LdM: F1 Must Improve For Us To Stay

You are right, but sportscars manufacturers won't escape the increasingly tight carbon emission limits, nor the fuel mileage the ecologists have in mind, on this side of the pond anyway.

I don't think that eco-boxes will be allowed to compensate for gas guzzlers within a constructor's range. To comply, they will have to reduce severely the displacement of engines (a 2000 cc engine limit has been whispered for 2025), and each vehicle will have to satisfy an average minimum of 45miles/gallon fuel consumption by then.
Can you see a sportscar doing that?

Joke apart, I believe that we have seen the golden age of sportscars passing us by without realising it!!

 

Thanks. Although I was merely reporting what Didier Theys told me when I drove him around.

What I find funny is that often in this forum folks demand that Ferrari leaves F1 and changes over to Le Mans racing when they have been apparently unfairly treated in F1. Like endurance racing is any better than F1 in its technological rulings.

 

The climate in endurance is even murkier than in F1.
Since there is not an FIA-sanctioned World Endurance Championship, the ACO in France has assumed the mantle and writen the rules that suit them.
They have franchised their series in America ALMS and in Asia with more or less the same format.
The rules aren't decided by a large body like the FIA, but by the ACO influenced by manufacturers who promise participation as long as they have a say in them.

Le Mans is in a different league than F1, and the endurance format isn't compatible with TV broadcast like the 2-hour GPs anyway. Without large worldwide TV coverage, endurance will always be second best to single-seater in terms of advertising, exposure, etc...
But the FIA has to work hard to make F1 accessible, interesting and entertaining.
I would say that F1 is attractive to a wider audience, because it's spectacular and easier to understand.
Sportscars racing, with its different categories, longer races, is more for the connaisseurs.

 

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Kinda depends on how you watch F1. If you just tune in for your home GP and cheer your team/driver, then yes. But if you follow F1 with all its off track politics and intrigues it can get pretty involved too, particularly if you do it over a period of time.

Aside from the ACO and its capricious rule changes to me the real turn off aren't the Diesel engines, but the second rate drivers. I know this sounds snobby, but look who is winning: It is the have-beens from F1. Wurz, Salo, Villeneuve to name a few. And in the GT classes you have some people you never heard of, privateers who'd be dog food if they had to go up against the current super talents of F1.

 

Steve, which one is you?

 

ach ja! .

The one in the white suit, nice hair JC..

Offically de-railed thread.
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I can certainly relate to that.

I though so too. Until the end end of the year when I, once again, went back to visit and spent a few weeks tooling around in a Q7 TDI V12. On full throttle that thing has a really nasty and satisfying growl that was fully matched by its performance. It is ugly and quite useless off-road especially with the stock rubber. But my god, it had torque.

I agree with the laws. But that torque...

I think it is the same thing as with power boats, beyond a certain size gas engines just make no sense whatsoever. Any marginal speed advantages will be lost many times over during refueling. The Q7 consumed about 13 L/km in mixed use compared to my RR SC with similar power and weight that is lucky to get by with 18 L/km.

 

Mine would be Olga Kurylenko

 

Heh, not quite that thirsty. Make that L/100 km in both cases.