Ross Brawn suggests NASCAR-style open inspections for Formula 1 - F1 - Autosport This is a very interesting idea. Not that I'm a NASCRAP fan or follow anything to do with it, but I think open inspections would really help with the disparity between the front and the back of the grid. This would also be great for all the technical fan geeks to really see what's really inside of these cars.
Interesting maybe, but not really feasible, IMO. I cannot see the top teams giving away technical advantages to the "lesser teams", at no cost. Beside, whoever copy a design is initially late in adopting it, and needs resources to develop it.
Why bother spending 100s of millions if others can copy your homework? Rework the aero so that close following (<within 3 tenths) is possible, clean the aero as well so no spastic aero bits everywhere, job done. No need to have open inspections.
I like the idea, increases the appeal of the show for fans. And, like william said earlier, one thing is to understand/see the concepts. The stacks to make it work properly is another business...
Whenever I attended a CART race, especially at Road America, the first thing I would do is find the tech inspection lane. Great, great stuff. If the teams are truly interested in fan involvement, they would be all for it.
The fans interested in tech are few. Of those, the ones actually having a clue what they're looking at is absolutely marginal. - The open inspections are for teams, not fans. Brawn thinks the fans would benefit as teams know more about how others teams are doing things and can copy/improve on it, so cars would be closer together. THAT'S why he wants it, not so that fans can look at the cars, lol. It's the wrong way to go about it, and a pipe dream from Brawn as teams will NEVER agree to that.
