Are the penalties spoiling it now

[Adrian W]

Surely it's starting to get silly, how many cars starting tomorrow demoted by penalties

[007 VXR]

OTT IMHO

[The devil]

Ummmm

YES

[London424]

The teams know the rules. McLaren is just a tactical thing so they don't (or shouldn't) have to take any more engine penalties this season. And let's be honest, they've been pushed behind the Manors only, not like they are qualifying up front and being demoted is it?

[Drive Blind]

quote from The Guardian. McLarens grid penalty this weekend was 105 places

The Guardian said:

Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso took a combined 55-place grid penalty before the weekend had even begun as Honda brought a full set of upgraded engines and components to Spa. Indeed, having taken these hits, and with the additional race penalties now abolished, the team made the best of the loophole and went on to fit another new engine and ERS components to both cars on Saturday, taking the penalty total to 105 places. That means they have one barely used power unit in play that can be fitted in the future without incurring new-engine penalties.

[Jasandjules]

It is a tough call. On the one hand they apply to all (well, sometimes, we won't talk about Lewis having a Spa win taken away) so everyone in the sport knows the penalties and the regulations. And it is in theory (at least the engine ones) about reducing the costs to make that fairer for smaller teams (it isn't working but hey ho)...

But on the other hand a driver can be penalised too often for mechanical issues... IMHO the penalty for that should be applied to the team whereas a driver error such as speeding in the pit lane or dangerous crashing (no Pastor, I am in no way looking at you there fella) should be a sanction against the driver and not the team.

[Adrian W]

Maybe a fairer way to do it would be based on the development cycle, say in the first year less severe penalties, this would overcome testing ban.

[007 VXR]

Agree with both the last 2 post IMHO

[DeltonaS]

Adrian W said:

Surely it's starting to get silly, how many cars starting tomorrow demoted by penalties

It does, the penalties miss their intended aim...

[Impasse]

Wasn't Pastor's pit lane speeding caused by a tech issue which wasn't discovered until after the race? Who gets the penalty for that? Somewhat pointless to retrospectively fine Lotus, but Pastor's race was done for.

[mollytherocker]

Whilst these penalties may be well intended, they are contributing to the slow death of F1.

[Mr_Thyroid]

It's not affecting the championship race so arguably it's mixing up the grids a little. But it was disappointing not to see what Max could do and a shame that Romain will not start 4th.

The year the penalties ruined the championship was 2005. Should've been an epic battle between Kimi and Fernando but McLaren kept getting grid penalties.

[SeeFive]

This whole farce around engine/gearbox etc cycles and penalties has no place in F1. It is not a green sport, and if teams cannot afford to be there, then so be it. Today's tech is the cost problem so regulate it out. In the 80s we had no such tech or need for rules, but we had lots of teams (manufacturer and private) and pre-qualifying to get rid of a few cars before qually proper started. So in those days, it was a comparatively low tech, low cost sport, and pretty fking quick and exciting too with drivers making the difference. If we need to use tech, use it on safety.

We need to rewind very hard. Get rid of electronics. Get rid of aero (yes difficult but start by chopping the wings off and bringing ground effect back). Get rid of auto gearboxes / driver aids and get the third pedal back and use it at the start. Build the car to a fairly open blue book, loads of power potential, useless but robust and consistent tyres with lots of choice and no mandated fking around with "you must use at least 2 compounds and no more" bks, and get the driver in it with no radio, just a pit board, a st load of fuel and let him drive the wheels off it using a gearstick and a rev counter rather then fking "change up moron" lights, limiters and flappy freaking paddles.

Open the testing window as wide as it will go and stop giving Ferrari all the fking money.

Then we just may have some fun again.

Edited by SeeFive on Sunday 23 August 02:56

[rdjohn]

Having the Manor chicane, midfield at the start introduces a pretty obvious risk.

I just hope that the penalised drivers respect their right to race to the first corner, but it does have the potential to be calamitous.

[Adrian W]

rdjohn said:

Having the Manor chicane, midfield at the start introduces a pretty obvious risk.

I just hope that the penalised drivers respect their right to race to the first corner, but it does have the potential to be calamitous.

You're right, they couldn't have picked a worse circuit to create this mess

[Some Gump]

rdjohn said:

Having the Manor chicane, midfield at the start introduces a pretty obvious risk.

I just hope that the penalised drivers respect their right to race to the first corner, but it does have the potential to be calamitous.

Well, pastor and romain are on the grid. The first corner by definition has a risk of calamity..

[Ahonen]

SeeFive said:

...and a rev counter rather then fking "change up moron" lights...

Almost every racing car has shift lights, even at club level. And all petrol engines have rev limiters.

The rest of your moan was amusingly generic.

[SeeFive]

PW said:

You you you you you. Don't drag the rest of us into your fantasy.

Rest of us? Pot/kettle...

In my defence, I was quite plastered. . I am more embarrassed about the swear filter elements than your correction to my clearly overruled assumption that people in the F1 forum feel that the current engine regs are ruining the spectacle, and turning it into some alternative endurance sport.

Comparing f1 engines with endurance engines is not really justified IMHO. The design constraints were always different, and still should be if F1 is truly going to be the top single seater sprint (for want of a different word) formulae. There are probably a few people on here, myself (here I go again) included that can remember when F1 engines were designed to be as quick as possible given that they only needed to last a qually session, or a GP length depending on the purpose. Those were the days when they went well, sounded great, but sadly grenaded quite frequently towards the end of a race - sometimes on the lap after the flag (top design, bang on tolerance). Endurance cars of the day were not designed to the same constraints simply because f1 had a very different purpose to Enduracing racing, and still should.

Look at today's race. They were stated in the commentary to be 8 seconds off pole time at the beginning of the race. I haven't bothered to look at the lap times as fuel loads decreased, and appreciate that there are other factors than just engine conservation included in that dire statistic, but F1 is no longer the outright test of speed over 200 miles that it was, and engine usage constraints are a major factor IMHO (other opinions are available, as I am sure will be pointed out of course).

And yes, I am aware of rev limiters in the sport. I am also aware of a time when there was no need for a mobile disco on the steering wheel too. The only lights I wanted on my car at club level was a large yellow charging fault light, and en even bigger, brighter red one for low oil pressure. The rest of it would be my problem, you know, compromising gear ratios (bottom gear to get off the line or round the slowest bend, top gear to hit maximum revs on the longest straight, and the rest spaced appropriately keeping the car in the power band as often as possible on changing) and common driving challenges such as changing gear with a little rod with a ball on the end and moving the front wheels to different angles without power assistance to go round bends etc.

The inability for the driver to change the settings of the car apart from brake balance didn't need all that crap on the steering wheel, and the underlying technology to support it. It was a driver / engineer challenge to get the best compromise possible for a specific circuit before the race started, one of the arts of understanding race driving and feeding back to your engineer if I remeber it right.

As much as I hate getting older and slower, I am glad I was around motor sport when I was. And that is not said through a rose tinted visor.

[London424]

PW said:

SeeFive said:

Comparing f1 engines with endurance engines is not really justified IMHO.

It is in the context of the thread, which is about penalties.

People are complaining about grid penalties for replacing engine/gearbox components - I'm merely pointing out that it is physically possible to meet those requirements with LMP1 as an example. In fact 99.9% of car engines produced are capable of running for more than 30hrs.

Clearly the teams in F1 believe that it is better for them to build more powerful engines that are more unreliable and risk those penalties.

The issue in with rules in F1 is not that they exist, because they have to, but that teams have almost no intention of upholding them, so there will always be penalties handed out.

Pointless to navel gaze about what the rules on engine life used to be, or what we you think they should be - it's not relevant to the topic.

Mercedes seem to be doing fine within the rules, and I think all of their customers. Seems like the teams that have done a poor job are being penalised. Tough.

[heebeegeetee]

SeeFive said:

This whole farce around engine/gearbox etc cycles and penalties has no place in F1. It is not a green sport, and if teams cannot afford to be there, then so be it. Today's tech is the cost problem so regulate it out. In the 80s we had no such tech or need for rules, but we had lots of teams (manufacturer and private) and pre-qualifying to get rid of a few cars before qually proper started. So in those days, it was a comparatively low tech, low cost sport, and pretty fking quick and exciting too with drivers making the difference. If we need to use tech, use it on safety.

We need to rewind very hard. Get rid of electronics. Get rid of aero (yes difficult but start by chopping the wings off and bringing ground effect back). Get rid of auto gearboxes / driver aids and get the third pedal back and use it at the start. Build the car to a fairly open blue book, loads of power potential, useless but robust and consistent tyres with lots of choice and no mandated fking around with "you must use at least 2 compounds and no more" bks, and get the driver in it with no radio, just a pit board, a st load of fuel and let him drive the wheels off it using a gearstick and a rev counter rather then fking "change up moron" lights, limiters and flappy freaking paddles.

Open the testing window as wide as it will go and stop giving Ferrari all the fking money.

Then we just may have some fun again.

Edited by SeeFive on Sunday 23 August 02:56

The Goodwood Revival is an absolutely wonderful event, and indeed the Le Mans historic is too, and has much younger cars, resulting in some genuinely quick, fire-breathing monsters.

However, I want to see contemporary F1 bang up-to-date.