Just Wondering...

For all the F1 fans here:

If you froget about all that is happening right now in the sport, does the slowing down of the cars every year take away the entertainment value for you?

I just have to wonder this after all my rooting around of F1 videos on youtube of the past. There just so fast!! Never again will they be as fast as they were. Does this smaller speed make anyone dream of the middle of the decade?

 

Yes - I much prefer F1 from many, many years ago. I went from sports cars to F1 and now back to sports cars again.

Carol

 

IMO f1 reached its peak during the v12 schumacher era when the tires wars were in full swing. Lap times from previous years were getting obliterated with each race.

I think we'll see it again sometime, but not anytime soon.

 

While I prefer cars from years ago, the cars of today are still much faster. It takes only a few years to keep beating prior laptimes. Limitations on the cars to make them slower increase the development and efficiency for work arounds in other areas. So, we have grooved tires and a car that appears to be a few inches higher off the ground, it has become much much faster.

 

The way things are going, soon F1 will be an adult soap box derby. Lets keep it green..... will be the new motto. Heck go back to the v12's and let them fly

 

Thats the very reason I like F1 pushing the development side ,Yes green issues are going to come in to this sport and although I can support this,if the petrol engine goes I dont think i would be interested anymore..
The moving around of the F1 circus is the gas guzzler.

 

If F1 were more about driver skill and racing wheel to wheel unaided by computers, and not technology run amok, there wouldn't be so much pressure on teams and manufacturers to up the technology ante at such a frenetic pace, and spend tons of money doing so, as well as for the trappings that support the show. Wind tunnels going 24/7, incessant testing and tweaking, and now espionage. I'm all for saving the planet, but it seems to me that cutting edge racing technology and going green follow inherently divergent paths...

Highly skilled drivers don't produce greenhouse gases, do they? Well, maybe some do...

 

Agree - technology as an end in itself is bad for the sporting aspects - for example:

Maybe in the movie remake of Grand Prix, they could show the James Garner Ferrari character struggling to get his upshift button to work, and then running the Lewis Hamilton MCL character off the road. Then, the rest of the movie would be about whether the MCL team had hacked into the SF computers..."old man" Montezemolo would have to walk out and black flag his own team in protest, thus leaving the win to Honda.

 

F1 is getting close to being a spec series in the near future. Then I will go back to sports cars. IMHO, the engine size(capacity)and breathing (turbo,non -turbo) should be regulated by FIA, then let the manufacturers go out and determine the # of cyls they want to run with. And then restrict revs based on cyls to roughly even power output. Anyway, cars look too much alike as they are now, future design restrictions and customer cars will tend to further blur the field.

 

Don't forget team orders! Even if he is retired, Michael will need to win.

 

do you really think so ?

personally i reckon the teams with the "lesser" drivers would be looking for more and more technological advances so their car could beat the better driver whoever was driving it.

meanwhile the team with the best driver would be looking at a way to increase their leads incase they lose that man at the wheel.


oh and pls dont forget that to every team member (bar the actual drivers) primarily wants to win the constructors championship (the drivers championship is really considered the 2nd prize)

 

I think that's the problem; teams are always looking for a technical edge (which costs money), regardless of driver caliber. A great car will make a lesser driver look good, and a bad car, with today's competition, will not win a WC for a great driver. In some sense, modern F1 has evolved into a manufacturer's struggle...

It might be different now, but historically the driver's crown was more desirable. Winning the Constructors' title but not the World Driving Championship was considered an incomplete achievement.

 

But don't forget the prerace "retirement" scene - it is very sad, Juan Paul, to see how far you have slipped. You used to be the best.

 

The speed of the cars doesn't really matter much to me. But what does matter is, that a F1 car always has the lap record at any given racetrack. If that starts to go the other way, F1 needs to get less restricted.

IIRC Champ cars were in Montreal one year and lapped about 30 seconds slower than F1. That's good.

I also heard that an Indy Lights car would be 11 seconds slower at the USGP. That's cutting it close, but then again that's probably telling more about the circuit than the series.

 

On the other hand, how do you think a current F1 ride would do on memorial day in the 500?

 

If it was modified to compete in the 500 it would do well. I think they would need slicks, stagger the suspension to compensate for left only turns, reduce the brake sizes and ducting, go to Monza level or lower aero settings, remove some of the flip ups, etc.

 

I agree with one extra provision. The design needs to allow cars to be in close formation to promote overtaking.

 

+1

When I say I want F1 to hold the track records, I mean on road courses and street circuits. There will always be areas where a F1 can't compete or won't be good: Ovals, Bonneville, rallies

 

i don't really care about the speed, but the lack of overtaking really messes things up. just 7 years ago, Mika pulled heck of an overtaking move on MS.

 

Sort of like Jimmy Clark in the 1965 Lotus?

They kind of quit using the front-engine Offy fours after that little lesson...

 

But there will be none of that! Derek Daly is handling that end with his pressure on "no blocking" rules!