Quote from Greboth :

I just disagree with things like TC that take from the drivers skill and take the risk away. I know taking things like TC away would lower safety but IMO would be alot more interesting as driver skill would really show through.

Well they used TC before 94 and also active suspensions. And a lot more stuff. It didn't hurt the race action. So I think that blaming all the bad things (such as boring train races) on TC is a little bit too easy. It's more the whole changes in regulas that led to this situation. Races were also not interesting (for the casual spectator) back in 2000 a year before TC was permitted again. A lot of changes reduced mech grip, forcing the teams to find other ways to compensate that. And that meant that they had to design very sophisticated aerodynamics which looses a lot of downforce when caught behind another car. 2 important changes are coming 2008 in these matters: Real slicks (which should provide more mech grip) and this seperated wing (which should decrease turbulences behind a car)

Quote from LRB_Aly :

And that meant that they had to design very sophisticated aerodynamics which looses a lot of downforce when caught behind another car.

100% agree, but there is still more.

One way to pass another car is to blast by it if you have WAY more power. But that's not very often the case when two drivers with comparable laptimes fight each other.

Most overtaking happens on the brakes. One big problem in F1 is that the braking distances have become so short that it is nearly impossible to gain enough of an advantage in this little distance. So anything that increases the braking distance makes overtaking easier.

So any kind of grip-reduction should make the situation better - you loose an amount of the ability to get the force of the brakes down to the ground. But I think a banning of the carbon fibre brakes would also do the trick. Their braking capabilities are so enormous that this might even be the most effective way to enlarge braking distances. But since I'm not a race engineer this is only an assumption of what I heard and read about carbon brakes. Maybe I'm completely wrong here...

The FIA killed/kills the F1 with all their regulations:

Traction Control => even a 16-year old kid without big skills can drive a F1 car.

You may not 'fight' on track, only 1 time you may change your racingline when someone's trying to pass. When they pass each other AND touch a single bit the other car causing one of the drivers to be out of the race => 'Race control is investigating the incident between car nr X and X'
Come on! These are simple race accidents! Offcourse they're not willing to overtake anymore so you loose your position, points and maybe a penalty (something like 10 places back in next race startgrid).

We want to see skilled drivers, taking some risks while overtaking WITHOUT drivers get badly hurt/killed. That's what real racing fans like!
Remember the big fight on track in the 70's (???) between Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux. Real racing, BIG clean fight taking 3-4 laps, nobody's hurt, adrenaline everywhere! For the ones who don't know what I'm talking about, search the internet for the movie, you'll love it.

i remember watching some of the Hill, Schumacher battles 1994 and 1995 and they provided thrill and bags of excitement. Today FIA is killing F1, so many decisions over the last few years have put off some fans. The points system, the qualifying format changed x number of times and i must say personally i still prefer the 12 laps 1hour qualifying. The change of engines and a 10 place grid penalty is a silly rule and should be scrapped immediately, mechanical problems are harming drivers with penalties which had nothing to do with them and i believe last year this rule contributed most to Alsonso winning the championship.

also we must not forget why the rule changes started to appear, Ferrari have reached such perfection in the sport that they were just too strong for their opposition and this led to Schumacher winning nearly everyrace easily.

What F1 now needs is some stabillty, a set of rules to stay for a few years but the rules should be well thought through and planned out. In 2008 there will be major changes made to F1 again, lets hope for the better and they will get rid of some of these nonsense rules we have at the moment.

mad

I can only agree to that. Nearly everything the FIA changed in F1 regulations in the past years was complete bs. For example you may only change your engine after two races...??? WTF - it's F1 goddammit!!!!! If you want to make F1 cheaper and more competetive for lower budget teams you should ban some of the most expensive materials. I mean not everything on a F1 car MUST be made of carbon fibre. Just the monocoque for safety reasons and that's it. This would also make F1 cars heavier which would help with overtaking too.

Bah, I'm getting a bit upset about the bit-by-bit-destruction of a once great racing series by some money-driven a*******.

Should better calm down as it doesn't help anyway...

Quote from Jakg :

one question ive always felt to n00bish to ask, why did Senna crash?

One of the things my Dad told me, as he watched that weekend. Senna had requested for his steering wheel to be moved, so the team had to cut the column and then re weld it. The theory was that the weld gave way and caused him to lose control. My personal feeling is that could be the cause looking at some of the investigator pictures on the site below.

On a side note theres quite an interesting website with some more details : http://www.ayrton-senna.com

Keiran

Quote from keiran :

One of the things my Dad told me, as he watched that weekend. Senna had requested for his steering wheel to be moved, so the team had to cut the column and then re weld it. The theory was that the weld gave way and caused him to lose control. My personal feeling is that could be the cause looking at some of the investigator pictures on the site below.

On a side note theres quite an interesting website with some more details : http://www.ayrton-senna.com

Keiran

You didn't read my posting, did you?

It was not meant as a joke or something, this was really an article about an official investigation.

Quote from Christian Seidel :

But one should also remember, that he wasn't primarily killed by the impact itself, but by a part of the suspension that went through his helmet visor right into his head.

ow thats a bad way to go

The videos on that site are well suspicious. It looks as if he was going round steady, and there is a pronounced stop in the turn as if something did snap.

Quote from Christian Seidel :

But one should also remember, that he wasn't primarily killed by the impact itself, but by a part of the suspension that went through his helmet visor right into his head.

AFAIK as i remember the accident and seeing photos etc after, it wasnt suspension going into his head, you cant see it on the video, but the most likel cause i know of is the less heat in tyres car bottomed out threw him into the wall. From watchin the video on the link posted above it looks more like that to me as he just stops turning. Also if you see a clip before, you see sparks from him bottoming out.
As for what killed him, if you see the pictures of the crash after it doesnt appear to be suspension, which suggests to me the most likely one ive heard was the front wheel after hitting the wall broke off and hit his helmet breaking his neck. IIRC his cause of death was a broken neck too.
This is waht i remember but i will do some looking into it.

Whatever though senna was a great driver, and got to be said a gentlemmen at times.

As for A1GP - i dont have sky sports to watch it on

Edit : http://www.metacafe.com/watch/ ... ula_1_ayrton_senna_crash/ tv coverage of crash. Not in english so dont know what they are saying, but you can see when the mdeics get to him hit visor is intact.

To everyone who says F1 is boring now, but was 10/20/30/40 years ago (delete as applicable):

At THAT time (e.g. in 1994, or 1979, or 1964 etc) people thought it was boring then, and wished it was like the 'good old days'. But then, as now, they forget that the good old days were about the same as now. We see the past with rose-tinted spectacles.

Personally I've always loved F1 since I watched my first grand prix in 1987 at the age of 6 (I probably watched some previously to that, but only because I had been told to sit down and shut up my mummy and daddy), and I've always found them exciting. It might not be obvious excitement with wheel to wheel dicing that has occasionally happened (See Villeneuve/Arnoux thing above, but that was NOT normal, it was quite special even at the time), but it is nonetheless, for me, edge of the seat stuff.

When Schumi and Damon were racing for the titles in 1994 and 1995 (accidents aside which always creat excitement for some sick reason - it's the same reason why other people's misfortune is played out on TV shows, or internet clips as 'funny') people thought that the vast majority of the racing was dull, and wished it could be like the 70's or 60's (again forgetting that they were saying the same thing in the 70's and 60's). But now, 12 years on, we look back and wish F1 was as good as the good old early 90's.

The thing is, I don't think F1 has become more 'boring' or 'dull', it's just a natural human perception to fiddle memories so they are better than they actually were. Okay, so F1 is now populated by school boys (albeit talented school boys) who have to have driver aids to make them safe. I may not think the driving standards are as high as they used to be (because they don't have to be) but I still find it exciting. If we got rid of traction control, semi-auto gearboxes and all this nonsense which just adds to the cost and decreases laptimes and the chance of mistakes, but doesn't add anything to either road car development or the 'show'. People want the show. That's all the majority of people want. And as F1 is funded by the 'majority' buying things they see on the sides of F1 cars it's important for F1 to do something about it. As long as it's not brought on by either ugly cars (CDG Wings? Meh) or dumbed down cars (in terms of power or grip) then I will remain a fan. As yet BTCC, DTM, GP2 etc haven't provided me with any real excitement - it's just a load of noobs or has-beens punting each other off at every corner. No one finds that type of driving funny or acceptable in LFS, so why is it in real life?

Edit: Greboth - look for the 'Senna Files". There you see a picture of his helmet with a suspension rod sized puncture hole in the visor (and an uncovered air vent which is more easily seen, but ignore that). He died of massive head trauma brought about my penetration of his brain by a foreign body. The neck broken, although I've never heard that and I following the invesigation and rumours for years as closey as I could, wouldn' have helped, but wasn't the offical cause of death.

Quote from Greboth :

AFAIK as i remember the accident and seeing photos etc after, it wasnt suspension going into his head, you cant see it on the video, but the most likel cause i know of is the less heat in tyres car bottomed out threw him into the wall. From watchin the video on the link posted above it looks more like that to me as he just stops turning. Also if you see a clip before, you see sparks from him bottoming out.
As for what killed him, if you see the pictures of the crash after it doesnt appear to be suspension, which suggests to me the most likely one ive heard was the front wheel after hitting the wall broke off and hit his helmet breaking his neck. IIRC his cause of death was a broken neck too.
This is waht i remember but i will do some looking into it.

As for A1GP - i dont have sky sports to watch it on

yeah i heard about a wheel hitting his head too, before i started doing more digging into his accident and then read it was suspension going through his helmet.....

Quote from Vultureke :

Traction Control => even a 16-year old kid without big skills can drive a F1 car.

Can we get it out of our head that the TC systems in F1 are not put there for safety or too make the cars easy to drive. They are put there to allow the cars to put power down more efficentley. No matter what people may say you'll never be able to put the power down better than a computer. They may as a side effect make the cars easier to drive but this is not the reason TC is in F1 cars.

Actually Alex TC was originally developed (for F1) with a few to making the drivers life easier, i.e. less mistake, more often on the limit = better results and fewer crashes. It's only in the last few years that TC has become sophisticated enough to be used as a tuning tool to make the cars quicker. I agree that's it's main purpose, but there is no getting away from it's driver aid roots.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Actually Alex TC was originally developed (for F1) with a few to making the drivers life easier, i.e. less mistake, more often on the limit = better results and fewer crashes.

Ferrari also said that they had no number 1 driver. Then look at Austira 2003

IMO it's total bullshit that TC systems were put there for safety anymore than BAR's extra fuel compartment was there to presurise the fuel system. I think that whilst it may have been first proposed by a technical commitee for safety reasons the teams interpreted it as a way of going faster and more consistantley from the off (if they weren't using it already with all the bent clever diffs).

TC was there to allow the drivers to concentrate more on the driving and race tactics, as Marc Gene pointed out few years back, over one lap a driver can be as quick as the TC, but over a race distance the TC will give an edge in consistency.

It wasn't there to speed up things in the first place.

Anyone read the article by Bernie a few issues back in F1 Racing, it's the "lost interview" which was done in the 70's, which bernie was pressed on a lot of issues very similiar to today's F1.

I agree with Tristian on his points, and honestly the current generation of F1 drivers are still in my eyes people who does amazing stuff, yes a 16 year old can drive a F1 car but racing and be competitive is another matter, the racing in F1 nowadays is just as hard or even harder than ever, and even the most experienced will have to react to the rapidly changing situation so F1 is still no way a walk in the park, and F1 still remain the most challenging racing series in the world.

If I recall correctly, the reason traction control and launch control were re-allowed back into F1 was because it was strongly suspected that some teams were using a combination of engine and transmission management electronics to acheive TC and LC by subterfuge.
The systems were so complex and software based that it was impossible for the FIA to detect if this was happening, so to make things fair for poorer teams, or ones who had chosen to play fair, the systems were made legal again.

This is the whole reason why traction control cant be fully banned until standardised ECU's are brought in.

Quote from Gunn :

That is correct. 1mm wear is all they allow.

Isn't it 1cm (10mm) ?

Quote from colcob :

This is the whole reason why traction control cant be fully banned until standardised ECU's are brought in.

IMO TC and LC are small prices to pay if it means the cars can stay different. F1 is not a single make series and the engines should not be ruled by a single ECU IMO.

The single ECU doesn't mean they all have to run the same engine configs etc. It will, without a shadow of a doubt, a fully mappable and configurable device, that will work with any engine they desire. The only difference is that the engineers won't have complete freedom in this area (but who really cares). The engineers will then move their efforts from making a really good ECU that works perfectly with their engines, to optimising their engines and systems to work within that ECU to get the desired goals. The engines will remain as different as they are today imo.

And I think it's a small price to pay to make the cars 0.2 seconds slower but 99% more fun to watch as the drivers won't have computer backup. then you will see smooth drivers (Buttons, Schumachers, Raikkonens) being better (at first) than the people that rely on TC to balance the car (Alonsos, Montoyas, Massas). As long as the standardised parts don't go too far, I'm all in favour.

Quote from colcob :

If I recall correctly, the reason traction control and launch control were re-allowed back into F1 was because it was strongly suspected that some teams were using a combination of engine and transmission management electronics to acheive TC and LC by subterfuge.
The systems were so complex and software based that it was impossible for the FIA to detect if this was happening, so to make things fair for poorer teams, or ones who had chosen to play fair, the systems were made legal again.

This is the whole reason why traction control cant be fully banned until standardised ECU's are brought in.

Correct. This was said to be the reason. It's OK, since it's pointless anyway to have rules without the possibility to enforce them.

Nah, the plank is 10mm thick.

here you can have a read of the FIA F1 regulations! LINK

mad

edit* i just read that the plank under the F1 is 5cm thick.

Get rid of traction control, and F1 is fixed IMO. That way the drivers actually have to feather the throttle instead of just letting the TC do most of the work. It's not like these drivers don't know how to do it. They all came from motorsport where there was no TC, i just don't see the point in TC in motor racing. Why not let the drivers do the work?

The problem is teams found a way around the rules, as was mentioned earlier. So there seems to be no solution to the problem. The FIA just basically doesn't have the ability to enforce their own rules