I didn't say over spending was a good thing. I am stating it's THE REALITY!
Do you seriously think that a man who is MINTED is going to go. "Oh that £1,000,000 I have for my sons this year isn't going to be needed" lol YH RIGHT!
Some of you fail to recognise the nature of competition in motorsport. It's all pie in the sky stuff and the reality will be so much different. Seen it ALL BEFORE... anyone thats spent a day in theif life involved in motorsport would realise this.
dude lay off the caps its annoying, and also if there is a limit of 200,000 euros i think the FIA will make sure no one goes over. and in a series were all cars will be equal, its not going to be hard to manage.
They have obviously made this series for the sole purpose to SAVE MONEY!
I think the numbers are low, but I think budget controls are entirely possible with a spec car, and easy controls on testing. But to make it a decent car as a feeder series it would need to be a bit better than €200k would buy.
I hope you realise that testing can be restricted.
Nothing can be done about money spent on driver coaching, but if you can't develop your driving skills to very competitive levels after about a week of full-time coaching, you're seriously lacking talent (or lacking brain power). At most, you might need a couple of days of coaching for your car type, which is relatively inexpensive.
And thats why Tiger Woods continually works with coaches? He has no talent! lol
You can't stop a driver buying his own car and testing week after week at a given track with a driver coach.
The best drivers will be able to test more. I am pretty sure the FIA can't stop a drivers buying their own car to go and drive round a circuit every day. The best drivers will have the best fitness intructors, and dieticians also.
If I had a driver I would have them karting every other day to keep their fitness high, I will also purchase a single seater race car with similar specs to go testing with to practise with a coach, and data..... And if testing IS restricted F1 teams would start questioning if F2 would be an ideal place to look for well rounded drivers.
At the end of the day if I did what I proposed above my driver would have an advantage. Entry costs and running costs for a series NEVER tell the whole story.... NEVER....
The guys with the cash will ALWAYS find an advantage. That's not saying that the guys aren't very good, just stating plain and obvious fact!
why not, if it's a spec series the FIA can fully control where the car goes. Make them illegal to sell or whatever, probably only grant them usage in races but not allowing them actual ownership.
if someone has the resource for extra training outside so be it, the world is never fair, however talent is never fair as well, you don't quit racing because you know the guy next to you has his own test track, you go do the best anyway.
The point of spec racing is to ensure on the race day, nobody has a technical advantage, that's it. what's beyond the race day is uncontrollable, but you don't go to god complaining not be given the same genes as ayrton senna.
Because it wouldn't really help them very much. Learning a track isn't difficult, and by F2/GP2 levels the driving ability is pretty much established. Testing is about learning a specific car, and how to get the most from it - you can't learn that in a different car.
Interesting about the ownership aspect. The budget really does seem like a pie-in-the-sky made up number, though. I wonder if it actually ever gets off the ground.
I think some are underestimating the willingness by people to spend money. Just look at Cadet kart for example. I father will happily spend 10k (Tristan's yearly budget for a single seater series) on a 8hp special motor. ARe they over spending? Arguable, but its racing at the end of the day, and the stakes are high.
Driver's dads with money WANT to spend that money... they will find a way no matter what restrictions you put on them.
Then we have the team situation in F2. If the costs are fixed how are the teams going to be constructed? Teams are motivated by beating other teams, so surely 'good' teams will arise. Which will then be going against the concept of the class?
I can't help thinking this is the FIA trying to make a stance against Bernie, and if this leads to break away series is all going to go pete tong.
I think that figure may well be the amount for a fully prepared car to be brought to a circuit for drivers to race, with the exception of excessive damage, which could simply be solved by limiting the number of repairs a driver is allowed, if you make it so by being involved in too many crashes (regardless of fault or what session they happen in) means you are forced to miss races people will soon stop driving into each other so readily.
I don't think they are really, if the cars are prepared by the organiser there is no need to use exotic materials, a rev limited turbo charged production based V6 or 4 could provide plenty of power to be a handful in something relatively cheap and easy to repair, an aluminium honeycomb monocoque or even a spaceframe would be fine for a single make series. If they're all worked out well and designed to be easy and cheap to fix with a lowly stressed engine something that is capable of driving circles round an F3 car could be built for the kind of money people manage to spend on building Formula Fords.
The FIA can certainly stop testing and other race activities, even the UK Formula BMW championship stopped two drivers from competing in the Wilhire 24 hours in a saloon car despite the fact it was on a different layout of the track and a completely different car. You could buy a car and the FIA would probably struggle to stop you from testing it at a non-licensed venue, what use driving a different single seater round an airfield would be I have no idea. Back in the real world most aspiring racing drivers, sponsors and teams don't have limitless funds and will only choose to spend money if there is any percieved advantage. If people really have millions they can simply buy a seat in a back of the grid F1 team, as many have done in the past.
Part of the requirments of a feeder series is to get drivers used to racing at the speeds and with the technology of F1 - crappy spaceframe chassis with low power (or huge turbos) won't be much use there. The proposed F2 should be FFord level. Then come up with something with an annual budget for F3 at around €1k, F2 at about €5m and F1 with a budget cap of €100m
Entirely different category and level of sport. Tiger Wood's coach doesn't teach him how to hold a golf club, but rather how to deal with specific scenarios and techniques revelant at particular courses, his fitness and health, point out flaws when his game is declining, etc.
Do you think an F2 series with E200,000 cars will have be filled with world champions? I don't think so. You're talking about drivers who have just entered the wide world of professional racing. Their driving skills have already matured, they're already experienced racers. They might hire a coach for a few days a season to monitor and fine tune their technique for that specific type of car or a particularly bad circuit, but full-time coaching is not something that will be on the card for those drivers.
And what good will that do? Jack all.
We're not talking about karters fresh into cars. The guys in GP2 or "F2" have or will have already graduated from Formula BMW/Ford/Vee and then had another one or two seasons in Formula Renault/3. They already know how to "drive a car". What they need is familiarisation with a specific type of car they will be racing - not a "similar car", but their actual car.
And you'll be wasting crap-loads of money.
GP2 has restricted testing, as does WSBR. Both have been, and still are, great feeding grounds for new F1 drivers.
Obviously. But you're greatly over-exaggerating its influence on competitiveness in a budget-controlled single-make series.
Actually, I think race drivers should have coaches. Surely they are the only 'professional' sportsmen who don't have them? Why not? Is it egos?
Recently Sir Stirling Moss has reiterated his opinion that drivers should have coaches, and Carroll Smith had written the same thing a couple of decades ago.
The difficulty with coaches in single seater car racing is it's very difficult to analyse motion and movement like you can in sports like golf and tennis. You can't expect a coach to watch every corner at a circuit like Silverstone. So in practical terms you can see the difficulty. In terms of visual input a coach doesn't have much to go on, especially when studying a single seater driver. In karting you have several visual keys to help analyse a driver, in single seaters there isn't much to go on.
What you need in a car coach is the ability to understand a given car, and be able to interpret data and all that goes with that. A very difficult job. But I totally agree that drivers seem to let their ego's get in the way sometimes. I also think that more drivers have coaches than they will lead you to believe.
I know if I had a son racing Formula 2 I would have a permanent coach, and fitness advisor, and dietician....
The coach can look at onboard footage, datalogging (possibly as a video overlay) and discuss stuff with him. But I would propose a driver coach once the driver has reached professional level would have more to do with the psycological side of things - pressure, relaxation, state of mind etc rather than the driving. The engineers should be able to help the driver get the most out of a car - if they can't then chances are the driver won't have the talent or determination to get to the next level...
If more drivers have coaches than they let on, you'd wonder why the are kept hidden behind the scenes? Is it the ego thing again - not wanting to let on publically they have assistance?
As well as ego, some drivers don't want to let others know that having a coach is valuable. If a driver was working with a coach and was winning X series would they want everyone to know their secret? So that's part of it as well.
But if this F2 thing actually gets of the ground and somehow delivers on what it promises (it won't) we will see a rise in coaches and what not as dads try to find those extra advantages.
Well, its hardly a secret when drivers markedly improve their game like Massa has. I think in his case, coaching is pretty obvious. In fact, I'd wager most F1 teams have driver coaches working at least part-time with the drivers.
They have fitness coaches as well, but they very rarely get any air time. Really, coaches don't need publicity. It's not soccer or tennis.
At F1 level, coaching is more related to - as Tristan said - psychological conditioning, rather than driving technique. They focus on how to approach corners mentally, conditioning the drivers how to THINK about the fastest way to take a corner (which is usually not taught by lower-level training), rather than what to do physically (F1 drivers actually know that better than their coaches); then there is conditioning of accurate visual perception, tactical thinking while driving, etc.
In terms of driving technique, a driver graduating from F3 or FR should already be advanced in their understanding and mastery of driving technique, at least for single-seater formula cars.
The drivers don't really KNOW too much about the fastest way around a corner. They go out on Friday, rag the hell out of there cars, try different things, and then go an study the data. Drivers can get to a certain point in terms of how to attack a corner, but it's the data that will confirm which is the best approach.
What a coach will do is be able to translate the data and discuss with the driver how to best approach each corner. A good driver coach can bring ideas to the table. I am sure most football coaches can't, and have never done what their players can do, but doesn't stop their points and ideas being extremely valuable.
Yes, I do. Quite a high initial investment for a decent system, but thereafter I think it's quite good. It's not particularly good at improving a drivers speed though, unless you have a second driver to compare to. All it can tell me is where I've been slower than I had mananged before - it won't tell me how to quicker than I've managed already - i.e. it can get me closer to my theoretical fastest lap, but can't tell you how to improve that very well.
Onboard videos and a track walk are far more important tools for improving driving lines, data anaylsis tells you bugger all about how good particular lines are it is only really of any use as far as the driver is concerned to see where he is shifting and to check throttle, brake and steering inputs aren't doing silly things, but by a feeder series for F1 you should be well past that stage.
Well then you aren't using data properly then or are hiring the wrong people I know several drivers who will spend HOURS looking and studying their data trying to find tiny amounts of time,
I know several drivers who will spend HOURS looking and studying their data trying to find tiny amounts of time,