2021 F1 changes

I agree 100%. I have been saying this for decades now. It runs counter to the notion that the teams and their engineers are cutting edge when so much of the decisions, right down to valve angles, are set down by a bunch of bureaucrats.

When the formula was merely based on displacement, engines came in all sorts of configurations. The engineers with the best solution rose to the top. As for cost, one of the most powerful F1 engines ever was a BMW based on a stock road car block.

Throttle the bureaucrats and unleash the engineers!

 

AUGUST 9, 2017

No rush to add more American races says Carey



Chase Carey says he will not rush to set up a second race in the United States.

Currently, the annual US grand prix is held in Austin, Texas.

But after the Liberty Media buyout, there have been claims Bernie Ecclestone's successor, American Carey, has prioritised the adding of a second or even third race in the US.

However, the new F1 CEO says he actually has a "five year plan" regarding the American market.

"I don't want to criticise Bernie," he told Germany's Auto Bild, "because he did many things very well.

"But I think he went too much for short terms deals. So if you want to go to New York, it takes time and good planning.

"Previously, formula one worked in so far that you sign a contract and leave the rest to the promoter. But this is no longer possible," Carey insisted.

"You have to capture people's imagination. You don't do that with Phoenix, but in New York or Miami.

"We can already see the first signs, as since we have increased our commitment to social media, we are already seeing more feedback from the US. There is a bigger fan base there than we thought," Carey added.

 

Never understood the perceived correlation between "Clever" and Box Office Audience success.
It's not as if viewers can see the engine parts moving like a Swiss watch on display and so they don't give a hoot.

Boxing is straight forward and remains unchanged. The premium divisions are sold out ticket events and mass PPV / free-to-air success.

 

Massa: F1 criticisms same now as in the 2000s

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/massa-f1-no-worse-now-than-last-decade-941174/


Felipe Massa says that Formula 1 has not got worse in the 16 years since he made his debut, despite widespread criticism of the sport during that period.
The 36-year-old, who had made his debut for Sauber in 2002, believes F1 is always criticised and that that essence of grand prix racing hasn't changed much since he had joined.

 

Because the things that where and are being complained about, haven't changed.

People complained about lack of overtaking: Now we have fake overtaking
People complained about it being too expensive: It's gotten more expensive
People complained about one team dominating: We have had 1 team dominating

So it's much the same, except with **** sounding engines and ever increasing penalties for using components no one knows what they do, but hey, cars use a little less fuel (for not pushing the car because extra penalties for parts wear, and extra gears + lower revs), and that's all that matters.

 

Agree.

 

The lack of overtaking is due to excessive turbulences created by too much aero. Since aero are hardly restricted by the rules, this will only get worse.

In a favourable economic situation, the players (manufacturers and sponsors) have plenty of money to spend. It's impossible to limit costs, so restriction on testing, numbers of engines and components are against what F1 is about.

Nothing wrong with one team dominating if they do a better job. The others have just to catch up!

The present hybrid cars are more powerful and faster than ever, and use only HALF the fuel compared to the old V10 atmo cars. That is a huge technical progress which should not to be discarded just for the sake of having noisy engines!

 

The others have just to catch up ?

Sounds great except for the $$$ needed to do it.

Looks like they can't even make the sounds as good as in years ago....sorry i do not call that progress.Who cares how much fuel they burn?

 

Only took them 13 years to be as quick as the V10s. Sweet.

Also you better accept the return of louder engines because they are coming back whether you like it or not.

Because within a few years the vast majority of engine builders will settle on one configuration that has the best compromise of power/fuel economy/reliability/etc. During this trial and error process they will have wasted millions just to end up with everyone running basically the same size engine anyway.

Again, this ain't the 60s...

 

I've been saying that about aero for years. Yet nothing is done about it, so that complaint stands!

There hasn't been a favourable economy for 10 years now, and F1 teams lost a big chunk of sponsors with tobacco ban 15 years ago.

Nothing wrong with 1 team dominating? Since when? We NEED fights between teams, no one likes seeing a team runaway with it.

Hybrid cars aren't so great. Yeah they use less fuel but only because they're not allowed to use more of it. They're not more powerful than ever, where did you dream that up? They're 500hp down on fastest ever, they're equal to the V10s (over a single lap only).

Most records being broken only now are due to the much more aero than before, and the much wider tyres, nothing to do with those silly hybrid engines you love so much. On top of that, new track surfaces have a LOT to do with records being broken. Over a race distance the V10 cars where still quite a bit faster. So no, the hybrids, despite all aerodynamic advantages, crazy complicated and expensive engines...are still slower!

And erm, HALF the fuel? I think not. 50kg less, not 75kg. Keep in mind that we now have more gears (a long overdrive) and direct injection. The V8's weren't developed since 2008, the V10's where even older tech so hard to compare. I think you'll be surprised how much less fuel they could actually use! Current cars would use much more fuel if they where allowed.

 

All of this simply highlights that F1 is at a crossroads. Is it about promoting a concept/marketing agenda of manufacturers or is it about racing? Venn diagram the two... if anyone is intellectually honest about it, the intersection is very thin. I mean very thin.

F1 could be about racing again. They could make a real engine formula that invites multiple builders to participate. Will Mercedes, Renault, and Ferrari allow that to happen? It's doubtful. The thing I find odd is that if you're a Ferrari fan, their F1 involvement and it's impact on you the buyer isn't about that you have a similar engine, it about winning if anything. No one is not going to buy a Ferrari or Merc because they're winning F1 with a type of engine that isn't a close cousin to what's in the cars they're selling.

 

F1 will have to choose if they want the big manufacturers on board, or if they want to go alone.

The car manufacturers will stay in F1 and spend a lot of money, only if they can see an interest in it. If not, they will walk away.

A simpler, cheaper, noisier formula may be decided, but it will have to fight for itself, because there will be no funding from the car industry.

So, it's a choice between moving forwards, or going back to the 60s.

 

Maybe not good for the show, but you cannot blame the winner!!!

We had 4 years of Red Bull domination, remember, and 5 years of Ferrari dominance before.

F1 is not a handicap series where the successful is penalised; the others have to catch up.

Ferrari is doing that this year, it seems.

 

Can't be bothered going into all this AGAIN with you, but to put it very short;

Ferrari/Red Bull domination it was all more equal, they where the best because they build the best car and the rules didn't block others from challenging.

With Mercedes they did.

 

But the theory behind the rules preventing car development was based on the idea that all of the cars would start off on a level playing field, and the rules would mean that no one team could develop a major advantage over their rivals.

The rules caused problems because Mercedes didn't build a car that was the equal to all of it's rivals - They started of with a car that had a big advantage over their rivals, and the other teams hands were tied.

Had the Mercedes car only been equal to everyone else's, and had not had any initial advantage, then the rules would have worked well, and chances are we'd all be raving about a Golden era of F1 racing where any team had a chance of winning.

Instead, we ended up with a Mercedes two horse race for a couple of seasons.

 

IIRC it was Mercedes who pushed for this rule, obviously all Mercedes running teams went along with the vote, and the FIA went with it because, well, money reasons...Mercedes had a great working concept, completed far ahead of anyone else who where still arguing about whether to have I4's, V6 or V8s...which ever engine configuration they went with, Mercedes had the important bits already there.

How anyone thought that introducing engines of such complexity, then locking them after 2 weeks of actual testing, was reasonable...was beyond me. What's even crazier was not acknowledging the mistake they made and let this party continue for 2 bloody years before actually doing something about it. Engines with such a huge performance disparity, who thought that would be wise to let continue for so long? Meanwhile whilst Mercedes was learning everything about their engine running more performance than the rest, the rest had to catch up to Mercedes level of performance...but Mercedes was already so far ahead that they knew how to get even more performance, and so on.

Because testing wasn't allowed, and the time it took to even debate the stupid token system (which still had a massive Mercedes advantage), it basically handed Mercedes everything they wanted on a platter. Merc cried that they'd walk away from the sport if these silly engines weren't introduced in the first place, saying it would bring relevancy to road cars and that it would be much cheaper. Nothing was further from the truth. It suited Renault just fine, they only deal with small engines anyhow. It was a ****show from the get go.

 

Maybe it's worth reminding you that ALL the engine manufacturers agreed to these rules, which ended being a compromise between different proposals.

Here again, ALL the engine builders entered the new formula KNOWING all the development restrictions. F1 isn't a Mercedes dictatorship.

The way you are presenting it, it's like if Mercedes decides the rules alone, and dictate what goes on in F1. These rules were decided after the main protagonists were consulted, and they agreed to operate within these regulations: tokens and so on ...

So, I think it's just sour grapes from some to blame Mercedes because they probably invested more, and were quicker to tackle the complexity of the hybrid formula. Mercedes created their own advantage, nobody handed it to them on a plate. Credit to them.

But again, teams, engine builders enter a formula, this one or the next one, with their eyes wide open. Some will be better than others, obviously. If anyone knows from the outset that it cannot deliver, they better pull away and do something else. F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle, not a charity fair.

 

I'm pretty sure that in 2013 it was still discussed that engines would be free and then from 2015 onwards less and less would be allowed to change. Then the reports of Mercedes being 100bhp more powerful came out and the no development rules enforced...

I do distinctly remember F1 having an emergency meeting at some point during the 2014 season to discuss teams allowing to modify their engines in attempt to close the gap. Mercedes was the only team that didn't allow this, offering some sort of bull**** compromise.

How can F1 be the pinnacle if they don't allow 60% of the teams to race for the win, by not allowing them to attempt to close the gap engine wise?

 

I can hardly believe that the other engine builders got "bullied" by Mercedes. in accepting restrictive rules. That's basically what you are saying.
But the token system and the limit of engine numbers are wrong, I agree with that. Never such a system should be accepted again. I hope the teams and the FIA have learnt their lesson.

As for performance, Renault won 3 GPs in the first year of the hybrid formula.
Ferrari won 3 GPs during the second season, and Renault 2 again in the 3rd season.
To me that's proof that they are not far behind.

I think the token and engine number limit has been an excuse. Just look at Honda, in despair they completely ignored all these clauses, developed as needed, changed engines as often as necessary, and incurred massive grid penalties doing so, but they are still lagging miles behind the others. So it's not a question of not being allowed to develop; even when they do, they cannot catch up! This excuse has been used for too long!

 

None of the Renault races where won on merit, what are you on about?! They only won them because Mercedes crashed into each other and had other issues in Canada.

If you think Ferrari/Renault hasn't been far behind engine wise up until now you're delusional.

I don't care about who builds better chassis/aero...if you gain your advantage there it's all fair game IMO since there's no restrictions on that. Bravo. That's why I never had much issue with RBR dominating, they even managed to do so with the weaker engine! NOTHING stopped Ferrari/Mclaren/Mercedes from building a better car.

You can't deny that with the engine freeze and then the dumb token system, which if they spend tokens and the upgrade wouldn't work, they couldn't go back to the old system and try again, was sporting, or fair. It was bull****. Always was, always will be. All other teams where stopped from competing fairly.

 

Nailed it.

 

You cannot be serious. That's like saying a horse drawn carriage isn't that far behind a Ferrari because the carriage won a race after the Ferrari broke down.

Seriously were you in a coma for 2014-2016?

 

I'm sure you just caused Ricciardo's smile to disappear with that one! I still think he believes he outraced everyone.

 

I do agree it's a stupid system. From an engineering point of view, it doesn't make sense to restrict development work on any machinery, nor to be able to test it prior to its use.
I fully agree with that bit.

For example, the success of Porsche in endurance is the result of their philosophy that competition is the extension of their the Research and Development department. When they are involved in a series, they test all the time. The success of Schumacher at Ferrari was the result of hundreds of hours of testing a Fiorano.

Where I don't follow you, however, is that you present this hybrid formula and its rules as a wicked plot between Mercedes and the FIA to deny any chance of improving to their competitors, namely Ferrari, Renault and Honda.

It's nothing of the sort. These companies were consulted, participated in drawing the rules, approved of them and more or less took the undertaking to support the formula up to 2020.
It's not exactly as if they were ransomed at gun point, to sign on the doted lines. They accepted the rules!!

Beside, these 3 other engine builders are all backed by large industrial companies, with huge resources, large budgets and a big pool of engineering talent. What's gone wrong then?

Have they underestimated the challenge, or overestimated their capabilities, I don't know.
The best we can ask is that never such restrictive set of rules is introduced again.

 

A win is a win!!

Obviously if better cars and faster drivers fall by the way side, you win if you are the best placed to inherit the lead. If the Mercedes trip on each other, nobody should feel sorry for that!!

Do you think Ricciardo, Vettel and Vestappen should not have enjoyed their victories?