blame FIA

I fail to see a point to your thread.
Apart from the fact that you whinge that this season is not exciting for you enough.

This season is exciting for me. For once, Its not MS or Ferrari dominating. I watch each F1. I attending the Aussie GP, loved it. I wait intently for the next race, and i actually do care who drives what and for who next year.

Alonso may be out in front, but at least there is a chance for Kimi to come back. It makes it exciting for me, and i can assure millions of others.

Dont like F1, dont watch it. I think it's going forward in leaps and bounds.
Except maybe the tire rule, but hey, its more enjoyable to watch than it was years ago.

I think that you have to be a different type of person to enjoy F1 the way countless people enjoy. Like realising what consequence Kimi has if he retires from a race, and not looking at it like a mclaren quit, lets keep watching the race. I look at something like that happening, and i think, what consequence does that have for the season, who can advance where? What happens now? It not all about wheel to wheel stuff these days. F1 is dangerous enough, these guys are not stupid, going wheel to wheel lap after lap would easily result in a death..

Especiallly with JPM out there..

 

I agree with all you said Mike, but Remy does have a point. I actually read a similar comment from former F1 driver Marc Surer in a column in a Swiss Racing magazine. His comment was something like:

"MS run away with the title by winning everything and terminating the Championship battle prematurely (Hungary). So they changed the points system, so that the winner does no longer run away by giving the 2nd place only a 2 point difference. That would keep the season interesting.

However this very season this points system is preventing Kimi from catching up to Alonso now that Kimi keeps winning. All Alonso needs to do is drive his car home and the battle is won."

I'm not saying at all this season is boring, quite the opposite, one of the best in years. But it seems there is no good solution for a points system. Either way.

 

1) No one understands the rules:
Can you tell me which car has a fresh engine and which one is using an old one?
Even the most dedicated fan has troubles!

2) Extremely bad season for driver safety
Racers are escaping death and major injury as a result of Michelin producing faulty tires

3) The TEAM ORDERS and Favouritism at Renault is simply disgusting.
Even if Alonso wins it will be an empty championship.

4) Lack of enforcement of the tire rules regarding the condition of tires at the end of the race.

5) Lack of overtaking within the top 5.

6) Lack of leadership and mangemnet during the USGP!

Quite simply one of the worse F1 seasons in recent history. The FIA are to blame for much of this fiasco.

 

Would we still hear the same song from you if these were the current standings?

M. Schumacher 95, K.Räikkönen 71, F.Alonso 55
Ferrari 130, McLaren-Mercedes 121, Renault 86

 

You mean that despite the rules being changed again and again to hinder the progress Scuderia Ferrari had made, they are still on top in the championship!

The rules are designed such that all areas ONE team has made advances in and has a disticnt competitive advantage over other teams are eliminated. Yet that team according to your proposed scenario is on top. That has happened in 2002, 2003 and 2004 already!

 

You must be joking!!! TO exisits throughout F1, but no other team uses a fraction of the team orders/favoritism Ferrari does. Austria 2002? HELLO?? Nevermind the dozens of other blatant examples over decades of racing.

I personally have no problem with team orders, they are a fact of life and good strategy. But if you claim to have a problem with TO/favoritism, AND claim to like Ferrari, you are a hypocrite.

==========

To comment on the original thread, I think the 2 point gap between 1st and 2nd place is too small.

 

Agreed. It gives too less of an incentive to a driver to go for the win.

 

TEAM ORDERS were not banned in 2002. However, they are against the rules now. Renault are blatantly violating another rule. But the FIA does not care to enforce it.

I have always believed that F1 is a team sport. Ferrari have not violated the team orders rule since it has been adopted. Your arguement therefore holds no validity!

 

Its interesting how specific rules and regulations have changed and we can point to them and claim they are impacting the season. But the biggest impact IMO is from rules that haven't changed; ie. Ferrari, Jordan, Minardi can run their Bridgestones, and the rest can run Michelins. Clearly the two constants (Bridgestone and to a lesser degree Michelin) have been the biggest variables this season.

 

Not sure I agree. I think the big difference came because of the newly introduced test ban (which caused BS not to have enough data) and the newly introduced ban on changing tires.

But of course this is purely speculation. Also I still think other factors have played a major rule: McLaren and Renault have gotten better at what they're doing and Ferrari has been slacking. I think it is more than just the whole tire issue.

 

I'm not sure I understand the restriction that the testing ban provides. I mean, does the ban restrict them from running their cars at their home track (Mugello or Fiorano)?

That aside, with all the variables that come from having completely different teams drivers and cars running your tires, I'm not convinced its a total advantage to have multiple data pools such as what Michelin has. But what the heck do I know? I'm certainly not a tire guru.

 

Hmm, you have a point there. There was a lot of brouhaha about Ferrari violating the agreement on limited testing. So in the end I don't know whether they actually tested as much as they could or went along with the ban. Plus I'm confusing one issue with another: The ban on testing has nothing to do with Ferrari being the only real team left on Bridgestones. That just happened regardless of rule changes.

So as far as the rules are concerned the ban on changing tires probably hurt Ferrari the most of all the rule changes. But that "bet" could have gone the other way just as well. As it did in previous years.

 

True, they seem to have the greatest struggle going race distance on a single set.

 

Its easy to blame FIA as they are the rulemongers but the fact is that you put 10 F1 fans in a room and they would come up with 15 different ways by which F1 can be improved. Thus if FIA did nothing someone would be disappointed yet another happy. Plus the fans are just one of the stakeholders (albeit an important one) - you also have the teams, television advertising, corporates, manufacturers all of whom would like F1 to move in diametrically different directions.

One more important to note is that some of these FIA rules have come from the teams themselves as a voluntary means of taming burgeoning cost

The fact is change is inevitable in F1 - take the season you liked - 2000 - I mean who is to say 1997 wasnt better as the cars had slick tires then or some other season for whatever other reason. I think what made 2000 special to me was having two strong drivers compete in two relatively equal cars. I believe that made all the difference.

2005 would have been nearly the same if McLaren was more reliable. It is a fact that McLaren threw away certain victories. If Renault wins this way so be it.

I think I like this season nearly as much as 2003 or 2000 before it. I am praying something happens to Alonso's car in the next two races so that the gap narrows dramatically.

The way F1 is evolving it is basically favoring teams that build reliable fast cars and are able to rapidly build a car that suits the frequently changing rules to a T. The driver matter a lot lesser today than say 4 years back.

As for the 2.4 litre engine - remember when they went down from 3.5 litres to 3.0 litres - werent you disappointed then? I believe that F1 engineers will find a way get the 2.4 engine to be nearly as powerful as the outgoing 3 litre given a year or two.

Again to re-iterate my original point - all you need for a good season is at least two hungry drivers in two competitive cars - thats it!

 

The best set of points rules are the new NASCRAP ones. Think about it ; each team has Two opportunities to get its act togeather before the big finale. It involves an NFL, NBA, MLB, Etc run for a championship. It rewards developement and effort THIS year. The only problem is that there are so few cars on the grid presently and I believe a " playoff " series would get more involvement from new teams, like in days past.

 

Some of you might not remember, but a while ago, the points used to be nine points for first, six points for second, with the top six getting some points.

The argument was that a three point gap between first and second wasn't enough. So it became ten points for first, six for second.

I think it happened because a driver finished in the points often and took the championship with few actual wins -- but I didn't have race-by-race coverage at the time of the change, so I'm not sure of that.

Then, for 2003, they decided that they needed to get more points for the slower drivers -- after 2002, aka for drivers that weren't named Michael -- and stretched the points over eight places, because a four point gap between first and second were too much, when the same driver takes first most of the time.

So now Kimi can't close in on Alonso, despite having a faster car.

In aviation, this is called "pilot induced oscillations" -- where the pilot overcontrols and upsets the natural stability of the system.

Read that last sentence again: Control inputs upsetting the natural stability of the system by over control. Sound at all familiar?

FIA is trying to micro-manage "entertainment" into the series. But no team's success lasts forever. In the '80s, there were races were the two Williams cars were the only cars on the lead lap. See Williams in the last race? It's durn hard to stop a pendulum from swinging back -- and it's durn near impossible to speed it up.

However; "In order to finish first, you must first finish". A fast unreliable car against a slower reliable one should be a close one.

But if three points were too little gap, two are certainly too little.


But I keep hearing the whinging about "rising costs". Again: In an effort to focus on "entertainment", the cars have banned a lot of useful technology.

Racing is R&D: It's not what they spend -- it's what the manufacturers (this IS a manufacturers' series, remember) get for the money.

Pure carbon brakes: Useless on street machines - dump 'em. (Carbon ceramic, on the other hand ...) Pop-off valves (from the '80s): Name a production car that would use those. 300-400 F1 race miles on a set of race tires? Puhleese: My street tires wouldn't handle that. (Advans only get about 10K miles of street use)

Nitrogen pressure valves at 18000 RPM: Well, if they can make it cheap enough, you might see it in production.

Traction control: I'd rather see them have Michael and Kimi get the bugs out of it than put an untested system on my daily driver.

Etc: This is a manufacturer's series. But to FIA, it's pro wrestling: all about the "show".

 

You hit the nail on its head!

BTW: I truly believe that the FIA has neither a bias for nor against the Scuderia. But they do have a bias against domination. If McLaren or Renault will win the next four years in a row (or even less), the FIA will change the rules until that domination breaks and more PIOs will happen.

 

i have to say i am disapointed with the direction formula one is headed. the limitations are getting worse and worse. now we are going to have standard chassis brakes, tires, engines!!!

and dont get me wrong i absolutely love this sport but at this point in time we have teh abilty to have cars performing far far beyond wha we see on the track at the current time. And i, for one have always viewed F1 as the pinacle of driving skill and automotive technology and was the best harbouring ground in the world for emerging performance technology.

And with these new restrictions designed to elminate advantages between teams will bea the death of this sport. it is nice to have competition but it is entirely detrimental to the sport to stifle the development by limiting everything on the cars

 

Totally agree.

Pete

 

This years F1 season has been exciting for me.
It is a true live version of the classic story of the hare vs the tortoise.
Kimi with McLaren unquestionably is the fastest combo right now.
Even if he wins 10 out of the 19 races (he's got 5 out of 14), he may not have enough points to win the title.
Alonso and Renault still have to do their part and remain on course as the tortoise heads to the finish line at the end of the season to fully earn the win.

There are still 5 races left, Alonso has to stay above 4th place consistently to win the title. This is not an easy feat. He has had a DNF in Canada,
a DNF is US (which is insignificant), and 0 points in Hungary. He is fallible.

So many things can happen in 5 races. The season is far from over and
quite unpredictable. Has McLaren truly figured out a fast and reliable car?
If yes, then they deserve to get the Constructors title and maybe not the Driver's title.

More significantly, the championship is a race of a full season, not 3/4 of a season. The championship race starts from the very first race which Renault was ready for while McLaren was still tying their laces. F1 added more races to the season which makes their sport more entertaining.

The changes they have made has hurt Ferrari but has improved the sport overall. This season had a one step back, but it had a more significant leap of 3 steps forward.