Competitive Grids in F1

Why not just add weight to the fast cars like they do in horse racing ? (SIC)

Your whole idea will be under great scrutiny once the sandbagging gets underway: if I practice one second faster than everyone else, then it behooves me to qualify 'bad', start 10th, and dial that 1 second back in.

I just find it real hard to penalize someone for doing their homework and building a great TEAM, and I don't mean the two dominant teams that we speak most of today, there was a time when Williams was tops, and McLaren, and Brabham, and Bennetton, and Lotus, being 'fast' goes in cycles, it will cycle around in about 2 years. IMO, Ferrari SHOULD have been dominant in the 80's, but didn't have the TEAM to make them great, even though the cars and most of the drivers were bloody fast, like the fast Renault Turbos of the 80's, they generally were not around at the end, or were not engineered like they are today.

 

A formula that penalise successful teams/cars/drivers is a non starter.

We shouldn't handicap those who perform well, but eliminate those who don't.

We should cut the 'dead wood' and have less Midland, Aguri (Super?), Torro Rosso on the grid and a third car from Renault, Ferrari, McLaren & Honda.

 

A1 GP "long race" has the sprint winner at the end of the grid as I recall.

I agree with William on "cutting dead wood" - get the Aguri, Midland type teams out and replace with the more successful teams - ProDrive (thank goodness Dave will be back in soon), the UK team (name is on the tip of my tongue - help William - I think he may have made application for F1).

They already add weight to cars performing well in other series. Corvette has had it added, Aston, Audi in Portland.

Carol

 

Hungary was a fluke. If it hadn't rained MS and FA would have been stuck in the mid pack. Considering there haven't been that many rain races lately (global warming?) it would mean you penalise the front runners way too much.
I hate race series where the competition is manipulated by adding weight (which is basicaly the same thing). The other teams/drivers should improve in order to beat their opponents, not the other way around.

There was much passing because the weather conditions meant that there were big differences between cars, drivers, tires. Not because the front runners were starting from behind.

Best, Peter

 

With 20 cars and about 20 races why not have a rotation system whereby each car starts each race in a different place on the grid. No penalising, fair racing and it would help the best overtaking cars/drivers prosper.

Isn't it the case that the sport needs fast drivers who are the best at overtaking? Then why not reward them?

 

The only issue right now is that qualifying speed is equvalent to race pace. That's due to the fuel restrictions in place during qualifying. Keep the current format, but let the teams change their fuel load and aero after the qualifying. You'll see some shuffling at the front of the pack, and there will be overtaking as the two and three stoppers try to get around the one stoppers.

and

reduce aero
remove traction control
bring back clutches and manual shifters

 

I think it is the NASCAR Busch Clash, or one of the other non-points NASCAR events, where the fans actually pick the starting order. The 10 fastest starters may be inverted, or maybe only the first 6, etc. It makes for exciting racing. The drivers do not know the way they line-up until just before the cars are grided. Sand-bagging is eliminated, because there is an equal chance that a regular grid would be chosen, fast cars at the front.

Will this work in F1? Only if they eliminated all the venues where passing was a problem, which is at least 50% of the current circuits, and certain drivers were forced to make their cars slightly narrower. Otherwise there is a safety issue, fast cars and anxious drivers trying to overtake even a slightly slower car, with open wheels, this makes for a bad combination. It works in NASCAR because most tracks allow for passing and slip streaming.

So as much as Hungary was entertaining, I do not think it feasible to invert the grid in any way in F1. Without the rain, you would not have seen the passing that became so abundant yesterday.

I do like the idea of going back to manual shifting, and anything that places more emphasis on the driver.

 

I can't see what they should do that. I mean your average car in the street got all that - and more! F1 is supposed to be the 'pinacle of motor sport' after all, not a wheelbarrows race. Even 'budget cars' now have traction control, ABS and autoboxes! If you spend a bit more (quite a lot actually!), you can buy paddle shift, carbon brakes, even ceramic brakes, plus plenty of other gizmos. I don't think that F1 should go backwards and try to re-invent the wheel.

I agree that the aerodynamics are getting out of hand with all these wings, spoilers, winglets, etc... and that too much of the cost of building and running a F1 is spent on research in the wind tunnel. By reducing the wings size, the car width and the tyres width, that should provide more speed difference between straightline and cornering, and provide more overtaking opportunities ( and sort out the men from the boys!).

I have an issue with the pit stops. Grand Prix started to deteriorate, in my view, when they became common place; Nelson Piquet and Brabham started to use them when they saw the loopoles in regulations many years ago, and everybody copied. Before that, every car could run full distance with a tank of fuel and one set of tyres. Now a GP is a series of 3 or 4 sprints, with competitors re-starting with a low fuel load and fresh tyres. Too often the result is dictated by the tactics used for pit stops. I don't want to see a 'mechanics championship', but a drivers championship.

A pit stop in a GP should be an 'accident' and should be penalised by a minimum standstill time of, say 15 secondes. I would try to eliminate them, just keep them for safety reasons (punctures, delamination, suspension checks, etc...) but forbid refuelling altogether.

I am completely opposed to engine restriction. I advocate no rev limit, complete freedom of design, even free engine size. Each engine designer would soon determine the optimum parameters he feels comfortable with. Some would go for, let's say, a very torquey slow revving 8-liter V8 atmospheric, and 900 hp, burning fuel at the rate of 6 mpg, other would adopt a 1500cc 16-cylinder with 4 turbos screaming at 20,000 rpm giving maybe 1200 hp but with only a 4 mpg figure.
The type of engine you would use would be your choice, BUT you must carry the fuel for the race, all of it! The penalty would come in the excess of your choice!
The power would be soon curtailled by what configuration is most beneficial to you: do you want to carry an enormous amount of weight, shread you tyres in 10 laps, or be more economical and maintain power within reasonable limits not to overload your car and still being competitive; do you want to operate a 'simple' engine, cheap to built, maintain and repair, or do you want precision 'clockwork' engineering, expensive to build and complex to maintain.

 

I agree with many of the comments already posted, F1 needs to do something about getting the cars to pass each other on the track, the Hungarian race with MS and FA battling for position over the first few laps was the most exciting race I've seen. I know they can't just have sprinklers for the track at each race, but something needs to change hopefully the FIA will realize that.

 

Well how about having lots of oval races, and lengthening the races to about 500 miles so as to test the limits of the car's reliability in the long run, also removing all power restrictions especially on oval tracks and letting the cars go as fast as they can as long as this does not lead to too many teams going bankrupt, and going back to slick non grooved tyres for dry weather races, also going back to the old 10, 6, 4, 3, 2, and 1 system may be a good idea, and also going back a a qualifying format where all of the drivers get 6 laps to qualify and anyone outside 107 per cent of the pole leader's is disqualified, basically my suggestion is to go back to the state of rules before 1999, and the addition of lots of oval races where overtaking is very easy, perhaps amounting to one third to one half of all the races, imagine F1 cars racing in Pocono!

 

This entire discussion is ridiculous. Hell, why not just turn F1 into a spec car series?!? Why not rotate drivers from team to team? What other hare-brained ideas can we come up with?

You want to see lots of passing and mixed up grids, then go watch the IRL or NASCAR. If you want to see the most technologically advanced race cars on the planet, then watch F1. F1 isn't about crowd entertainment, it is about engineering and driving excellence. The guy on pole is the driver who deserves to be there, not the winner of a lottery. I want to see all-out racing excellence and that means from top to bottom, I want to see the engineers come out with new ideas that push the design envelope, I want to see kamikazee laps in the last minutes of qualifying.

I don't want to see Kubica on the pole and Raikkenen at the tail end of the pack becuase that's how their lottery numbers came out. That turns F1 into a farce.

 

I agree with that twk63.
Unfortunately, these days, every sport is supposed to be entertaining to attact the public, the sponsors, the TV producers, the advertisers and so on.

In recent years, the FIA has been trying to make F1 more 'equal', more thrilling, but in fact most of the interventions or new rules have been detrimental to the sport - maybe I'm old-fashion, in my book, it's still a sport.

F1 has never been a level playing field, there has always been teams or drivers that have dominated their era. Now, they want to give a chance to everyone, penalising the successful ones and dragging up the incompetents.

Take that business of limiting costs; plainly ridiculous. There will always be well funded teams and poor ones. It's a choice: F1 is expensive, if you can't afford it, don't get in it and chose a lower formula. In future, rich manufacturers will have to 'subsidise' poorer independant teams. What a farce; it's communism through the back door!

Also, why limit technology, why impose tyres, why freeze engine development? It's the essence itself of F1, otherwise run IRL, Champcar, GP2, A1 and so on!

 

I disagree totally.

Where would drivers get F1 experience ?

Do you know how many great drivers got their starts in POS cars ?

For all intents and purposes, Ferrari was a POS until MS and Ross Brawn got there, and it turned around.

Besides, I think teams CAN have 3 cars if they wanted, unless the rules have changed, but I remember Williams having 3 cars in some races back in the 80's. The question is, can they afford it, because I think they would have to run 3 cars all season nowadays, not just at select events. Else someone like Renault would start 6 or 8 cars in the last race(s) to try and 'protect' their driver and the points lead.

As far as cars today being equal - if we painted ALL cars white and used the SAME number font (but used different numbers like #50 on up) could you tell which cars are which with no mistakes ? I couldn't. They all look the same to me.

 

Formula One IS on it's way to becoming a spec series with the single tire manufacturer and associated tire use/number allotted per race regulations; engine freeze, etc. Sorry to burst your bubble but F1 is rapidly becoming the lesser technologically advanced race cars on the planet. It is losing engineering and driving excellence and it's definitely crowd enterntainment with the Bernie/Max show with an enormous expenditure of funds.

I have seen many ALMS races where the driving excellence is superior to that found in F1. The last hurrah for the R8 in Lime Rock and some of Allan's passing on an extremely narrow circuit definitely rates above "driving excellence" in F1.

Carol

 

I'm with Tillman. Remove traction control. Two reasons.
1) Look at Hungary. The wet racing surface overwhelmed the electronics and drivers had to drive. Best race since Brazil 2003. Remove traction control and every race gets a little slippery without sprinklers.
2) The most glorious sounding engine ever approaches a turn. Brake, turn in, accelerate out, revs climb to 15K, and BAAAAAA. Traction control. You just threw water on half the reason I go to a race. Sounds.

The next equalizer would be wider corners and corner entries.

 

You need to be able to enforce it though. Not an easy thing to do given the advantage it provides (motivation to cheat) and the budgets/ technical proficiency of the teams. TC is in F1 for this reason alone. Basically, the FIA succumbed b/c they simply could not enforce its illegality.

 

If that were true, then the racing would be much closer. I will wager any amount you wish on the outcome of the remaining season. I will take Renault and Ferrari, you can have the rest of the field. What do you say? $10 thousand per race?

I agree that an engine freeze would be terrible for the sport but it is still a very long way towards a spec series. I couldn't help but notice the difference in top end speed between the Ferrari and Mercedes engines, despite the fact that both are built to the same formula. That won't change under a development freeze. Tires do make a difference but I don't see any of the other Bridgestone teams keeping up with Ferrari.

 

Anyone remember Michael Schumacher's infamous option 13 in his Benetton?

It was a secret launch control option in his engine management system after traction control was banned. Just another example of how Ross Brawn and MS don't think the rules apply to them...