2006 F1 restrictions, suck?

There is too much politics in F1. Rule changes are tools that Bernie and the FIA (who have an unhealthy incestious relationship) use to maintain their grip on the sport and its finances. Look for example at the mess of qualification rule changes in the last few years . . .

If the FIA was truly interested in the long term future of the sport, they would impose a few high level rules (such as dimension and weight limits, safety, etc.) and leave all other details up to each team. Imagine having 8s, 10s and 12s alongside each other, with varying degrees of driver aides (more skilled, but more expensive, drivers with less aides for some teams vs. the opposite for others), etc.

Each team would be adopting a different approach to various cutting-edge technologies (and working with varying levels of funding) to approach the engineering "problem" of winning.

This might not control costs very much, but so what? F1 has always been at the cutting edge of technology and if nowadays that means prohibitively higher costs for some teams, then so be it.

 

rev limiter ?

 

You're a little late on this one... have you not been reading the posts? I'd included this info a few days ago in post #8.

 

Nope - again all that this will do is set the engine builders off on a different track to the current one.

If you set the limit at (say) 10K, and the current engine makes 500hp there, within weeks you will have 550hp@10K, after a couple more revisions you will be up to 575hp, but the development cost to get there are probably not worth considering.

There is absolutely no way to save money in F1. Even a budget restriction is crazy, because the teams will buy the exact same items that it now uses, but pay less for them, in exchange for stealth advertising (The wheels that are currently un-branded will suddenly have large 'Acme Wheel Co' labels visible in a multitude of publicity shots, and lilnks will appear on the team web site etc).

The only thing that fluid rules do, is enforce more and more spending. This two-race rule for the engines is crazy, the development costs of creating an engine that lasted way longer, yet made more power (obviously) where absolutley incredible, The development of the V8 engine has been the single most expensive rule-change that the FIA(sco) have made in years, when it was first presented it was presented as 'cutting two cylinders off the current V10', however as the engine builders started to look at the format, they realized that almost everything that had been learnt about the V10 no longer applied to the V8. Sure the cc/cylinder was the same, but almost every single other part needed to be re-designed.

The other common misconception is that the banning of technology helps the smaller teams - yet in the real world the technology ban encourages extremely developement intensive solutions to problems that could be colved with a $50 processor, and a few hours of software development. Again - this favors the bigger budgeted teams.

The new rules are as mindless as the old ones, but I will continue to get up at 4AM to watch the races....

 

And so will I.

Completely agree with you.

 

So far this decade the rules have sucked in 2006,2005,2004,2003,2002,2001 and 2000. I thought for a moment they didnt suck in 2003 but went back and checked, and yes indeed they sucked then as well.

 

Restrictions, rule changes, etc are the norm in F1. There is nothing new or newsworthy about it.

We went from a 3.5 liter engine to a 3 liter engine a decade back. Everyone cried and beat their breasts but a year or two down no one noticed.

I think Jenson mentioned that with the new engine, the cars would be about 20 kph slower on the straights but to the television audience or live audience, it is not noticeable.

All I care about is that there are at least 2-4 strong teams and let the fighting begin. 2005 was an awesome season ... lets hope we have another with more cars joining the fray

 

Yeah, but now the restrictions are so stifling that they even determine the maximum internal dimensions of engine components, the V-angle, the number of valves, the materials to be used... it's a joke. Basically all the manufacturers could have got together and designed a single engine for everyone with team-specific cylinder head covers ("Ferrari", "Renault", "Honda", etc.) to save money, and NOBODY would have noticed. For the engineers this new F1 SUCKS. There is nothing left to fantasy and creativity. Might as well become the next NASCAR.

 

Well that is the major positive or negative about F1 depends on how you look at it.

People are following F1 for different reasons:
- For the racing itself - overtaking, handling a car on the edge
- For the technology of F1
- For the competition between teams
- For following specific teams (Ferrari, etc)
- For following specific drivers
- many other reasons

All I am saying is that there is no change that will make everyone happy.

You could have a free for all rule which gives teams unlimited capabilities to use any space age material or technology to eke out a 0.3s per lap advantage. But this will mean that the well funded teams will dominate and the quality of racing will suffer. So racing fans will be pissed by the processional races.

But the beauty of F1 is that however much you restrict the teams, they come up with innovative ways of finding improvements through technology or otherwise. Just wait and watch

 

If today's technology requires only well-funded teams to be implemented, then so be it. After all, what is the definition of "well-funded"?

Throughout F1's history, there was a barrier to entry in that teams needed a minimum amount of funding to compete, but you cannot say it was cheaper back then than it would be now if you have a free-for-all rule. Enzo Ferrari himself was taken to the cleaners several times in his life because of his commitment to racing.

IMHO, F1 should let technology reign supreme, allowing true unrestricted innovation to take hold. If that means we get only 5 or 6 adequately-funded teams in the sport (perhaps each running 3 cars), I think it will be a much more interesting sport, and truer to its roots.