Ramblings about future rules and regs

Theres been much about future changes to both the technical and sporting regs in F1, here are some of my personal thoughts on some of them;

Making the cars 5-7 seconds a lap faster

Ooh, faster cornering speeds, cars more more physically demanding again may be even visually more spectacular and new lap records. Lovely, but this isn't a guarantee to improve racing and hence neither the show.

What if shorter braking distances make it even harder to overtake? What if reversing the recent trend of reducing downforce actually increases the turbulence?

If they want to make it easier to follow the car in front, wouldn't it make sense to standardise the wings, re-introduce ground effects, and increase grip with wider tyres?

larger rims / lower profile tyres
It's said that this would be more market and technologically relevant, and that it would look better. But again I just don't buy it. I'm sorry, but the vast majority of road cars I see about are on high profiles and non massive rims even the supposedly more prestige brands. So unless you're fortunate enough to own a high end performance / super car, like a Porsche 911 or Ferrari then how is having low profile shod mahoosive rims on a f1 car more relevant?

And for that matter, why does it even need to be relevant? Even with the hybrid engines, F1 cars bear little resemblance to a road car. I'd actually favour Paul Hembrey's suggestion of a more early 90s style of wider rear tyre.

Refuelling
Hell no. Apart from the cost implications the whole point of having no refuelling was to encourage cars to pass out on the track, instead of on the calculator and in the pits.

Sprint races and reversed grids
This is fine for the likes of GP2, but I'm not convinced it's warranted for F1. But if a shorter sprint for Saturday was introduced it'd either have to replace a practice session or qualifying itself.

I quite like the ideal of a third driver race, as that'd be ideal for giving the test/young drivers time in the car and be entertaining to boot. But it'd be costly and I don't think including the higher finishers in Grand Prix itself would be a good move because in reality you're giving a third car to likes of Mercedes who will then monopolise the podiums whilst pushing the midfield out of the points. Bad move.

Making the cars faster will reduce the amount of overtaking as the racing line narrows further, aero turbulence increases, braking distances reduce etc. Its why Motorcycles and Touring Cars race better as they are comparably much slower in the corners, allowing for greater variety of racing lines, chances to pass etc.

The actual racing these days is the best its ever been IMHO, its just that the sport has no soul, cars tend to be bullet proof reliable (you look back to the 1980's and the champion invariably was the one who finished the most races), meaning theirs less chance of a shock result (e.g. Minardi's bagging a point). Today there's only 4 engine's, the 1997 season featured 10 varieties of engine - V8's V10's, rebadged, privateers etc. Tracks were more old skool.

Quote
thestig88
Making the cars faster will reduce the amount of overtaking as the racing line narrows further, aero turbulence increases, braking distances reduce etc. Its why Motorcycles and Touring Cars race better as they are comparably much slower in the corners, allowing for greater variety of racing lines, chances to pass etc.

I can't speak for touring cars in other countries or the WTCC, but I'm finding the racing in the BTCC quite boring this year. The cars are too planted and it's just become another spec series - it's been an increasing problem over the last few years, but this year I'm finding it worse than I can ever remember it, possibly due to tyre saving with the new weight rules. Maybe I'm just getting old.

I largely agree with Jim, but for some reason the pre-race sprint for younger/third drivers appeals to me. I don't know why, it's a gimmick and it's against everything that F1 is fighting for, but it would initially intrigue me (until the same drivers keep on qualifying, and as said, they start locking out podiums).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/2015 08:30AM by gav.