Horner: Entertainment over technology

spot on.

 

I think the teams put their short term individual interests over the long-term NEEDS of the sport which they themselves are the ones obstructing the future of F1.

 

Since when did any actual fans of racing ever sit there watching and state 'wow, love the technology advances that are being applied to make this a two horse race..... awesome, something to tell the grandkids about, and they will have these engines in their cars one day..... wowwee '

We are actually all thinking.... 'hmmm, shall I o the ironing, pit stops won't be for a few laps yet, hope someone crashes or blows up otherwise I'll have a nap..... zzzzzzzzzzzz' as the same two guys cross the line first and second in whatever order it is that day, and certainly as tifosi we couldn't care less which is first (although we may have a chuckle when it isn't elton!)

 

Cosworth, Ferrari, Renault. Merc is the only that has anything to lose from returning to a previous engine formula. The others return to competitiveness. And they too would stick around as they did the previous 20 years, F1 returns to being a marketing exercise.

Agreed on reducing aero costs. Newey recently said CFD is at the point where they could scrap wind tunnels altogether.

From the average fan's perspective, F1 is an screaming engine that sounds great on tv and sends a shiver down their spine in the grandstand. They don't know much else about the car.

Like it or not, internal combustion is itself an outdated technology. The future is electric and F1 isn't going to go down that path. It needs to return to serving the fans that pay for it rather than a hand full of manufacturers.

PS: Get rid of the carbon discs. They have no road car relevance (even Ferrari owners complain about them) and the shorter braking distances reduce overtaking opportunity. They may as well go to dual-clutch gearboxes as well. Are there any car manufacturers that still use single-clutch in their cars?

 

My thinking is basically cost related. When it was open (V8-V10-V12, capped at 3000cc), F1 teams all decided, without regulation (it was enforced in 2000 or 2001, but all teams already used V10s only since 1998), that V10 was the best compromise between balance and packaging. I'm no engineer, but with 500-1000cc more to play with, I assume that the conclusion will be the same...

Of course I'd rather have them have no rev limit whatsoever, but cost will soar to incredible levels immediately if we don't rev cap...Perhaps a cap at 19K would be even better, it'll be a decent challenge getting a 4 liter to rev reliably for x races at those revs.

Ross Brawn has already echoed some of my other comments RE making engines cheaper again so that companies such as Cosworth (specifically mentioned by him!) could develop F1 engines again, saying at current difficulty and huge costs it's not even worth thinking about for them.

 

Exactly, very, very few fans actually care about the crazy technology. The vast majority wants to see great racing, hear fantastic noise. We don't want a procession of wheeled vacuum cleaners with idiotic front wings.

It's fair to say that F1 cars have pretty much reached the development ceiling on the carbon discs (and no, they have ZERO to do with carbon ceramics on cars. Carbon/carbon discs do not work outside the race track as they need significant temperatures just to work). IMO F1 should go back to steel. Again, cost reduced, braking distances become longer (not by much, but enough). Another reason why F1 lacks so many overtakes (not counting the artificial ones here!) is because the braking distance is so incredibly short. To successfully overtake you have to be around 10% beter on the brakes, the shorter the braking distance the more impossible this gets.

And yes I do think we should go back to manual transmissions. It's impossible to misshift these days. The last one I remember seeing was Alonso at qualifying in Monza, 2006. The gearboxes have been perfected, they're so quick now that the gears briefly overlap. Road cars can shift in under 20ms now with DCT gearboxes. I think it's fast enough, isn't it? I don't think anyone driving a Ferrari Speciale or F12 TDF comes out and says ''Well, it's a great car, but I wish it would shift gears quicker....''

Go back to tubular frame? No. Few teams use more than one chassis per driver these days anyhow, it's a thing they produce only a few times. Carbon is cheap now anyways. I dare say that going to a tubular frame would actually be more expensive since they hold up less well in accidents and suffer from more fatigue!

With manual gearboxes and steel brakes, the driver has (much) more input in the result of a car. Add in a move to normal NA engines again and I dare say it'll be the greatest move F1 has made in their history: Going back to the stone ages.

 

The problem with engines, as far as I recall, was that they are so inherently complicated, the best way was to just build 'em all. So they'd build a 72 deg V10, a 90 deg V10 etc... to find the most suitable. The result was that who had the money could buy the development. That's why today there is so much restriction.

This one is always great to browse through: 10 years of BMW engines in F1. You can see how from 2006 onwards crippled in development.

Edit: Forgot the hyperlink http://8000vueltas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Theissen-10-years-of-BMW-F1-engines.pdf

 

Funnily enough it was Renault that switched the most between degrees, after 1997-1999 BMW, Ferrari, Mercedes, Cosworth mostly stuck with their philosophy and set upon lightening the engines and getting the most revs out of them.

 

Give me the sounds of 20 cars running 3 liter V12 engines burning good ol' gasoline and I'll find that pretty entertaining.

 

I'd like to see a lower rev limit, say around 14-15k. Those high-revving engines are painful to the ears; the engines sounded better when they were down around 10-13k. Listen to the flat-12 Ferrari engine of the '70s and you'll hear what I mean.

 

The best sounding F1 engine ever (Ferrari 412T2) revved to 16K

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SoZiTxdQyw[/ame]

I've heard Ferrari's v12 at full chat, the V10s, V8's, 70s...

V12 was the most beautiful sounding, V10 was sharp but still pleasing, it was particularly Honda's V8 that pierced the ears somewhat unpleasantly. I agree that 70s F1 sounded great. V12s/V10s are a true spectacle though...my my.

 

I just think F1 needs to be 16-19K

Now granted... it sounds better than anything we hear today.... the Flat 12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64eBlKPln34

But it sounds nothing compared to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SoZiTxdQyw

Actually in some ways I like V8 even better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V6y1bz-D-I

 

Haha... you beat me to it!

 

Okay Bas... I think I stand corrected.

That gives me shivers!

 

Yes, Lamborghini. It's a visceral experience which keeps you alert, and buyers are happy to pay a premium for the pleasure.

 

Carburettors in Nascar in the 21th century, new American owners...

I see a trend here. And I don´t like it.

 

Give them an intake area limit and let them decide on the displacement.

 

Going back to carburators will do exactly zero to entertainment, and has no impact on any cost saving.

Steel brakes will provide entertainment due to enhanced overtaking posibilities, and some cost saving.

Manual gearbox will provide a lot of entertainment and a skill variable; more is asked of the driver throughout the weekend.

 

That goes down very well with my ideal of giving minimum parameters to the engineers to design an engine, leaving them maximum choice in configuration and capacity.

 

If we were to go back to steel brakes and manual gearboxes, we may turn F1 upside down and find that the best drivers now, won't be necessarily at the top anymore. Different skills are required.

Braking and gear changing used to sort out the men from the boys in the past, and be the source of many driving mistakes! I am all for it ...

 

Me too...... some of the current crop are too reliant on the ceramics and the computerised boxes, and like you, I see the best drivers becoming a much bigger requirement. Imagine the engines blowing when they miss a change! Four race engines, but doing one in qualy and one in the race will really manipulate things!

 

Formula 1 is not only about entertainment: it´s about being the top in automotive technology. Manual gearboxes are almost vintage even for street cars. If it was all about entertainment they would be using cheap old banged Miatas. There are lots of specs series around there, that´s not for Formula 1.

Putting my tin foil hat on, I fear that the new owners pretend to make another Indycar. So far, they´re bothering the major obstacle to achieve that: Scuderia Ferrari, that would not be interested in putting their engine in an ugly standard Dallara chassis. The other manufacturers wouldn´t complain, as long as the stickers of their engine are well visible they don´t care about the rest.

 

But it's about being the fastest series and most exciting also. When the tech makes it boring, they should be dropping it to bring back the excitement. Who wants to hear their missus vacuuming over the sound of the engines, or worse, mistaking the engine noise for the missus vacuuming?

 

Let´s be honest: if we had a good fight for the title nobody would be complaining about the sound or the turbos. We should be complaining more about the token system and the test limitations, that makes catching up more difficult.

For me the only problem of making the cars more complex is cost: not everybody can afford the new tech. A new money prize system has been needed for a long time but the big teams and Bernie prevented that. I´m afraid that the new owners are more interested in making a cheaper formula to not have to share more money with the teams than in distributing the wealth.

 

Well, you may be right up to a point, but technology is not seen as sexy as close racing with lots of action. That's what the majority of people expect to see in F1.

You can see plenty of action, dramas and overtaking in the lower single-seater categories, so why pay more to have less spectacle in F1, they ask?

I can understand that; F1 is too lame, too sanitized, too safe, too boring for some. The majority of people isn't interested by what's under the bonnet, or how technically advanced the cars are, they want a show, a driving contest, and they don't get it when there are huge difference between cars.

I think most of the technology found in F1 is very clever but from an entertainment point of view, F1 is in a dead end street, and needs to go back to proven recipes.

Yes manual gear-changes are things of the past in street cars, but if they add some thrill to F1, they have to be considered.