How to fix F1?

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by EffectiveSprinkles

...There are also a lot more overtakes that happen in the midfield...

and there it is...the midfield teams which operate in and around similar and reasonable budget levels are actually producing great racing!

i want more of this not less.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by EffectiveSprinkles

Well yes, it's an open market place so if there are takers it's reasonable by default.

OK, what about the rest of Peter's comment...'thereby improving numbers and creating more competition'

If there are just a handful of takers, that again is reasonable by default?

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

and there it is...the midfield teams which operate in and around similar and reasonable budget levels are actually producing great racing!

That's a good point! Similar budgets often produce similar results, the midfield budget must be increased.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by EffectiveSprinkles

That's a good point! Similar budgets often produce similar results, the midfield budget must be increased.

well played!

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

OK, what about the rest of Peter's comment...'thereby improving numbers and creating more competition'

If there are just a handful of takers, that again is reasonable by default?

There will never be very much more than a handful (anymore). Somebody will always be paying money to be last, it doesn't very much matter how much money that is.

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

Unlike many of the suggestions this can be very easily done by redistributing existing funds, as we all know! Ferrari might complain but they won't leave over that.

[Aysedasi]

I'd venture to suggest that laudable though the sentiment is, the reality is that it's just not going to happen. You know that as well as I do.....

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

I'd venture to suggest that laudable though the sentiment is, the reality is that it's just not going to happen. You know that as well as I do.....

True, it is unlikely (although a lot more likely than most suggestions in this thread I venture). I don't expect much of Liberty either in this regard.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

A great overtake by Vettel, I remember watching it at the time. Shame there isn't more overtaking like that.

There will be if the laps are longer. The average punter who follows F1 does not understand that racing is all about time, all he or she wants to see is faster laps because because the perception is that faster means better racing when in fact it actually means less car to car racing. If the faster lap program was carried to the 'enth degree then all the drivers would be able to do is follow the car in front because the time available to race and overtake simply does not exist, simply put you can't defy physics.

No one seems to have grasped this until recently when Ross Brawn raised the matter but go back a few years and I have raised it several times in this forum. The problem is the greater unwashed out there do not understand the problem so all the band aid solutions in the world are out forward to fix F1 when the main issue is the cars are too fast for the circuits. If faster racing is what the peasants want them circuits if made longer would make for better racing to a point. The structural problems are not being addressed such as

Braking distances are way too short

Restrict the data logging to an absolute number of channels, perhaps 20 would be a good number.

Those 20 channels to be nominated by the teams prior to the race

Remove all management from the steering wheels, the only button on it should be for a horn

Open up the regs to allow some free thinking

Reduce the distance from centre line of the front wing to the centre of the front wheels

Reduce the front to rear depth of the front wing and make it a single element.

Ban all data transmission from the pits to outside the circuit such as back to base at the factory

Restrict the actual data analysis facilities at the track, all those screens except maybe a couple should go

If they invent new technology let them run it but by restricting the management they are going to have to be very clever at managing it. I think if the braking distances are made longer then the lap times will be somewhat capped because stupid speeds into corners will not be possible unless they want to incur longer braking distances.

All this is major structural stuff that any team who is spending hundreds of millions of dollars do not want. Engineering in racing is all about risk mitigation in the end, if the teams are not allowed to reduce the risk to a minimum then they won't be investors in the sport because they do not want to "waste" all the money they are investing. For that reason alone they will resist any major structural change which is totally understandable of course.

Fans see the simple stuff but in the end it is all froth laid on top of some serious structural/engineering problems that have been allowed to develop. To make things worse fans think they see the problems but all they are seeing is the fluff and bubble and none of them can agree anyway. For instance they see the front wing and how far forward of the front axle it now is resulting in longer cars and have zero idea is why that is done and the one thing they truly don't understand is time and all its implications. When they grasp that concept their view will change but it is too easy to blame the visual aspects of the sport they can see.

My apologies for rabbiting on but the problems go very deep and they will never be addressed which annoys me.

[wnut]

Casper, you rubbish Peter's rule changes on the basis that F1 would be of no interest to you if they were implemented and then post the above?
You've lost me somewhere along the line I am afraid.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by wnut

Casper, you rubbish Peter's rule changes on the basis that F1 would be of no interest to you if they were implemented and then post the above?
You've lost me somewhere along the line I am afraid.

I never rubbished the post at all, I used it to illustrate the problem of no one agreeing with anyone else on what needs to be done. Perhaps I made the point poorly but I did point out that I was not criticising the sentiment within the post.

[S griffin]

At least I don’t think I’ve heard people say we should have reverse grids or penalties for successful cars. Seems most if not all fans want pure F1 racing

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Casper

There will be if the laps are longer. The average punter who follows F1 does not understand that racing is all about time, all he or she wants to see is faster laps because because the perception is that faster means better racing when in fact it actually means less car to car racing.

honest question then...but how much slower do lap times have to be to encourage more car to car racing? is there a magic number here...i could be wrong about this but even when the cars were slower there still was a lack of car to car.

personally i am of an opinion that the budget sizes (obviously) are the main differentiator in creating these relative lap time differences with some cars capable of lapping 2-3sec a lap faster the the rest of the field...rather even if the whole field was slowed down, the top cars will still be faster (sometime much faster) then the rest of the field...as you say one cannot defy physics...or the power of money!

or another way to look at it is that even among the top teams (or just one team lets say Merc) where both cars (all things being equal) can lap at the same pace we dont often see much in the way of car to car stuff.

putting aside aero, turbulence, tires issues, two similar cars with similar speeds will not be able to go car to car because they are both fast and slow on the same parts of the track...if we were to equalize or reduce the lap times for all teams then surely this problem would still remain.

which is maybe why the number of overtakes isnt the best metric to judge the quality of a race but certainly an area to examine...perhaps the underlying philosophy/change needs to be about how to create a formula where teams are encouraged to design cars that are fast or slow on different parts of the track and at different tracks.

i do like the idea of saying here is a box and design what you want as long as it fits in this box and through that hopefully we get more variety and ingenuity.

downside there is that over time, design philosophy will probably converge onto one solution but i do think we have seen a bit more chances being taken recently with different teams playing around with different wheelbases...a greater variety of tracks/track layouts may also encourage teams to target victories/points at certain tracks (akin to how RB seems to be riding out this period of Merc dominance).

anyways i am more curious to what you mean by the cars being too fast.

personally i dont care what the actual time of the fastest lap is (although i can appreciate how 'breaking a lap record' makes for a great headline) but if as you say the underlying problem is the pursuit of ultimately faster and faster lap times then how would your proposed changes solve the problem of the difference in lap times across the whole field?

surely we dont just want more DRS type solutions where benefits are ('artificially') handed over to slower cars.

anyways just a couple of questions/thoughts from a member of the great unwashed!

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Great post, especially the point about the more the cars are equal the less opportunity for racing there is. Which is the main reason spec racing series are boring.

Also yes, telling people 'here's a box, here's a fuel flow, go nuts' worked wonders for LMP1 as I've spoken about before. And also to repeat, that only works for a time. But what a time it was...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clZOMYjaGt8

Two cars under the same ruleset but with pretty much opposing design philosophies going head to head leads to spectacular things like this. I don't think we're ever going to see that in F1 (again?) though.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by EffectiveSprinkles

Great post, especially the point about the more the cars are equal the less opportunity for racing there is. Which is the main reason spec racing series are boring.

Also yes, telling people 'here's a box, here's a fuel flow, go nuts' worked wonders for LMP1 as I've spoken about before. And also to repeat, that only works for a time. But what a time it was...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clZOMYjaGt8

Two cars under the same ruleset but with pretty much opposing design philosophies going head to head leads to spectacular things like this. I don't think we're ever going to see that in F1 (again?) though.

BoP and EoT - Completely artificial, who cares?

[EffectiveSprinkles]

There was no BoP there. Same rulebook, but it offers choices. That is the point.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

anyways i am more curious to what you mean by the cars being too fast.

Putting a number on it is impossible, let's get that one out of the way. I will give you a totally stupid scenario to make it easy to understand, if you had a 5km lap and the cars were lapping in 30 seconds there would literally be zero time for the driver to think about doing anything except follow the car in front as the time for braking, accelerating and in corners would be so compressed all he would be able to do is hang on.

But think about that and look at what we have now, very short braking zones in which few of the drivers can late brake each other and if they do it is so untidy to be almost laughable, straights so compressed due to acceleration that it requires an artificial aid to pass and yes I acknowledge the aero issues and it must be getting to the stage where the time boundaries to choose, act and finalise a pass is close to impossible to think about for some drivers. A place where I think this problem really occurs is at Bristol (NASCAR) where they do 12-13 second laps.

To keep making cars faster makes it more difficult for drivers to actually race due to the time compression that takes place. I have sat beside a lower formula single seat driver in a simulator and to watch him drive and make decisions makes me look on in awe at what F1 drivers do every lap.

[Casper]

Originally Posted by EffectiveSprinkles

There was no BoP there. Same rulebook, but it offers choices. That is the point.

Exactly, choices are risky and you take your chances and that is what is missing in F1. Introduce risk and make the teams weigh up what they can achieve and reduce the ability to manage those choices. I accept that given enough data and engineering one answer might emerge but it would be fun watching it happen because in the end there might be more than one answer.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Casper

Putting a number on it is impossible, let's get that one out of the way. I will give you a totally stupid scenario to make it easy to understand, if you had a 5km lap and the cars were lapping in 30 seconds there would literally be zero time for the driver to think about doing anything except follow the car in front as the time for braking, accelerating and in corners would be so compressed all he would be able to do is hang on.

But think about that and look at what we have now, very short braking zones in which few of the drivers can late brake each other and if they do it is so untidy to be almost laughable, straights so compressed due to acceleration that it requires an artificial aid to pass and yes I acknowledge the aero issues and it must be getting to the stage where the time boundaries to choose, act and finalise a pass is close to impossible to think about for some drivers. A place where I think this problem really occurs is at Bristol (NASCAR) where they do 12-13 second laps.

To keep making cars faster makes it more difficult for drivers to actually race due to the time compression that takes place. I have sat beside a lower formula single seat driver in a simulator and to watch him drive and make decisions makes me look on in awe at what F1 drivers do every lap.

So you are saying because a driver's going too fast, their reaction time and decision making is impaired, hence the lack of overtaking.

[wnut]

We seem to be losing sight of the fact that the trailing car becomes increasingly compromised by the wake turbulence generated by the car it is trying to overtake. The handling goes to hell and the driver cannot control it well enough to complete an overtake.
A situation which is unique to F1 and easily solved c.f. F2 and IndyCar.

[Peter Mallett]

As has been pointed out, we are obsessed with overtaking to the detriment of racing. If cars can run close together and have less reliability, the driver needs to do more to obtain a result.

[Armco Bender]

GP2 can do it why can't F1?.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

As has been pointed out, we are obsessed with overtaking to the detriment of racing. If cars can run close together and have less reliability, the driver needs to do more to obtain a result.

The inability to realistically overtake prevents racing though Peter, running behind someone you can't overtake is pretty pointless.

I like the hard tyre suggestion, and a manual gearbox without all the electronic safeguards would I feel reintroduce the importance of the driver, and also introduce unreliability when they mess up. It would also limit what the engineers can get up to as they will have to limit their systems to cater for a human governor.

Proper sand traps would also punish driver error, rather than driving about on asphalt and setting a faster lap! The extreme reliability and finishing record of modern cars is as a result of systems which cater for and allow for human error and keep the cars operating well within their limits.

I don't get the obsession with lap times either when the winning car can lap at 12 seconds off its pole time and still win the race. It would seem that we have some room to move here to enhance the cars' ability to race.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Armco Bender

GP2 can do it why can't F1?.

Because they are so busy trying to entrench the advantages enjoyed by the members of the F1 strategy group that they are quite happy to kill off the golden goose?

[S griffin]

Because F1 always goes for the complicated solution, instead of the simple ones