how to improve the show

[schmenke]

I've never understood what the point of the parc ferme is. If a car has an engine problem (Ferraris) or wants to change the rear wing on both cars (Mercedes), then they're allowed to. So why stop anyone working on the car??....

As I understand, the parc-fermé rules were introduced to eliminate swapping an qualifying-spec engine for a race-spec, thereby reducing development costs. Not sure how applicable this rule is now that we have an engine-freeze.


Instead of a refuel ban, I've always liked the idea of allowing each team a specified maximum amount of fuel for the race, with a large capacity bladder in each car. Teams can then manage both their fuel and pit stop stragegies within this parameter.

[truefan72]

I'm going to pick up on this comment because there's something most people (me included) has overlooked in this thread.

In the past non-refuelling era, you had big unrestricted 3.5 litre engines with 12, 10 or 8 cylinders. And before that, unrestricted (1987/88 aside) turbos that could churn out 1000bhp in qualifying trim and were only turned down in the race so that they'd last the distance. So regardless of downforce levels you had cars that were harder to control. Now you have near-standardised, frozen, rev-limited, 2.4 litre V8s, which while giving astonishing bhp-per-litre figures, are much more reigned in than their predecessors.

The FIA has strived pretty much since 2006 to make things more and more closer, but when you narrow the performance gap between cars, then overtaking is naturally going to be harder isn't it?

Like in football, the great exciting high-scoring matches come from either two disparate or at least one poorly organised (relatively speaking) team. What happens when you get two superbly managed teams with well drilled and marshalled defences with game plans perfectly executed? Well a 0-0 draw usually. And speaking of football, you don't get pundits and managers moaning that the rules need to be changed whenever there is a 0-0 draw, football's equivalent of an F1 race with no overtaking. The race wasn't that bad.

good points and an aspect I forgot about the last no-refueling era

[V12]

As I recall the narrow cars were introduced in 1997 and the grooved tyres the year after.

Nope it was 1998 for both, the '97 cars were still nicely proportioned.

I thought that KERS is still permitted this season?

It is, but some "gentlemans agreement" between the teams means it won't make an appearance. Which is indicitive of how bad things have got, where the teams are a sort of collective entity pretending to be rivals for 2 hours on a Sunday for "the show", rather than genuine rivals striving to out-do each other all the time (to the letter of the rules of course). In the past someone like Chapman would have decided to stuff it and gone for the "unfair advantage". Which of course was a misnomer since if the rules permit it, then it's as fair as you can get.

[Sonic]

I have THE solution

It doesn't matter if you can't follow too closely mid corner as long as you can pick up a slipstream from that distance where the dirty air hits. At the moment the cars are too efficient and that can't happen, so how to punch a bigger hole aside from making the car shaped like bricks? Tyres!

Bring the cars back to 2m wide but make most of the extra width tyres (nice fat ones!). The extra frontal area couldn't be tidied up by aero as the wings/sidepods etc would stay their current size. The cars probably still wouldn't be able to follow close mid turn but who cares if you can pick up a tow from 60m back!

Tell me it won't work!

[rabf1]

The easiest solution for this year is to address the problem thru tires. Have a hard tire that is slippery and a super grippy tire that lasts 15-20% of race distance, at most. Basically, they need a much wider performance gap between the 2 tires.

[rabf1]

Or bring out the safety car every few laps to bunch up the cars like Indycar does.

[e2mtt]

Or bring out the safety car every few laps to bunch up the cars like Indycar does.

LOL

[e2mtt]

...
Instead of a refuel ban, I've always liked the idea of allowing each team a specified maximum amount of fuel for the race, with a large capacity bladder in each car. Teams can then manage both their fuel and pit stop stragegies within this parameter.

Now there is a good idea! No engine limits, just a limit on how much fuel can be burned during the race.

[Langdale Forest]

Or bring out the safety car every few laps to bunch up the cars like Indycar does.

And that increases the chance of someone crashing into each other, so that will make the race more interesting.

[Lemmy-Boy]

Jacques Villeneuve said it right on the BBC. The FIA needs to reduce their emphasis on aero and increase the importance of mechanical grip - you just have a look at some of the archive footage on ESPN Classic to see how cars would drift around corners, often side by side.

Hamilton, Vettel, Schuey & Alonso would relish such changes as the cars would rely more toward drivers skill. F1 can still be a cutting edge series if these changes were met and reinforced.

Before the IRL destroyed AOWR, the emphasis toward mechanical grip allowed the CART series produced the most exciting races during the mid 1990's, while still maintaining the high tech nature of racing.

Even Bernie was getting nervous about CART during this time, while pushing the FIA to prevent the CART series from racing Road courses outside of the USA, except Australia.