Ecclestone to propose V10 comeback

Whoever can put the genie back in the bottle?

You cannot deprive F1 from the technology already found in a street car, or it becomes laughable.

 

If the performance was the same it would be boring. What we want are very different solution with different strengths and weaknesses. That is when you have great competition. Get rid of all the rules, encourage many paths. Let engineers be creative. Then it will no longer be about who spends the most, it will be about who is smartest. What chance is there in the current rule fest for a garragista?

According to Bernie by obtaining extra information and input with the FiA.

There is no comparison to Red Bull success. Mercedes has legislation protecting their advantage. During Red Bull's success every other team could bring all new aero parts every race, they could rebuild and redesign all parts every race. They could retest a whole new chassis every race. It is misleading in the utmost to somehow equate the legislated advantage Mercedes is granted to the constant improvement red bull engineered every race every year when the chasing teams could redesign from the ground up whenever they wanted.

With the mountain of regulations almost all creativity, along with any chance of different solutions, has been snuffed out before pen is picked up. The only creativity now is from the legal beagles finding loopholes.

 

+1

 

So you think that F1 shouldn't be about the drivers talent, but it should be totally about the engineers talent? - i.e, if you have the right car, engineered by the right people then you can win races and the Championship regardless of whether you're the most talented driver on the grid?

Fact of the matter is, the closest racing is achieved when all of the cars are equally matched.

No one has a car advantage to run away with races and the Championship, all of the drivers have to rely on their natural talent/abilty to win. That is the principal of what the FIAis trying to achieve with all of their rules and regulations, to try to create a level playing field where the car is less important than the driver.

And you believe Bernie? - Oh dear!

Here's a bit of advice: If you believe 1% of anything Bernie Ecclestone says then you've believed 1% more than you should have done!

Both teams gained their advantages through clever design/engineering/interpretation of the rules.

All of the teams worked to the same rules and regulations and in both cases, Red Bull and Mercedes did the best engineering job at the time.

As you say, all of Red Bulls rivals were pretty much free to redesign they're cars as much as they liked, and yet none of them truly matched Red Bull for 4 years!

The legislation in place today was not designed to protect Mercedes' advantage, in fact the FIA are currently regretting that it has worked out that way!

The original principal of the legislation was based on the theory that all of the teams would start off with a very similar performance level and the rules/regulations would ensure that no one team would be able to modify their car to gain a big advantage. That should have meant that the Championship would be more about the drivers talent/ability than whether they were driving the best car.

Unfortunately for the FIA (and for F1 racing!), Mercedes came out with a car that had a massive advantage from the start and the rules/regulations prevented anyone from catching up with that advantage.

Really?

Mercedes have shown no creativity or "different solutions" to gain it's advantage? - I beg to differ! Their power-unit layout shows a great deal of creativity and clever engineering!

What the mountain of regulations has done, is to have made it harder for teams to come up with major advantages that cost other teams a fortune to try and match to remain competitive (Think double diffusers and F-ducts!).

As I have previously posted, the biggest reason we have all of the rules and regulations is because:

1) It's to try and create a level playing field so that the Championship becomes a drivers Championship rather than an Engineers Championship.

2) Because the teams just cannot be trusted to be left to their own devices.

 

But without all these rules and regulations it evens itself out quicker and remember it is SUPPOSED to be a sport so the fact that Team A comes up with a great idea and Team B then copies it and it costs them less should not be an issue.

Back in the days of Colin Chapman and his brilliant ideas, other teams copied them and sometimes did them better and Lotus then copied their improvements and so it went on.

Again I say, there is NO place for intellectual protection in motorsport. Once you hit the track with an idea, it SHOULD be free to be copied by everybody. This is how we got to where we are nowadays and we are seeing the cost of patents and intellectural BS now.

Colin Chapman did not cry like a baby when Williams copied his ground affects idea and did it better, he just knuckled down and came up with another idea.
Pete

 

F1 isn't supposed to be a spec series.

This is a silly statement. No matter how much anyone rightfully dislike the little troll, he is probably the person who really knows most about what's going on in F1. I note also that Mercedes didn't deny what he revealed.

So we can agree that Mercedes, (with whatever advantage they gained from additional FiA access) earned their position and win in Melbourne in 2014. Everything else has been greatly aided by the rules. The rules that are clearly a bad idea and against the best interests of F1. To Mercedes shame, the bad rules that kill competition that Mercedes fight tooth and nail to keep. Clearly hollow wins that destroy the sport are more important to the team than winning on an even playing field.

Mercedes did a great job and earned their win in Melbourne in 2014. From 2010-2013 Red Bull did a great job every race and earned their titles on an even playing field.
If you love the mountain of rules and current F1 we have then you are in the minority. The tide of viewers and fans switching off shouldn't be ignored.
As to how creative Mercedes has been, well, I'm on record already starting I actually think their version of split turbo isn't that good. I actually think Ferrari has the best ICE on the block and are catching up on the hybrid garbage
It will be embarrassing in the extreme for Mercedes if, with all the legislation protecting them, and all the advanced knowledge and FiA input, that their advantage evaporates as soon as this year.

 

+1

We are? Links please..... [IIRC, there's been a few patents on brakes & some of the ER stuff, but nothing that stops the others guys copying it in F1(?)]

Trouble with patents is, of course, that you've got to tell everyone what it is you're doing..... Don't patent it, & you can keep it 'quiet'......

+1

It's very early days yet, but I'm actually getting to like the little I know of Marlboro Man. You gotta knuckle down, as you say.....

Cheers,
Ian

 

I though that was 75% of the issue with the McLaren-gate?

I also thought that is why the teams voted on this limited changes per season. It surely would not have been to save money, because it doesn't, but it very much does restrict copying ...
Pete

 

Why? Street cars have TC and ABS, F1 cars don't. Let me know when a street car is faster around a track than a F1 car. THEN it would be laughable.

 

Nah - Not patents, but rather 'intellectual property' that they shouldn't have had in their possession.

Firstly, I think we know 'F1' & 'saving money' is an oxymoron.

However, I don't follow you in that it restricts copying? How?

Cheers,
Iam

 

Well IM admittedly contraversal O there should not be such a thing as 'intellectual property' in motorsport. The sport is founded on copying. McLaren thanks to a disgruntled Ferrari employee just did it better

It would not surprise me one bit if you did a search of every teams computers that they all had the designs of the other teams.

Agree.

Because it limits the changes to can make. To copy somebody elses idea, you have to make changes to your own, therefore you need to submit your valuable token(s). In the old days you would have just made the change and seen if it worked in either testing or a race. Now you have to weigh up whether copying that change is really worth the token investment.
Pete

 

You are joking right? I was mentioning the TECHNOLGY and never imagined pitching a Prius against a F1 car!

I said that F1 cannot be deprived of the technology already seen in street cars, such as power steering, assisted braking, automatic gear-change, ABS, TC, composite structure, energy recovery, hybrid power, etc.. it it wants to stay the pinacle of motorsport.

It's had to understand why some technical improvement have been deliberately banned in F1 for so long, by backwards-thinking FIA rulemakers. One wonders why they did it. F1 is supposed to be the most ADVANCED form of motorsport.

 

+1
Pete

 

Tell that to Nascar fans

 

But not for its own sake.
F1 is about finding the best way to be fastest. Mandating technology ruins that.

 

Mandating? No.

But allowing instead of banning.

Apart from safety features, designers should be allowed to design their cars with the mimimum of technical requirements and to choose the solutions they see best.

If the majority adopts more or less the same solutions, so be it. The rules shouldn't prevent any engineers to go off the beaten track and try something different.

The comparison with the WEC may not please some, but here, engine type, size and induction are free, so is the ERS system and the location of engine and ancillaries. All the cars have to do is to satisfy some structure requirements.
Now THAT I call the pinacle of motor racing!

 

Many motor racing series have fallen into the trap of correctly believing if all the cars are very close in performance the racing is better.

But creating a spec series is not the way to do this AND what does happen when all the cars are too similar is that passing becomes near impossible.

What the series organisers need to do is sit back and allow the teams/engineers to be creative. Sure some years we will have Mercedes like domination but because teams/engineers are free to be creative they will copy if they think it is a good idea or come up with something better and over time you will have evening out of performance AND most importantly passing will be enabled because the different solutions to the same problem (of the fastest lap time) will mean different cars have advantages on different parts of the circuit.

I say again Bernie has fncked F1. He started this meddling with the rules to make the racing "artificially" better to improve his TV profits. Yes he started televising F1, but after that his greed got the better of him and since then he has been a major detriment to the "sport". He should have been remove over 20 years ago but the other people involved were making too much money and suffered short sightedness.

Jean Todt is also proving to be complete useless IMO ...
Pete

 

Bernie should never have been let to influence the technical rules around F1.

As for Todt, he may not make much noise, in contrast with Mosley, but acts behind the scene in a very malicious way, it seems.

 

Todt would make Napoleon proud. Too many similarities; height, nationality, beautiful women. Same end? Maybe he shouldn't have taken F1 to Russia.

 

Specs series are destroying motor racing. It is as simple as that!

In F3, GP3, F2 (when it existed), GP2, Indy, and many formulae, the adoption of specs series has meant the end of design teams, the closure of engineering companies and the loss of thousands of jobs.

Specs series in fact give monopoly to one manufacturer for many years, based on spurious cost calculations that never reflect the truth. Specs series thwart engineering development and allow one manufacturer to exploit customers.

The loss of many companies like Lola, Reynard, March is the result of introducing specs series in many categories below F1.

 

And why not ?

 

Todt's biggest effect on F1 is what he hasn't done.

 

Good point. I had never joined those dots. Thanks
Pete

 

True, but the series appears to be helmless ... IMO the teams should not control the rules of F1, the FIA should.
Pete

 

After Max and Balestre the idea of a strong FIA scared people. Who knew that a weak FIA would do more harm.