... this looks to have been translated, I'm guessing from French: Onestopstrategy.com >> Article >> Colum Marc Limacher: The new Bernie Ecclestone order in F1 Gist of this reports finds FIa, Ecclestone and F1's "strategy group" ushered into a backroom at Monza for an emergency meeting called, to reach consensus, broadening and redefining Max Mosley's definition of "constructor" to include "fabricators" (e.g., anybody who alters the aerodynamics on an F1 entry). Having gone on the record last month, quoted by the motor sport press stating F1 should "copy Indycar," a happy coincidence, seen up and down the paddock all weekend at Monza, evidently F1's Strategy Group has taken Juan Pablo Montoya's advice to heart. From 2015 and beyond, F1 begins the process in earnest, of reducing itself to a spec-series. Looks like Gene Haas will be getting a pair of F15-t Ferraris, Toro Rosso will be getting RB-11s, and Vijay Maliya will likely be getting MP4-30s. I wonder whether Frank Williams will still bother with building his own car? - asj.
Read the article.... so teams can buy chassis from each other? How does that make it a spec series? Best years of Indy almost everyone ran Lola or Penske chassis. It was great racing. I don't see how this is a problem. Ferrari isn't going to buy a chassis. McLaren isn't going to buy a chassis. Nor is Mercedes, nor Red Bull. Too much competitiveness hinges on aero design, and the teams with budgets can easily afford it. I really don't care if the little guys are able to buy a decent set of wheels vs running their own crappy designs.
Doubtful but it really should be reconsidered. I'm really tired of all the technical glitches, brake problems, DRS failures, KERS failures and other miscellany which would easily be worked out during testing. Sometimes it looks like high school science projects out there instead of well engineered and tested multimillion dollar tech.
What world are they living in? I mean, I get that making money in F1 is not easy. But have they actually seen the stands and the proceeds at Indy events? I can't think of a worse race series to emulate when it comes to actual viewership. Copying Indy? What in the world are they thinking? -F
Are you serious? There are way fewer car failures than there were 10 years ago. Look at Monza, Alonso was the only breakdown. Chilton was the only other dnf and he wrecked himself. 10-15 years ago you barely had 10 cars finish some races and they had unlimited testing. Ferrari just set a record for number of races without a mechanical dnf. The old rose colored glasses effect I suspect.
This seems like a good idea, and I am all for it. F1 has suffered from far too restrictive regulations for too long.
Even without DNFs, drivers suffer from KERS failures, programming problems, battery resets, all sorts of garbage which was not even contemplated 10 years ago. On the topic of Alonso, he's has suffered two races in a row (5 sec penalty for delayed start in Spa). Last season their DRS was stuck open a couple of races which is a huge safety risk. Beginning of the season the Mercs et al were having trouble with brakes which caused failure, let alone simply being unsafe. Last season seemed like Red Bull was plagued with sporadic KERS failure all season long.
+1 understatement of the year right there.... Back then (actually, I'd say a little before, their reliability has been stunning for a long time now) they suffered broken rods, dropped valves and exploding pistons etc. Bwah, bwah, bwah! At least they're push the envelope again. More bwah, bwah! I think it's great that they're "struggling" with new technology again. Of course the v10s and 8's never broke - they're well understood dinosaurs. That they're pretty much as quick as they've ever been, using 30-40% less go juice I continue to find awesome. And one of the main reasons I keep following. The engineering is nothing short of stunning! If they could fix the damn sound I think we're looking at another golden era. But then, I was never much of a Kim Kardashian fan either..... Cheers, Ian
Well - I guess we have to watch something... this is really depressing for F-1 traditionalist like me.
The cars were less reliable 10-15 years ago as teams could make engines last long enough for qualifying and then another for a single race rather than this rev-limited multi-race lifespan. I prefer cars with engines maxing out as many revs as possible than this endurance stuff they got going now that obviously is more reliable. I don't agree with the sharing chassis bit either they propose. Expand teams to 3 cars a piece to increase viewable ad-space per lap televised and call it a day with no change in the number of chassis actually needing to be made (they already make spares). Test drivers already exist for each team and good enough to race imo. The fixed costs are already there so adding a third car won't as much more cost, but increase ad revenue (and # of paying drivers for lower teams).
A factor in the reliability is the new style gearbox, and Pneumatic valve gear.compared when a driver had to heel and toe and shift manually. Old way he could easily over rev. or pick the wrong gear on the down shift. Some drivers would skip gears on a down shift to save shift time. If you made a mistake you could break the engine. If on a valve spring motor if you over revved, sometimes a valve spring would fail. Ago
Agreed! Who wants a grand prix car that takes no talent to drive? (And I'm talking here only about no talent to shift. Obviously it takes immense talent to drive it fast and well.)
news reports today say the F1 teams have shot down the idea of buying car chassis, since the "constructors" championship will still mean you have to construct the car body.
All good points but I just hate seeing a driver's day (or season) ruined by some sort of computer glitch. IMO it would be more fun if they had more testing to work this stuff out. I would much rather see a blown engine, gearbox, whatnot than some Microsoft tech support problem. Doesn't feel like racing.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I couldn't agree more on testing! Unfortunately, it seems that's not what they want. Sure - a good old fashioned "kablamo" is a lot more entertaining! I had an interesting conversation with some Arrows guys at Indy in, IIRC, 2000. One (among many!) of their problems was they needed a bunch of Micro$oft based computers to all work simultaneously in order to fire up the car..... As we know, Micro$oft and reliability is an oxymoron. Cheers, Ian
