2025 Formula One Season Thread

[CWallace]

It's called "formula" for a reason, mate.

While the late American automotive scribe Brock Yates used to call for Formula One to just dump the rulebook and allow teams to "run what you brung" with unlimited flexibility, that defeats the purpose of a formula.

I do miss the 1980s and 1990s when you had a mix of V8s, V10s and V12s in the field, but as you note, eventually one configuration becomes "the best" (in this case, V10s) and everyone moved to it. So whether or not you define certain technical aspects in the rules, the teams will eventually find "the best" because that is one of the things that makes Formula One what it is.

 

[headlessmike]

It's called "formula" for a reason, mate.

While the late American automotive scribe Brock Yates used to call for Formula One to just dump the rulebook and allow teams to "run what you brung" with unlimited flexibility, that defeats the purpose of a formula.

I do miss the 1980s and 1990s when you had a mix of V8s, V10s and V12s in the field, but as you note, eventually one configuration becomes "the best" (in this case, V10s) and everyone moved to it. So whether or not you define certain technical aspects in the rules, the teams will eventually find "the best" because that is one of the things that makes Formula One what it is.

I've argued this before upthread, but technological advancement also means that there is less guesswork going into modern F1 designs which makes it look as though the formula is restricting innovation when a large part of it is simply having a better understanding of the physics involved allows the team to converge on the best designs more quickly than in the past. We are simply in a different technological landscape than previous generations.