dominating! I could be wrong, but imagine if this is right?

As to those creating the technical regulations creating artificial ways to generate close racing and passing. Do we really think it's an easy job to generate the close racing and lack of dominance we as fans want? Fans clearly think it is easy. People toss out ideas like "no aero" and then someone will show simulated car performance and it is not pretty (very slow lap times, poor cornering, etc.). People talk about reducing the car weight, but the cars are saddled with heavy power units driven by manufacture "road relevancy" requirements, pressure from tire suppliers for more commonality with other series for tires and a never ending set of safety improvements which are fantastic, but also bring weight. Not to mention, I really think teams like the idea of lighter cars in general, but are hesitant to commit to doing it because it becomes another area in which they must develop, but may not be a differentiator in the end. They want to keep the areas of potential development as small as possible so as they know where to devote limited funding resources. I mean if they were to ditch the complex power units and go with a high performance ICE solution (which I would love to see) they could make a smaller and lighter car, but it will never be as small and as light as decades past for safety reasons.

Richard

[Richard C]

Apologies for any snarkiness in my posts today. I am battling a cold and I am not the best version of myself at the moment.

Richard

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

That is why I don't regard the current regulations and millions spent on development as particularly useful.
We need a ruleset that will actually focus more on mechanical knowledge in roadholding/handling engineering.
It would be far more useful.

That's a little bit important with the Pirelli tyres (see Mercedes and their tyre struggles) but it's not that important....

Frank Dernie, Williams:

I realised very quickly that with an improved suspension the driver might enjoy the feel, but it was rarely seen on the stopwatch. Improving downforce always gave an improvement on the stopwatch. I was finding seconds of laptime with our [rented] wind tunnel, you never found thatwith suspension. So I priotised Williams getting our own wind tunnel, while we used the same rear suspension for several seasons.

Mr. Dernie may or may not have stumbled across a scale model of the Lotus 79 at that rented wind tunnel.

Dernie does say you need: 1) the right tyre temperature, 2) downforce,3) power. But as long as you have the right tyre temperature (as Mercedes often do not in 2024 with their wild performnace swings), then suspension is not that important.

Anyway with the right tyre models and right tyre temperatures, the better teams like Red Bull with ex-Michelin engineer Pierre Wieche have "roadholding/handling engineering" or more specifically tyre engineering and tyre understanding and modelling sorted at the moment.

As I said, suspension and tyre usage needs to right to avoid excessive tyre wear a la Ferrari and HAAS in 2023, but as long as it's right you then are not going to gain seconds more in laptime from that unlike aerodynamics.

Some of the less wise teams dissolved their tyre modelling department after the tyre war years and had to recover from that!