The bad: -Even less engines (now just 3!!!). Even more conservative ''engine saving'', instead of fuel and tire saving...Great. -''improved sound''. They remain V6's. V6 just doesn't sound good, it is the worst sounding engine configuration there is. Muffle it some more with a turbo and you're just making it worse. -lowering engine cost by a million. Lol. So 2 less engines and customers only get a marginal discount? Who dreams this up? So in reality, per engine cost rises significantly. -obligation to supply. All good and fun, but will all teams get guaranteed the same engine from the same year, or are they left out to dry like STR with last seasons' engines. -More raceable tires. Obviously a good thing. But, whoever wrote this ''When a car is closely following another, its tyres should not degrade to the extent their performance cannot be recovered.'' is a ****ing moron with no understanding of physics. If tires don't degrade and can't be recovered, it will mean that in a 'non close follow' situation, there will be an advantage. Simple. And tires aren't the problem in this situation in the first place, it's the bloody aerodynamics!!! -Wider cars (harder to overtake). Wider front wing. EVEN WIDER?! Are they ****ing insane? The good points: -Better looking cars with different aero. Wider and lower rear wings will create a bigger vacuum (wider certainly, lower not entirely sure...didn't they make the wings taller in 2009 because it would enhance overtaking?). -Though I'm criticizing the aero rules, one very good thing is a floor that generates more downforce. Hopefully this will work in conjunction with less total aero generated by the front and rear wings, specifically the front wing. They NEED to decrease the amount of elements and bits they're allowed to put on that. Looks cool, sure...but it's the biggest negative effect on close racing we have IMO. -More raceable tires Conclusion: It's better to have one man making all the rules, rather than a committee made up of several men, and then still input from F1 principals who have their own agenda. The proposed rules are very obviously made by the latter.
Now Nico weighs in with his "dislike" for where they're heading; Great!.... The big pow-wow is today. It's probably already over in fact; Should get some updates soon Cheers, Ian F1 2017 rule changes won't produce exciting racing - Nico Rosberg - F1 - Autosport
Why bother with simplified endplates? The endplates aren't the issue. It's the 7 elements. Simplify the entire wing, no need to make it any wider. Simplify rear wing. We need cars that are able to follow each other more closely without the tires shredding itself, and more aero is not the way to do that. Close behind a car there is too much turbulence = unable to follow close = rubbish racing.
I'm also worried about the significantly wider tires allowing even better braking so overtaking will be even harder.
As always, I'm prepared to give it a chance; I know, I'm an optimist! As much as there's too many of them with fingers in the pie, they're not dummies - Although I concur it sure seems that way at times! However, I've gotta agree with you Bas, it doesn't look promising. Cheers, Ian PS - Is that chart a result of todays meeting?
I tried to look at this in a positive light but am really struggling. Guys like Horner saying that they want more aero, and Mercedes comments and todays result basically confirming this my heart just sinks. In do hope they've found a way that cars can actually follow each other as that is hugely important. Yes
"Pocketed plank for weight saving"? - How much weight is there in the plank? The front wing's wider, the rear wing is wider but lower, the floor area is bigger and the diffuser is taller and larger. Add in the wider tyres and it appears on the face of it that they are trying to improve both the mechanical and aero grip, but as others have posted, if they simplified the front and rear wing elements further then they have much better results, and should have closer racing. Yet again, time will tell how successful this will be, but based on history, I wont get too excited just yet!
I cannot fathom all the implications of the new rules yet, but there is immediately something that intrigues me: the width increase from 180cm to 200cm. Cars used to be 200cm wide years ago, and judged too wide THEN. That's why the rules changed. I cannot see the point of revisiting solutions that were not satisfactory, although I have no doubt that engineers will always ask for more freedom.
Blame Mad Max Mosley - the 1998 narrower track, along with grooved tires, were the final pieces of his solution to slowing the cars down in the wake of the 1994 Imola tragedies. He wanted greatly reduced cornering speeds, and making the cars narrower, and adding grooved tires, were his solutions to accomplish a major reduction in cornering capability. It wasn't so much that the cars were too wide and the width impeded overtaking - the narrower width mandate was solely to reduce mechanical grip, to lower cornering speeds. I don't mind the new width or wider tires, but allowing bigger wings to add to downforce is what will kill overtaking. They really ought to move to spec low downforce front and rear wings, one common set of wings to be used by all teams. Paint them, bolt them on, and go - that alone would eliminate 20% of their wind tunnel and CFD costs, and reduce aero downforce by 30-40%, thus improving overtaking.
All these politics are far more entertaining than the racing itself. I'm sure they know it too and play this game a bit. What's really needed IMO is to bring even bigger players into the mix like VW or get bmw/toyota/ford back. Even if they are dominating, having Merc back was a great thing for the sport. Who cares about Sauber, Marussia, Force India,... Mclaren()?
On the other hand, the sport would be much poorer without Vanwall, Chapman, Cooper, Tyrrell, McLaren, Brabham, Williams...and Enzo Ferrari. All of whom were garage rats whose only focus was to build better race cars. The contribution of major automakers has been thin and sporadic, and almost always in the role of check writer to the garage rats. So, if your point is that we need more money in F1, bring on VW, Ford, Toyota, BMW, Honda, maybe even Hyundai or Subaru. But, don't expect that to shift the entertainment out of the board room to the track.
After reading the article in the other thread about aero and all the testing they did previously to see what would actually help I don't think these changes are going to help one bit. Making the cars wider is so stupid as was pointed out above. That right there just shows they've lost the plot. I'll still watch, as will everyone else, but I just won't be as fun. Which is an interesting dynamic but one I believe to be true. WEC FTW!!
Indeed. For reliability we can even go to V10 or V12 3.5 liters, rev capped at say 13K rpm...big ERS battery. Big power, beautiful noise. Hippies happy. Us happy.
For anyone thinking 13K rpm might be too low, may I remind you of this... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn2ao-cI3LE[/ame] Almost certainly not running at it's best of 15K rpm, much closer to 13K max in the video. Back then they managed 750bhp out of it. Undoubtly, these days they'll easily get beyond 800, reliably for 4 races. Stick in a 200hp ERS engine and we've reach the magic 1000.
Nope. Your mistake is thinking that every fan is just like you... I don't think F1 is perfect, but it's far from shattered. *I* want to see them pushing the envelope and *I* want to see some disparity in the process. Most attempts at parity smack heavily of spec racing. Reverting to a 'simple' formula that 'worked' is akin to making it easy for everybody...which is a big step towards spec. racing. Make it difficult and the best will shine. Make it easy and anybody can shine. *My* preference is for the former.
