2026 regs may incorporate measures to handicap cars
Discussion
https://www.planetf1.com/news/f1-active-aerodynami...
For me this is completely against the ethos of F1.
I'm all for these sort of measures in series that have a stated aim of promoting close racing - things like BOP in GT racing and success ballast/hybrid malarkey in BTCC. The goal of these series is to keep the cars close, and these artificial measures help to achieve that.
However, F1 has historically been about designing the 'best' car within the regulations and then being faster than everyone else. I don't see how artificially hobbling the lead car fits in to that ethos. I could just about get my head around DRS (necessary evil) and the sliding scale of CFD/wind tunnel time (punishes success, but can be overcome with efficiency), but this to me feels like a step too far.
Or is this just Ross Brawn being mischievous on his way out the door and kicking the wasps nest for the lolz?
Thoughts?
For me this is completely against the ethos of F1.
I'm all for these sort of measures in series that have a stated aim of promoting close racing - things like BOP in GT racing and success ballast/hybrid malarkey in BTCC. The goal of these series is to keep the cars close, and these artificial measures help to achieve that.
However, F1 has historically been about designing the 'best' car within the regulations and then being faster than everyone else. I don't see how artificially hobbling the lead car fits in to that ethos. I could just about get my head around DRS (necessary evil) and the sliding scale of CFD/wind tunnel time (punishes success, but can be overcome with efficiency), but this to me feels like a step too far.
Or is this just Ross Brawn being mischievous on his way out the door and kicking the wasps nest for the lolz?
Thoughts?
I think that a point that is being missed in the whole of the "raceability" quest, which I applaud Brawn and all for, is that its about time that it could be a great idea to put racing over lap time.
Whilst the initiatives are already doing this to an extent, it's would be tough for F1 to give up it's USP of being the fastest road circuit racing series in the world in the interests of racing.
I'm sure there have been points in many recent seasons when we've all thought about how great it would be to see all the current F1 line up racing in identical F3 cars, or even better putting them into a grid of late 90s F3000 cars. The racing would be epic, but F1 would no longer be the pinnacle in terms of pace, technology and so forth.
Just bring grip levels down by 50%, and cap BHP to 500.
Whilst the initiatives are already doing this to an extent, it's would be tough for F1 to give up it's USP of being the fastest road circuit racing series in the world in the interests of racing.
I'm sure there have been points in many recent seasons when we've all thought about how great it would be to see all the current F1 line up racing in identical F3 cars, or even better putting them into a grid of late 90s F3000 cars. The racing would be epic, but F1 would no longer be the pinnacle in terms of pace, technology and so forth.
Just bring grip levels down by 50%, and cap BHP to 500.
Best driver in the best car romping off into the distance and gaps of significance between drivers for the remaining podium positions makes a bad race, regardless of how good the racing down the rest of the field is.
Put another way who genuinely enjoyed this year's Mexican GP or would argue F1 races were more entertaining post summer break than pre and should F1 tolerate those kinds of races/dominance?
Put another way who genuinely enjoyed this year's Mexican GP or would argue F1 races were more entertaining post summer break than pre and should F1 tolerate those kinds of races/dominance?
mat205125 said:
I think that a point that is being missed in the whole of the "raceability" quest, which I applaud Brawn and all for, is that its about time that it could be a great idea to put racing over lap time.
Whilst the initiatives are already doing this to an extent, it's would be tough for F1 to give up it's USP of being the fastest road circuit racing series in the world in the interests of racing.
I'm sure there have been points in many recent seasons when we've all thought about how great it would be to see all the current F1 line up racing in identical F3 cars, or even better putting them into a grid of late 90s F3000 cars. The racing would be epic, but F1 would no longer be the pinnacle in terms of pace, technology and so forth.
Just bring grip levels down by 50%, and cap BHP to 500.
Wasn’t that many years ago (i think in the grooved tyre era) when the gp2 cars were quicker than the F1 cars!Whilst the initiatives are already doing this to an extent, it's would be tough for F1 to give up it's USP of being the fastest road circuit racing series in the world in the interests of racing.
I'm sure there have been points in many recent seasons when we've all thought about how great it would be to see all the current F1 line up racing in identical F3 cars, or even better putting them into a grid of late 90s F3000 cars. The racing would be epic, but F1 would no longer be the pinnacle in terms of pace, technology and so forth.
Just bring grip levels down by 50%, and cap BHP to 500.
So the teams spend $140m each trying to build the fastest car and then race control just hits a switch and hobbles them if they do their job too well. It would be far cheaper just to make it a spec series if they want guaranteed close racing. They could save themselves over a billion dollars a year, and most viewers wouldn't care.
Sheetmaself said:
Just checked and i stand corrected.
It got close though!
Spain
- HRT (best): 87.809s
- Virgin (best): 87.315
- GP2 pole position: 90.473s
But Webbers pole was almost ten seconds quicker than GP2 at 1:20.981. So not close at allIt got close though!
Spain
- HRT (best): 87.809s
- Virgin (best): 87.315
- GP2 pole position: 90.473s
Also worth pointing out that in Q1 Webbers best time was a 1:23.619, so he went more than 2.6 seconds quicker from Q1 to Q3. So those fastest Virgin and HRT times compared to the GP2 Pole are even more irrelevant than that, as they too would have likely gone quicker if they had been given the chance for more runs
...Sorry to be a pedant, but it just annoys me when people cherry pick stats
Edited by MCBrowncoat on Saturday 3rd December 09:37
Edited by MCBrowncoat on Saturday 3rd December 09:38
To be fair to the FIA they are just saying they are going evaluate it and model it carefully. Not "we are doing this".
Which is more than they used to do. This years regs seem to have worked, at least the drivers say it is easier to follow closely. As the cars close up in terms of design the racing should get even better.
Which is more than they used to do. This years regs seem to have worked, at least the drivers say it is easier to follow closely. As the cars close up in terms of design the racing should get even better.
MCBrowncoat said:
Sheetmaself said:
Just checked and i stand corrected.
It got close though!
Spain
- HRT (best): 87.809s
- Virgin (best): 87.315
- GP2 pole position: 90.473s
But Webbers pole was almost ten seconds quicker than GP2 at 1:20.981. So not close at allIt got close though!
Spain
- HRT (best): 87.809s
- Virgin (best): 87.315
- GP2 pole position: 90.473s
Also worth pointing out that in Q1 Webbers best time was a 1:23.619, so he went more than 2.6 seconds quicker from Q1 to Q3. So those fastest Virgin and HRT times compared to the GP2 Pole are even more irrelevant than that, as they too would have likely gone quicker if they had been given the chance for more runs
...Sorry to be a pedant, but it just annoys me when people cherry pick stats
Edited by MCBrowncoat on Saturday 3rd December 09:37
Edited by MCBrowncoat on Saturday 3rd December 09:38
Sheetmaself said:
Not really cherry picking stats though as two cars quoted where perfectly legal F1 cars on the F1 grid and and part of the F1 Championship. Surely cherry picking would be if this had been a one off and other than this race there was a huge disparity between the classes but I checked this and that doesn’t appear to be the case.
It is cherry-picking because you picked pole time for GP2, but not pole time for F1. If you had picked the slowest qualifying GP2 car to compare with the HRT F1 that would be a fair comparison.Rotary Potato said:
However, F1 has historically been about designing the 'best' car within the regulations and then being faster than everyone else
...only for the FIA to change the rules, sometimes mid-season because they didn't like what someone had done/they were too much quicker than the rest of the grid (e.g. Brabham BT46B).//j17 said:
Rotary Potato said:
However, F1 has historically been about designing the 'best' car within the regulations and then being faster than everyone else
...only for the FIA to change the rules, sometimes mid-season because they didn't like what someone had done/they were too much quicker than the rest of the grid (e.g. Brabham BT46B).Merc DAS
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