F1 legend Forghieri slams 'ridiculous' DRS F1 legend Forghieri slams 'ridiculous' DRS | News | Motorsport.com "A world champion needs to be in a position to overtake his opponent without help -- otherwise, in my eyes, he is not a world champion" - Mauro Forghieri. No DRS, limited aero and no carbon brakes; Forghieri is right.
Braking distance on Carbon vs steel would be almost the same to within 5 meters. The distance would certainly not be double as he says. T1 Barcelona for example, F1 cars brake at 80 meters from about 320 km/h, a 458 GT3 at 150m from 300 km/h. The GT3 class is much heavier (double the weight) and steel discs. With the technology there is now, we probably would barely see any brake fade for an entire race. I agree with him, DRS should be dropped. Aero should be limited, but not by standardized wings. Give them a box where the cars can be designed into, and a maximum amount of downforce over the entire car using a simple windtunnel available to all teams. for the entire car. All teams will strive to get as close to the maximum downforce allowed but designs will be very interesting and will continue to evolve to get as low drag as possible Fit some wide slicks and more power and they're golden.
Have a sensor attached to the suspension and if more than a FIA set amount of downforce is generated, the engine cuts out for 1 second. Then let the aero be free.
DRS makes it exciting. But i find it pointless. Yes, there's overtaking. But there's no fightback, there's no skill involved compared to without DRS. Now it's just a touch of button. If they want to innovate, yes, can, but perhaps let them use DRS the whole track. It requires more skill, rather than just pushing the damn button down the straights.
Both points hold merit/ but don't agree with him Over hybrid engines - unless they can make them sound better
You are forgetting brake size - limited in the F1 car by wheel size. The tiny disks of an F1 with steel would fade. DRS, was too powerful at first, but I think they've got it about right, its not a guaranteed pass. Before knocking it, realize just how impossible/kill your tires it is to pass when the car in front of you kills your aero grip. It was far too much, but now is more reasonable in its level - its no longer a guaranteed pass. The idea in this thread of limiting downforce is interesting - but there are lots of ways around any metric you'd set - think bendy wings and trying to "outlaw" them with tests. "downforce" sensors at the wheel would be affected by the dynamics of the track and car. Personally, I think this year was a huge step to better racing. Just continue to lower the noses on the cars even more, and reduce front wing size further.
I like the idea above on being free to use DRS whenever the driver likes. That would make it very interesting and require skill. As for limiting downforce, you could not do that with a wind tunnel as the teams would cheat, ie. post wind tunnel subtle changes would be made. Only way is flat bottom and standard wings I feel. I would like to drop carbon brakes because it is the most (other maybe than tyres) wasteful process on these cars. They are extremely expensive and energy wasting to produce and their advantage is no longer in braking distance but simply weight (for low unsprung weight) ... lift the weight limit by 10 kg's if you have to. IMO carbon brakes should be outlawed for all cars (road cars as well) as just a huge waste of our energy resources for nothing other than, for some, a reason to masturbate. Pete
The race car 458 GT3 (and GTE), use steel discs. Very interesting! In any case, downforce could be measured using the suspension. Thanks. You're right that they will cheat in their own tunnels. The one option is that they use the tunnel of certain universities but of course this can get rather expensive having to get an F1 car to the uni for every new part. The FIA could measure the load on cars by letting them drive on the straight at 200 km/h for X amount of seconds. Dropping carbon brakes for something more relevant (either steel or carbon ceramics) I can agree with, as road cars are extremely unlikely to have carbon/carbon discs due to the heat needed to work them. I don't think carbon ceramics (or carbon matrix even) brakes are not worth it. Unfortunately, most people that spec them on their cars (or did, now that they are standard) did so because they thought it allowed to stop the car much better...this was only due to the fact of course that the standard brakes where so much smaller than the ceramics. Of course they where going to be better!
They will still cheat as how is the FIA going to prove the car is exactly the same at the next/first race as it was when the down force was tested. Way to easy to cheat. Car could look the same but produce more down force by near invisible differences. They could not take a portable wind tunnel to each track to use to check. Pete
I'd be OK with killing DRS only if all blocking moves were banned. Getting a tow on the straight just to have it vaporise with a block = boring freight train / processional racing like years past.
+1, rule needs to be if the passing driver gets his wheels alongside you, you have to leave a car width of room and cannot change line, no exceptions. Then you can get rid of DRS.
An agreed on tunnel isn't the problem - its putting down a set of metrics to measure up against. IE, do you run the windtunnel at 100KPH, 200KPH, 300KPH? Now imagine that you pick a speed, a team could go to great lengths to having bodywork that stalls out exactly at that speed, but not above or below... You wouldn't believe the subtle difference the tight tolerances of a NASCAR rule book make in drag and downforce. Its pretty impressive. Huge $$$ is spent on bushing material design to get the body to shift just right for aerodynamic in the corner, and reduced drag on the straights. A wind tunnel measures static car, and doesn't account for the car re-positioning under load.
Then how about by what Mitch said (minus the engine cut off for a second)? Sensor in the suspension that reads how much load is being put through it. Measurement only taken on a specific part of the track (lets say over a 200 meter straight). Standardized wings and floor will just make F1 a borderline spec series.
Yeah, We need even more gimmicks. These artificial restrictiors never work for long. Pretty quickly one team finds a workaround and dominates until they outlaw it and install another gimmick.
I think the only thing that should restrict the cars is the driver and safety: 1. G meter - maximum g's alowed lateral and side to side as well as axial... fit the car with a G limiter so the driver remains concious at all times. - even if this means they have to wear a G suit. 2. Size of tires 3. Size of engines in Liters - 3L max 4. Regenerative propulsion - all cars must have harvesting tech that has to be deployed during the race. 5. All cars must cover a minimum number of laps per weekend.. .race and practice & qualifying ... ensure the cars are seen by fans.
The driver has to choose when to use it, just like the accelerator. So instead of being a stupid passing aid because modern drivers can't drive, it is a performance enhancer, a safe movable aero aid it you like. Gimmicky part removed Pete
And you think it isn't a spec series ... lol. F1 is 25% of what it used to be. A lot of that I think is because we have pretty much answered the how to make a race car question but also the FIA has gone crazy limiting lateral thought instead of ensuring safety ... Pete
