FAO F1 fans.....

[serious14]

I watched F1 on and off over the years, and having a few friends around who knew the rules and were into it, I started watching properly last season (Singapore night race - _awesome_), and have subsequently watched every race since, even getting into the qualifying and such.

To compare it now with the latest series of rule changes to the monotony that was the Schumacher years - there is no comparison.  There is a realistic chance that any out of 6 or 7 can win a race, AND, there's proper overtaking.

KERS rocks my socks as well, but it really should be "they all have it or none have it".

 

[Paolo]

Nascar > F1

Purely for the crashes

 

[dibo]

I have a feeling Schumacher would have got on top of the field in the new rules setup, mostly because he would have been driving the car and feeling where the extra speed could come from. Given the magic he worked with the Ferraris from 96 to 99 (when the Williams and then  Mclarens were much better from day 1 but he was still more than competitive) he'd have been up the pointy end now.

Nevertheless it's the best season i've watched. Brawn and RBR being up the top is crazy, the traditional big three of Williams, Ferrari and Mclaren (i suppose you to that you could add Renault - formerly Bennetton, Toleman before that...) are all off the pace.

KERS shits me. It's like the gimmicky power boost buttons in A1GP, or video games with a nitrous button. It should simply be a way of storing and reusing energy that is used automatically all the time to increase power/save fuel (you might turn it up to bust out quicker laps, turn it down to save tyres and fuel and maybe delay a pit stop), not some extra bit of bullshit to make the drivers do.

Ditto the adjustable front wing. Back in the late 60s the FIA banned adjustable wings when Lotus were using them to have less drag at speed and more downforce in corners. Jochen Rindt or Jackie Stewart had a massive accident and the wings copped some of the blame.

I see this in a similar context. What if someone's going through Eau Rouge or another super fast corner and for whatever reason forgets the wing, or it doesn't work... 290kmh and understeering off to a wall. Not a pretty prospect.

As is usually the case in F1, the racing's better when it's wet. Alan Jones said many years ago that they should just hose the track down before every race. It's more interesting to watch the drivers fight their cars around and have to be really careful than zooming around like it's just a big Scalextric set. Wet racing lengthens the braking distances and increases the number of possible lines to any corner (because the marbles and other shit get washed away) so the overtaking goes through the roof.

To try to get close to that in the dry I think they should make them have still less downforce to clean the airflow so it's easier to follow another car closely and increases braking distance so you can make the pass if you've got the speed and are brave enough.

Vettel looks amazing too. He's genuinely quicker than Webber (who really could have seen a lot of podiums had he had the right car under him) and will win championships. Looking forward to the rest of the season.

 

[jiggles]

I only watched it for the Ham But.

 

[tuftman]

I have a feeling Schumacher would have got on top of the field in the new rules setup, mostly because he would have been driving the car and feeling where the extra speed could come from. Given the magic he worked with the Ferraris from 96 to 99 (when the Williams and then  Mclarens were much better from day 1 but he was still more than competitive) he'd have been up the pointy end now.

Nevertheless it's the best season i've watched. Brawn and RBR being up the top is crazy, the traditional big three of Williams, Ferrari and Mclaren (i suppose you to that you could add Renault - formerly Bennetton, Toleman before that...) are all off the pace.

KERS shits me. It's like the gimmicky power boost buttons in A1GP, or video games with a nitrous button. It should simply be a way of storing and reusing energy that is used automatically all the time to increase power/save fuel (you might turn it up to bust out quicker laps, turn it down to save tyres and fuel and maybe delay a pit stop), not some extra bit of bullshit to make the drivers do.

Ditto the adjustable front wing. Back in the late 60s the FIA banned adjustable wings when Lotus were using them to have less drag at speed and more downforce in corners. Jochen Rindt or Jackie Stewart had a massive accident and the wings copped some of the blame.

I see this in a similar context. What if someone's going through Eau Rouge or another super fast corner and for whatever reason forgets the wing, or it doesn't work... 290kmh and understeering off to a wall. Not a pretty prospect.

As is usually the case in F1, the racing's better when it's wet. Alan Jones said many years ago that they should just hose the track down before every race. It's more interesting to watch the drivers fight their cars around and have to be really careful than zooming around like it's just a big Scalextric set. Wet racing lengthens the braking distances and increases the number of possible lines to any corner (because the marbles and other shit get washed away) so the overtaking goes through the roof.

To try to get close to that in the dry I think they should make them have still less downforce to clean the airflow so it's easier to follow another car closely and increases braking distance so you can make the pass if you've got the speed and are brave enough.

Vettel looks amazing too. He's genuinely quicker than Webber (who really could have seen a lot of podiums had he had the right car under him) and will win championships. Looking forward to the rest of the season.

I dunno about whether Schumacher would be the dominant force in todays field, if he was driving the Ferrari F60 I don't think he'd do any better then Kimi or Felipe are doing(though in the wet, yes, yes he would).

    I actually only see KERS as being a short-term measure anyways, until the FIA work out a better way to improve overtaking. Again the same with the front wings, they're both almost novelty like in their purpose. The return to slick tyres is probably the best of the big 3 changes. Just quickly on the point about Eau Rouge(turn 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4 at Istanbul, or something like the Parabolica at Monza, where speeds are still quite high, and downforce levels are low due to setup), I think most teams are actually telling their drivers, or reminding them to adjust their wing levels back to their normal settings once they're no longer needed at the higher or lower levels. There have been a few radio transmissions from pit-wall to car that suggest this. But yeah, its still a problem should something go amiss.

      I think its going to be Button and Vettel fighting it out this season, Barrichello and Webber as their number 2's. Ferrari are going to write this season off if they arent competitive in Spain, and McLaren have succeeded in finally cheating themselves into distraction it seems

 

[Bex]

Yeh, the 96 Ferrari was a bit of a dog. Schumacher moved from the hugely competitive Benneton Renault team where he won 9 times to win the championship into the Ferrari team.

At the time, Ferrari had not won a constructors title for 14 years and had not won a drivers title since Jody Scheckter in 1979. Schumacher accepted the challenge of helping the legendary Ferrari team relive their former greatness. In the five years leading up to Schumacher's association with Ferrari they had achieved 3 third places and and 2 fourth places in the constructor's championship with Benneton, Williams and Maclaren being the strongest teams. Thats the constructor's championship; there's only 10 teams in it.

History shows it took Schumacher, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Eddie Irvine (who would be first to admit that Schumacher was a large part of the improvement in the team's performance) 4 years to win the constructor's title and 5 years for Schumacher to win the driver's title. It was a very impressive effort where Schumacher came 3rd in 1996, then 2nd (albeit got disqualified), another 2nd, broke his legs (and still came 5th even though he missed 7 races) and then won the driver's title. IMO Schumacher deserved every bit of the success he enjoyed from their on after putting everything on the line and making it work.

As for this year, Vettel does look really good, but the jury is still out whether he can keep it up all season. Its pretty impressive that Vettel is outqualifying Webber as that is one thing Webber is awesome at, however, I suspect Webber will get the better of him in some grand prix.

I like KERS. F1 has always been as much about technology as the racing, sometimes more so. However, the technology has gotten a bit stale in recent years as the FIA and teams move to control costs. KERS is a technology that gives the manufacturers a real challenge that could decide a championship AND can provide real feedback to manufacturers for future use on road cars. Its perhaps a little manufactured the way they've limited the KERS boost to 6 seconds per lap,  but they had to do something to provide an interim period for its introduction as the poorer teams plain could not afford its introduction.

The adjustable front wing is an attempt to counteract the everpresent problem of passing (or lack thereof). An F1 car simply could not follow close behind another car because the wake from the car in front would reduce the effectiveness of the wing on the car behind meaning it could not go around the corner as fast. Now, the following car can adjust the wing as they approach the corner. It didn't seem to work too well in Bahrain which has fast flowing corners (the highest reliance on wing downforce), but at other circuits there does seem to have been a noticable improvement. Not sure if that is the adjustable wing or just the overall change to the wing size and design this season. Anyway, its refreshing to see some changes actually produce the desired result; unlike other seasons where they've done silly stuff like introduce grooved tyres to increase passing????

I could go on but I'll save it for later.

 

[tuftman]

Anyway, its refreshing to see some changes actually produce the desired result; unlike other seasons where they've done silly stuff like introduce grooved tyres to increase passing????

I could go on but I'll save it for later.

Those grooved tyres where horrid things, a 10 year blight on Formula 1.

 

[Bex]

Anyway, its refreshing to see some changes actually produce the desired result; unlike other seasons where they've done silly stuff like introduce grooved tyres to increase passing????

I could go on but I'll save it for later.

Those grooved tyres where horrid things, a 10 year blight on Formula 1.

Totally agree and I don't know one F1 fan who thinks they did anything positive. Yet, the FIA tried adding grooves and making them skinnier and it was just never going to do what they wanted. What drugs were they on?

 

[Jimmy]

I'd have to agree that this is the most exciting F1 season I've seen in a long time.
I've found myself watching every race now.

 

[tuftman]

Anyway, its refreshing to see some changes actually produce the desired result; unlike other seasons where they've done silly stuff like introduce grooved tyres to increase passing????

I could go on but I'll save it for later.

Those grooved tyres where horrid things, a 10 year blight on Formula 1.

Totally agree and I don't know one F1 fan who thinks they did anything positive. Yet, the FIA tried adding grooves and making them skinnier and it was just never going to do what they wanted. What drugs were they on?

I think it was one of those cases where the FIA changed the rules for the sake of changing the rules. Apparently next year refuelling is being kicked from the race, I fear this is another case in much the same vein(the FIA say its in the name of safety)

 

[Bex]

Yeh, they did it once before I think it was eighties and then found it boring to watch drivers circulating conserving fuel. They used safety as the reasoning back then too, but there was probably a lot more truth in it then.

 

[dibo]

original reason in the 80s was safety, but it just so happened that mid 80s seasons were crackers (the first grand prix i ever watched the full length of was the '86 AGP as a 5 year old - mansell on his way to winning the championship when his tyre burst - it's probably the best race that was run in all that time too).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhlCKunj-DA&feature=related

people couldn't muck about with fuel strategy to get by people, they had to pass them on the track. they had hand-grenade 1.5L turbo engines that went through amazing amounts of fuel and put out in the order of 750kW. the car bodies were simple and the downforce much less than now. the gearboxes had h-pattern gates and manual clutches. the drivers had to blip their own throttles on downchanges.

cars looked simpler too. look at this car from 1988:

the mclaren mp4/4, in which senna won 8 races and prost 7 with 10 1-2s (out of 16 total - the only exception was a ferrari 1-2 at monza!) in what must surely rate as the most dominant team performance ever. but while gordon murray's mclaren chassis and honda engines were great, the drivers were the key - prost and senna were both near the top of the all-time ranks.

but look at the simplicity of the car - no bargeboards, fancy diffusers, high noses or anything. just a simple, low slung dart with simple wings and a neat look. F1 could go back to this look and i don't reckon there'd be much complaint from fans.

 

[tuftman]

original reason in the 80s was safety, but it just so happened that mid 80s seasons were crackers (the first grand prix i ever watched the full length of was the '86 AGP as a 5 year old - mansell on his way to winning the championship when his tyre burst - it's probably the best race that was run in all that time too).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhlCKunj-DA&feature=related

people couldn't muck about with fuel strategy to get by people, they had to pass them on the track. they had hand-grenade 1.5L turbo engines that went through amazing amounts of fuel and put out in the order of 750kW. the car bodies were simple and the downforce much less than now. the gearboxes had h-pattern gates and manual clutches. the drivers had to blip their own throttles on downchanges.

cars looked simpler too. look at this car from 1988:

the mclaren mp4/4, in which senna won 8 races and prost 7 with 10 1-2s (out of 16 total - the only exception was a ferrari 1-2 at monza!) in what must surely rate as the most dominant team performance ever. but while gordon murray's mclaren chassis and honda engines were great, the drivers were the key - prost and senna were both near the top of the all-time ranks.

but look at the simplicity of the car - no bargeboards, fancy diffusers, high noses or anything. just a simple, low slung dart with simple wings and a neat look. F1 could go back to this look and i don't reckon there'd be much complaint from fans.

I'd love for that era of design to re-emerge..turbo engines probably not so great an idea though. Only problem is justifying it all to the teams. Another proposed innovation for 2010, budget caps...bring on the garage teams