I'll do my best "cut and paste" since it's a subscription service but here are some interesting stats: Regards, Jon P. Kofod www.flatoutracing.net The Full Decision of the World Motor Sport Council Wednesday June 30th, 2004 The World Motor Sport Council discussed the current performance level of Formula One cars noting that recent accidents have tested the absolute limits of the FIA's latest safety measures (Felipe Massa in Canada and Ralf Schumacher in the USA) and that speeds have increased very significantly over the last seven years. Date Imola Melbourne Monaco 1998 Practice 1.25.973 1.30.010 1.19.798 1999 Practice 1.26.336 1.30.462 1.20.547 2000 Practice 1.24.714 1.30.556 1.19.475 2001 Practice 1.23.054 1.26.892 1.17.430 2002 Practice 1.21.091 1.25.843 1.16.676 2003 Practice 1.20.628 1.27.173 1.14.749 2004 Practice 1.19.753 1.24.408 1.13.985 1998 Race 1.29.345 1.31.649 1.22.948 1999 Race 1.28.547 1.32.112 1.22.259 2000 Race 1.26.523 1.31.481 1.21.571 2001 Race 1.25.524 1.28.214 1.19.424 2002 Race 1.24.170 1.28.541 1.18.023 2003 Race 1.22.491 1.27.724 1.14.545 2004 Race 1.20.411 1.24.125 1.14.439 The World Motor Sport Council unanimously decided formally to require the Formula One Technical Working Group to propose measures to reduce the performance of the cars in accordance with Article 7.5 of the Concorde Agreement. If there is no agreement and the FIA is forced to follow the entire Article 7.5 procedure, the measures it will impose will be announced in October and come into force three months later, in time for the 2005 season. The following dates were blocked for the 2005 FIA Formula One Championship: March 6 March 20 April 3 April 17 April 24 May 8 May 22 June 5 June 12 June 26 July 3 July 17 July 31 August 21 September 4 September 11 September 25 October 9 October 23
Hmm. I thought the USGP 2005 was supposed to be on June 19? June 12 is Montreal, so USGP would be a week later, not two weeks later. What gives?
I assume this means that Canada GP will be June 5th and USGP June 12th. So, will the FCA Annual be the week leading up to June 12th or immediately following the 12th?
FCA National will be right after the USGP. But I don't believe these dates are correct. I believe June 19 is the real date.
OK I have a HUGE problemwith comparing those times. The tracks have had modifications made to them year after year. Some of the changes are minor but when you are comparing seconds any minor change makes a big difference. I think all this BS is being caused by small teams like Jordan and Minardi who keep on complaining how life is unfair and the whole world has it against them. This is a way to lower costs by cutting costs of developing cars and an attempt to curb Ferrari superiority. The teams cannot catch Ferrari by car development so they attempt to catch Ferrari by making their car development useless. The sad part is Minardi and Jordan will always remain back runners and no amount of whinning will make them competitive.
A 5 to 6 second delta spanning 7 years of development, and the FIA is already lighting the fires? I've said it before, and I'll say it again. F1 should be the pinnacle of motorsports (the racing issue is a peripheral one to this discussion), and should not be artificially slowed down.
This performance improvement is all tyres. Return to one tyre make and performance improvements will slow down. Currently we have Bridgestone and Michelin fighting it out ... hence the big improvements. While technically it is interesting to follow it is resulting in very boring races as the tyres perform so differently ... Pete's opinion
Not sure I follow that logic... variations like that make for lots more passing and excitement as the advantages change during the race. Boring is things are too much the same throughout the race. I think the issue is that aero has gotten to the point that there is exactly one fastest line and everything else is just too slow... once that happens, passing requires a huge error. It needs to be the case that there are two very different fast ways through a corner. Greatly reducing aero effects and getting back to straight mechanical grip and you'll greatly broaden the number of viable lines... and the amount of passing. Besides, advances in tire technology are good for our cars; advances in wing technology and ground effects (tiny clearances) are not.
Brian, The problem we have had in the last few years (as less so this year) is that the Bridgestones suit some tracks and temperatures and visa versa for the Michelins. Thus if you have not got the right tyre you might as well go home The other problem was (don't think this is still an issue) is the Michelins take way to long to heat up ... by the time they do MS and RB have just about put a lap on the field (or atleast got a pitstop buffer) ... race over. That was what I was trying to say. I think it is more even now and yes you are right little difference help passing ... Pete's opinion
The Michelin's appear to heat up faster than the Bridgestones...at least for the earlier part of the season. Remember JPM/MS at Imola?
You could be right, but the JPM/MS incident I now put down to JPM having a real go, like a racing driver should unless you believe Imperial83's views that they should just follow around the car in front happy to be er, just following the car around. In the end JPM's race craft was not going to work and he ran out of track. Not sure whether the tyres had much to do with that or simply JPM was driving the skin off his car ... and that actually is what I like to see every now and then, ie. somebody really trying. Pete's opinion
Not only that, everything I'd heard up until very recently pointed that Michelins tended to be very fast from the get go while the Bridgestones were much better over the long haul.
This is an idea that I have seen here many times. My question is, is it possible to put real, enforceable, lasting, limits on the aero packages? My concern is if the rules change to allow slicks rather than grooved tires, along with a reduction of the amount of aero, designers will find spots to add aero that are not covered by the rules. Then, perhaps years down the road, you end up with faster cars than today because they will have slicks AND lots of aero. They say Ralf's impact was somewhere in the order of 70g. How much more than that can the human body really live through? Considering Ralf broke a couple of vertebrae, it can't be much.
It's not just the tyres that have caused an increase in speed. The average power of a Formula 1 V10 engine back in 1998 was around 700 horsepower. Now for the 2004 season they are around 900 horsepower; a power increase of 200 horsepower, or 29%.
Yes... as long as you make the goal NOT to eliminate aero research (that's impossible) but rather to limit how effective that aero can be. For example, you can require a 4" minimum clearance on the bottom of the cars. That is fairly easy to enforce... and severely limits how effective undercar aero can be. And a side-benefit is that the undercar aero that they come up with will be transferrable to our road cars. As another example, you can disallow any separate element wings... all must be a single surface with the body of the car. Again, you still have careful aero design, but you can't produce anywhere near the downforce that you do today.