Quote from yalpllitsi :

+1

Quote from Intrepid :

-2

Quote from BlueFlame :

+1

equals zero AH AH AH AH

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

equals zero AH AH AH AH

Scott.....Your mental

Quote from 1993weeman :

Scott.....Your mental

But he's right!

Uno accidente ah ah ah ah, DOS, DOS accidente ah ah ah ah.

Count. Love it.

Quote from zeugnimod :

But he's right!

he is right, but he is also still mental

Quote from tristancliffe :

It matters for the fans though! We only care about racing in the top 8 or so really.

Loved the stats. Shows, to me, that the real killer was the standardisation (and limiting) of engines to a 'spec', and the stepped floor.

If everyone has the same power, and grip that is reduced by following a car, then passing is going to occur less.

The days of Ferrari having a crap chassis but a lot of power, versus a Williams with a decent chassis and less power are long gone, but it produced more overtaking...

Ally that with tyres that are far too durable overall, but far too punishing of pushing (and yes, you can have both!!! In circa 1983 they pushed like mad all race, and the tyres lasted the distance - although granted tyre and car development have made both more sensitive to problems, plus the driving standard is undoubtedly higher).

And last but not least, as I alluded to in the previous paragraph, all the drivers are much closer in terms of ability. Even the rubbish ones are pretty damn close to the good ones, compared to the spread in the 80s.

Then would the only way of having any kind of close racing be to standardize chassis too? If the engines cancel each other out, and that the drivers are pretty much equal, the only thing that would currently be making one go faster than the other is the chassis.

Problem with that is that the whole point of F1 would be lost, that is, to be the technological display of the car manufacturers (though that is arguably already in jeopardy). F1 has historically been a series much more dedicated to what cars are actually involved in the racing, as opposed to who's driving the cars and how the team manage them. In a series with both standardized engines and chassis (basically, the same car for everyone), the performance of the driver and of the team are much more crucial. I'm not claiming that we wouldn't see gaps in times, but 5 seconds? I think not.

Quote from zeugnimod :

But he's right!

That's debatable! +1 -2 +1 is certainly zero, but the +1 by BlueFlame was in support of a -2, effectively re-stating it, thus making it -4 in total. +1 -4 = -3!

Quote from boosterfire :

Then would the only way of having any kind of close racing be to standardize chassis too? If the engines cancel each other out, and that the drivers are pretty much equal, the only thing that would currently be making one go faster than the other is the chassis.

Problem with that is that the whole point of F1 would be lost, that is, to be the technological display of the car manufacturers (though that is arguably already in jeopardy). F1 has historically been a series much more dedicated to what cars are actually involved in the racing, as opposed to who's driving the cars and how the team manage them. In a series with both standardized engines and chassis (basically, the same car for everyone), the performance of the driver and of the team are much more crucial. I'm not claiming that we wouldn't see gaps in times, but 5 seconds? I think not.

Standard chassis still will not work due to aero.

Drivers are much more closer to each other then before added with high levels of turbelence equals no overtaking.

If all the cars where at Lotus or Virgin level i think it would be different though.

Imo, the way to increase passing opportunities should be aimed at the core issues. Alternate routes, KERS, forced to drive with poor tyre compound etc. are all an utter gimmick to me. The biggest contributors to making passing on the track so hard must be clearly identified and agreed on. If turbulence due to rear wing and diffusor design is an issue, restrict them accordingly. If braking distances are too short to set up passes, find a way to increase them.

The other side of the issue is how far to standardise and restrict design in the technological pinnacle of motorsports, while still permitting innovation and variation.

Some brainstorming:
-----------------
Give teams/drivers points for overtaking !

At the end of the race, if their finishing position is better than their starting position, they get a point for each of the cars that started in front of them that they overtook on-track.

Maybe this would get the teams working on developing cars that are better for overtaking
It would certainly offer more of an incentive to drivers not to play it safe and wait for pitstops.

This could be crazy at the end of the season if a drivers only hope of winning involves starting at the back of the pack, and scything through the field to finish in the top 5
------------------

FIA could afford to hire a wind tunnel to test all cars.

They should put a restriction on the length of the 'wake' that cars generate. Ban them from creating too much turbulence/'dirty air'.

This would allow some to use double diffuser etc. as long as they can stay within the limit of allowable 'wake'
-------------------

two races - second with starting order a reverse of first race finishing order... (I know its not an original idea )


any other silly ideas ?

col

Quote from col :

Give teams/drivers points for overtaking !

A gain in position increases points does it not?

You'd also get team mates playing little games to gain extra points. We'd also have to wait for official championship results. How would we feel if a driver won the championship because he overtook a HRT?

Quote :

FIA could afford to hire a wind tunnel to test all cars.

I think the 2009 McLaren proves wind tunnels are not a certain way to measure air flow... certainly not enough to regulate it.

Also different teams will have differently calibrated wind tunnels.

It's also a rather expensive exercise and complex thing to do.

____________________________________________________

I think many fans have unrealistic expectations for F1 in regards to over taking. I think the FIAs mistake is a constant pursuit to increase regulation and complication to solve a problem (just like our government ) when in fact it makes it worse.

What we want in F1 is drivers and teams going 100%. The regulations should give freedom to experiment technologically as well as in race strategy. At the moment all the cars look similar and everyone uses the same strategy.

I'm going to cut and paste my post in the Bahrain GP thread here...

------------

There is just one significant factor that makes overtaking difficult: aerodynamic sensitivity.

F1 cars have aerodynamic characteristics that open-wheel racing cars in other championships don't have:

• Small, fixed wing surface areas forcing teams to use very high angles of attack, which generate a lot of drag and wake.
  
• Teams intentionally designing their cars to produce maximum turbulence to make it difficult for pursuing cars to follow.
  
• Minimal down-force allowed from ground effect, forcing teams to make wings so aerodynamically optimal that their performance envelope is extremely narrow.

This can be resolved by:

• Issuing spec wings, front and rear, designed by an FIA engineering committee to produce only slightly more down-force than GP2, with minimum possible drag and wake.
  
• Getting rid of the flat bottom and plank rules, and allowing limited-sized venturi tunnels to be used for chassis under-body. Each team can design these as they wish, which keeps F1 at the cutting edge in terms of aerodynamic design. Ground-effect down-force can produce very high amounts of down-force while producing comparatively little drag or wake.

Problem solved! Cars can then follow each other closely enough to attempt overtaking manoeuvres, and the down-force capabilities of F1 cars retain their superiority over other categories of motorsport.

The FIA really needs to get over their paranoia over ground-effect vehicles. This is 2010, not 1999, or even 1980! Understanding of ground-effects in vehicles have improved leaps and bounds since even just a decade ago, and are no longer dangerous enough to justify maintaining their ban.

Also, simplify some rules. Drop the silly two-compounds per weekend rule, and the rule mandating the use of Q3 tyres in the race. Introduce another tyre manufacturer: tyre wars are OK. Make the tyres more grippy and less durable, which will increase mechanical grip and add more possibilities for strategy.

Quote from Intrepid :

A gain in position increases points does it not?

Yes. But in this case, you would get more if it was achieved through overtaking.

Quote :

You'd also get team mates playing little games to gain extra points.

Probably not, if they overtook and re-overtook each other 10 times, there would still only be one point available if the one who started behind finished ahead.

Quote :

We'd also have to wait for official championship results.

We already have to wait for results - these days lawyers have the final say anyway.

Quote :

How would we feel if a driver won the championship because he overtook a HRT?

The same way we feel if a driver loses because he gets taken out by or loses time behind an HRT... that's racing - same rules for everyone.

Quote :

I think the 2009 McLaren proves wind tunnels are not a certain way to measure air flow... certainly not enough to regulate it.

Also different teams will have differently calibrated wind tunnels.

It's also a rather expensive exercise and complex thing to do.

Agreed - wind tunnels are probably not the way to go, I'm sure they could come up with some much more low tech way of measuring turbulence behind a car well enough to use it to set up some regulations.

I just don't like the idea. Overtaking is incentive in itself. These stupid regulations to try and improve the show always end in failure or just end up feeling gimmicky.

Give teams and drivers the freedom to express themselves how they see fit. Whether you want to be a boring bring it home in the points driver or the complete opposite. Instead what we are doing is forcing everyone to do the exact same approach and strategy... and it's rubbish.

Quote from samjh :

This can be resolved by:

• Issuing spec wings, front and rear, designed by an FIA engineering committee to produce only slightly more down-force than GP2, with minimum possible drag and wake.
  

I like the sound of this.

Another possible would be allowing teams to use tyres from any manufacturer - currently with them all using the same tyres, as soon as one driver gets an advantage from changing tyres, they all dive into the pits at the same time. If they had various tyre manufacturers involved with different teams, strategies would be much more varied, and performance would be more variable at different times during the race making overtaking more likely.

Quote from col :

Some brainstorming:
-----------------
Give teams/drivers points for overtaking !

At the end of the race, if their finishing position is better than their starting position, they get a point for each of the cars that started in front of them that they overtook on-track.

Maybe this would get the teams working on developing cars that are better for overtaking
It would certainly offer more of an incentive to drivers not to play it safe and wait for pitstops.

This could be crazy at the end of the season if a drivers only hope of winning involves starting at the back of the pack, and scything through the field to finish in the top 5

Whilst I admit it would be quite entertaining, it would be a bit of a farce if that did happen. If 1 pt were valuable (i.e against 10 for a win it's huge, but against 1000 for a win it's much less), then drivers would do it every race which would make qualifying a game of going slowly.

You'd be better offering points all the way down to 21st place, and reversing the finishing order of the last race to assemble the grid with qualifying instead a "sprint race" or something, if you want to serve up some action in a can.

I find it hard to support anything that would distort the function of qualifying, and the desire of the drivers to lead from the front.


We should hardly be surprised when there are races like this, the "dirty air" thing has been around for ages, and until that's gone (or reduced enough) then there will rarely, if ever, be a straight up fight between two car/drivers of equal or very close speed.

The idea is simple: cars behind need to have some sort of speed advantage over cars in front, all else equal.

For example, cycling. What's the enabler? Drafting. Yes, let's have drafting again.

Yes, let's make it into a spec series... They are always good to watch and last for years.

NOT!!!

F1 is about innovation, science and clever people beating less clever people. Gearboxes and engines should be unfrozen, the plank removed and a few simple broad regulations to limit the amount of aerofoil downforce. Oh, and get rid of hand operated clutches and paddleshifts. I know it seems archaic, but h-shift will improve the racing. A lot. And it's not like road cars benefit anymore (if they ever 'benefited' from F1 paddleshift ideas.

Quote from Darkone55 :

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/ ... n-f1-the-counterargument/

What a very selective opinion piece.

* If reducing downforce was the answer, then 1983 would have shown it, since we lost 80% of the aero efficiency in the 1983 rules, ” he says. “But there was no more overtaking than in 1982.

Ah, except F1 down-force between 1978 to 1983 used ground-effect. Aero efficiency was reduced because the FIA mandated flat undersides after crashes caused by badly-designed ground-effect cars, not because overtaking was hard. Different considerations!

* "Here’s the proof – if downforce prevented overtaking, historically the races with the fewest overtaking manoeuvres would have been the wet races, where maximum downforce settings are used...

Rubbish. Wet races involve much lower corner speeds and frequent driving mistakes due to reduced grip. These factors counter-balance the aero factor.

* On the subject of double diffusers making it difficult to follow, he said that early last year the Toyota drivers complained that the hardest car to follow was the Renault, which didn’t have a double diffuser.

Bollocks. Renault used DDD from the Chinese GP onward. They also had KERS.

* One of the reasons semi-automactic gearboxes have remained popular is that they prevent engines from over-revving on downshifts, which is even more important in this era of 8 engines per season.

But if F1 engineers can perfect the seamless shift, surely they can invent a system for a manual gearbox which would dip the clutch if the driver tried to select a gear that was too low for the engine speed.

Thereby negating the whole reason for removing semi-auto gearboxes. Driver error during down-shifting means possible damage to the engine due to over-revving. You can't have your proverbial cake and eat it too.

I actually agree about less grippy tyres and one-lap qualifying (I previously talked in favour of making tyres grippier in my other post, but lowering grip makes sense too), but the other stuff regarding aero are just biased. I don't doubt the competence and expertise of Frank Dernie as an aerodynamicist, but the opinions in the article are very clearly biased and not entirely honest.

There are two changes the FIA could make that would increase overtaking 10 fold...

1. Ban carbon brakes
2. Bring back V12 or V10 engines

The advancement of carbon brakes is probably a big reason for the modern era of F1 having so little overtaking. The problem is they stop the cars too quickly, the braking zones are tiny and the majority of overtaking happens in the braking zone. If the FIA are going to start regulating anything then the brakes would be the best option, what team really cares about their braking systems being capped and regulated? They should restrict the use of exotic materials, and try to double the length of the braking zones.

As for bringing back the larger capacity engines, we only need to look at what happened in MotoGP to see why it's a good idea. When MotoGP switched to 800cc engines the cornering speeds increased. The riders had to maintain that speed through a corner because they couldn't just park it on the apex and power out of the turn anymore. That meant there was only ever one fast line, and if they attempted to overtake and failed, they would drop a long way back. MotoGP have realised that they need to restrict cornering speed, not top speed, which is why they are going to switch to 1000cc engines in 2011. The same applies to F1, the cars didn't get any slower when they switched to V8's, the top speed was reduced, but the cornering speed increased, and the more cornering speed the cars have the less overtaking there will be.

F1 has been tampered with too much over the years to promote overtaking. That's why there is none, take GT racing for instance, it's never a level playing field but racing can still be had. Because it hasn't been messed with to provide better overtaking. We all know that 'dirty aero' creates alot of turbulence rendering the front wing in particular useless. Maybe they should remove all downforce together. That way drivers wont rely on the downforce, and true racing nous will show. Also, drafting is more neutral without aerofoil, you can really get a good draft, if you get a good run out of the previous corner.

if we had a stick shift then even with a clutch safety to protect the engine we'd still get people missing gearchanges and loosing time/ speed or missing apexes etc which would promote overtaking. the fact that engines wouldn't be damaged is neither here or there unless you're arguing that the only way to pass is for the car in front to breakdown

A H box is the way to go, all the greats used H shifters, but now our F1 drivers use pussy paddle shift. Clutch timing is a thing of the best, especially, things like heal and toe, or just blipping on down change.

Yeah yeah, there's lots of things that could be changed to make the racing more exciting, but, it'll take time, money and cooperation from ALL the teams. And as Bernie the Bolt has said recently. F1 ain't a dictatorship anymore. So getting a dozen team bosses to agree to effectively dumb down the technical aspect of the sport ain't really gonna happen any time soon. I doubt the big manufacturers would be too keen either (for obvious reasons)

Personally I agree with many of the above ideas, and also add, lets get rid of the ship to shore telemetry, as well as the amount of information the driver has on the cars performance. Don't know about anyone else, but i really hate hearing on the radio feed stuff like, "you're running a bit hot, change to mode 3, setting C" etc. It would put much more onus on the driver knowing exactly what the car was doing at any given moment, and may even lead to more reliability problems and breakdowns. Some may not like it, but back in the 70's/80's and even the 90's, a huge part of the excitement came when it became apparent a driver had a problem with the car, and seeing how he'd deal with it. Remember Schuie getting stuck in 5th gear (?) at Spa (?) in 199(?) He still came 2nd (?) - (old age getting in the memory banks a bit there, sorry)

Anyway, for this year, perhaps a quick fix may add more excitement for all these Johnny come lately, fair weather, i want i want i want TV supporters. So maybe, forcing a two stop strategy and changing the tyre compounds will work.