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Lord Blackadder

macrumors P6
Original poster
May 7, 2004
15,684
5,516
Sod off
Many of you probably already know, but...

Link

Sounds like good news to me....but, hmmmmmm, this sounds like it may work to Scuderia's advantage in '07, eh?

What's the verdict, people?
 
There are still rumors that Goodyear may still be interested in F1, which would mean toppling Bridgestone - of course that would be the fairest way, eh? start everyone off on a clean slate?

But I'm starting to lean towards the criticisms that F1 is being dumbed-down, what with the '08 rules (standard ECU, longer-life components, serious aero restricitons etc.).

How much can you water down F1 before it becomes too similar to the other spec racing series? NASCAR anyone? :(
 
Cooknn said:
Good riddance :cool:

Ditto... they almost killed F1 in the U.S. for good... and their subsequent behaviour was disgusting.

Lord Blackadder said:
There are still rumors that Goodyear may still be interested in F1, which would mean toppling Bridgestone - of course that would be the fairest way, eh? start everyone off on a clean slate?

I'd like to see Goodyear back myself... though I suspect Bridgestone are favourites to get the contract for sole supplier. Maybe we'll see tenders from Kumho? Avon?... either way a spec tyre should put things back towards car and driver, as opposed to what we have now.

Lord Blackadder said:
But I'm starting to lean towards the criticisms that F1 is being dumbed-down, what with the '08 rules (standard ECU, longer-life components, serious aero restricitons etc.).

How much can you water down F1 before it becomes too similar to the other spec racing series? NASCAR anyone?

It's a concern isn't it... :( but the teams want cost cutting, and that's one way of guaranteeing it.
 
Ferrari said they think that F1 should cost "only" £100,000,000 for the championship winning team. While undoubtedly the costs need to come down, how is very questionable.

One of the good things about having a single tyre supplier is that we won't have a repeat of Indy, as either all the cars will run, or none will.

However, with only 1 team, what does that supplier have pushing them, to make better tyres?
 
link92 said:
However, with only 1 team, what does that supplier have pushing them, to make better tyres?

They don't... but I don't think that's a problem myself.

I'd like to see Goodyear back, with 3 compounds (Hard, Medium, Soft) that are introduced at the start of the season, and stay that way for the rest of the season without changes. That in itself would reduce the need for tyre testing, though not testing itself of course... and could contribute to reducing costs.

I'd also like to see the scrapping of testing full stop, and allowing the teams unlimited running on the Friday of each GP with no engine limitaions, fuel limitations etc. imagine 9 till 5 of non-stop F1 cars. :D
 
iGav said:
I'd also like to see the scrapping of testing full stop, and allowing the teams unlimited running on the Friday of each GP with no engine limitaions, fuel limitations etc. imagine 9 till 5 of non-stop F1 cars. :D

They say that testing is becoming less relevant nowadays with the advent of computer simulation, and having a spec tire sort of eliminates the need to gather lots of data for the tire manufacturer.

Still, with spec ECUs and aero bits, the teams are going to start looking a bit cookie-cutter. And how can you prove that somebody may have stolen your data if everybody's cars differ mostly by their livery?

I'm increasingly hoping that the Bernie and Max era draws to a close - we've seen everything in F1 except those two changed, so maybe they are the problem?
 
yeah i would like that 1 supplier different mixtures thing (but i would choose more than 3 mixtures.. perhaps 5)

i just hope that they start increasing mechanical grip more with using slicks ;)

after all how long will it take untill they hit the same engine performance levels again ?.. somebody wants to make any guesses ?
 
It is only a good thing to finally get a standard ECU. F1 cannot be about finding loopholes in regulations, so this only makes it more interesting; teams will put effort in other things and it will benefit all teams.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
They say that testing is becoming less relevant nowadays with the advent of computer simulation

"They" must not be McLaren or Williams, which have had really bad car designs due to trusting computer simulations too much. "They" must not know what they're talking about... The fact is, computer simulations only produce good educated guesses and the real world is always more chaotic than ones and zeroes of the computing realm.
 
iGav said:
I'd also like to see the scrapping of testing full stop, and allowing the teams unlimited running on the Friday of each GP with no engine limitaions, fuel limitations etc. imagine 9 till 5 of non-stop F1 cars. :D

Me too! Currently friday and saturday are boring and I only watch the race. It used to be fun just to see the friday practices, but now that the best teams cannot really push it to the limit, what's the point...
 
My two Cents :D

I am rather hoping this year's events will kill off F1 at Indy as I think it is a totally unsuitable place for F1.

There are plenty of other great circuits in the U.S. (Laguna Seca , Road Atlanta)rather than this totally artificial joke. :mad:

PS To all the American still whinging about Indy I was at Spa in 1985 when the track surface broke up on the Saturday and we were all told to go home.

Refund = :eek: :eek:
 
JFreak said:
"They" must not be McLaren or Williams, which have had really bad car designs due to trusting computer simulations too much. "They" must not know what they're talking about... The fact is, computer simulations only produce good educated guesses and the real world is always more chaotic than ones and zeroes of the computing realm.


Very true, but nevertheless computer simulation has reduced the amount of on-track testing that teams have felt was required. There's always a danger of over-reliance on computer simulation but it is a valuable tool nonetheless.
 
DerChef said:
There are plenty of other great circuits in the U.S. (Laguna Seca , Road Atlanta)rather than this totally artificial joke. :mad:
It would cost far too much money to make any of those other tracks FIA certified for a move to be considered.

Lord Blackadder said:
Very true, but nevertheless computer simulation has reduced the amount of on-track testing that teams have felt was required. There's always a danger of over-reliance on computer simulation but it is a valuable tool nonetheless.
There was an interview with a tech guy at Jordan a few years ago in F1 Racing. He said that they pick the gears for the tranny based on simulations, and very rarely have to change a ratio.
 
Counterfit said:
It would cost far too much money to make any of those other tracks FIA certified for a move to be considered.

I wonder.....I'm not sure a modern F1 car could handle the corkscrew (no ground clearance, no downforce due to low speed), but when F1 raced at Watkins Glen that track was a little rough around the edges too and it worked fine.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
I wonder.....I'm not sure a modern F1 car could handle the corkscrew (no ground clearance, no downforce due to low speed), but when F1 raced at Watkins Glen that track was a little rough around the edges too and it worked fine.
An F1 car could easily go over 30mph through the corkscrew (as they do through the Grand Hotel Hairpin in Monaco).
 
link92 said:
An F1 car could easily go over 30mph through the corkscrew (as they do through the Grand Hotel Hairpin in Monaco).

Can it? the Grand Hotel is much more flat. I'm not necessarily doubting you, I just don't know....but since ALMS cars do it I guess F1 cars probably can too. It would be a good F1 track IMHO.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
Can it? the Grand Hotel is much more flat. I'm not necessarily doubting you, I just don't know....but since ALMS cars do it I guess F1 cars probably can too. It would be a good F1 track IMHO.
I think the limitation would be the height of the F1 car, and it would probably get grounded trying to go round Laguna Seca...
 
So instead of 6 cars racing this time we have the chance of not even having a race? Where i think its good that Michelin is out I still think that there needs to be more than one tyre manufacturer in it for balance.

Ed
 
Thank goodness. Michelin killed what was supposed to be a decent race at Indy. I love watching F1 racing and NASCAR (both sides of the spectrum, but both great racing series) and I was looking forward to the Indy race since I've had a bit of a love for the racetrack since watching the 500 when I was younger, but I was pissed that only six cars ran.

Good to see that only one manufacturer will provide tires now. That's how it needs to be. It's just so much easier and cheaper in the end.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
Can it? the Grand Hotel is much more flat. I'm not necessarily doubting you, I just don't know....but since ALMS cars do it I guess F1 cars probably can too. It would be a good F1 track IMHO.
I absolutely LOVE watching motorcycles go through there on the first lap :D
 
Lord Blackadder said:
I wonder.....I'm not sure a modern F1 car could handle the corkscrew (no ground clearance, no downforce due to low speed)

It wouldn't be a problem... didn't Ferrari run an F2003-GA there last year?
 
iGav said:
I'd also like to see the scrapping of testing full stop, and allowing the teams unlimited running on the Friday of each GP with no engine limitaions, fuel limitations etc. imagine 9 till 5 of non-stop F1 cars. :D
That would be brilliant, they would get decent data from each and every track worldwide, rather than having an "home " track, which they should perform best on. Testing is always necessary, but testing on a race weekend Friday would work out the cheapest and easiest solution for the sport. My only concern would be how would tracks like Silverstone cope without all those hundreds of hours of test laps on them? Silverstone is already in financial difficulty, so losing so much core business would be terrible.
 
JFreak said:
"They" must not be McLaren or Williams, which have had really bad car designs due to trusting computer simulations too much. "They" must not know what they're talking about... The fact is, computer simulations only produce good educated guesses and the real world is always more chaotic than ones and zeroes of the computing realm.
Computer simulation falls into the category of Computer Aided Design, and that's all it does, it aids the teams. If they rely near solely on it, they almost always fail. The best way is to simulate, test, go back to re-design, simulate, test etc. You can only predict what will happen, you can't recreate the exact conditions you will face, so that's where testing comes in.
 
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