I must admit that nowadays, I am more interested in the shenanigans, the gossips and the rumours than by the F1 races themselves. I much prefer watching GP2 for close racing; plus, you have less prima donas there too. I find the cars utterly ugly, the technology gone mad, and for me F1 is just a show business ran by engineers. It's hardly a fair drivers championship anymore. Nothing like what I used to enjoy more than 50 years ago.
It's all very well calling for the rule book to be scrapped, but then as soon as you relax the rules, every team left, right and centre (including Ferrari!), then starts accusing every other team of cheating or having an unfair advantage, and a spending war then starts as they all try to come up with new ideas and developments to outdo each other. The simple fact is, you can't trust the teams to be left to their own devices - History has shown us that!: Eject-able water bottles Lead shot in water to refill water tanks Flexi-wings Flexi-floors single wheel rear brakes Ride height adjusting levers To name but a few. It's because of the teams failing to play fairly and all of the complaints that come from it that has caused the sport to become so regulated!
Yup. Can't unlearn what has been learnt. It's quite simple to make F1 highly attractive again: Front wing without sixty elements. Reduce width. Venturi tunnels. Significant downforce added to the cars, clean aero so cars can follow, cars massively quick. Simplified rear wings (DRS unlikely to be needed, too!). Get rid of overcomplicated engines. F1 doesn't need the green element to it, the savings are minimal in any case since getting the whole show to the to the track uses so much more fuel anyhow. We have formula E for greenies, FIAWEC for manufacturers to show what they can do (+ the whole endurance thing is where we'd actually see the fuel savings and that bollocks). Leave F1 for going round as fast as possible and entertainment. Last but not least: don't ****ing lock designs before the season starts so there can only ever be 1 winner. FIA tried this and failed miserable in the last 2 years.
+1 Bas should be on the TWG! Aren't they currently at least discussing some very similar ideas? IIRC, "limiting" front wing complexity & venturi tunnels are on the table for 2017. Cheers, Ian
Looks like Bernie sees some of the problems too..... F1 Boss Bernie Ecclestone Says "Formula One Is Crap" ...of course, he still takes the money....
And still keeps putting the prices up for people to watch this "crap"! Bernie needs to be careful he doesn't do a "Ratner" when describing his product as being "crap!": ('Doing a Ratner' and other famous gaffes - Telegraph )