I stopped watching F1 about 10 years ago, and these new changes just reaffirm that decision. It's no longer about best car + best driver. It's about mixing it up, making it random, to maximise viewer numbers. Not the kind of racing I go for.
Just about every pro sports league needs to manage its rules to ensure that the playing field gets leveled every season. For example, NFL draft picks are in reverse order of season success. If last year's Super Bowl winner was able to choose their next team on a completely free market, they would simply use their boosted revenue and pay the most for the best players, thus making it much more likely that they'll increase their domination. No one wants to watch a dominating team shut out clearly inferior teams game after game.
F1 needs rules to tighten gaps between the team and to prevent one team from spending their way to success. I think we can argue about whether the new power units, DRS, and tire management are the right way to do this, but I'm glad they're trying something.
Outside of America there are far more sports that don't try to even the playing field artificially. Motor racing (I don't know much about non-F1 racing anyway) is pretty much the limit in the UK, team games generally work on the free market, individual games can generally be dominated by great individuals.
FFP is generally considered slightly better than nothing, but only just - it's a joke. It's talked about as if it will stop clubs like Man City and Chelsea dominate financially, but it only affects TV money, not any other sources of income (e.g. sponsorships), so realistically it is going to have hardly any effect. Even if it was implemented in a stronger way, it would still only serve to bring football closer to how it was 20 years ago before big money owners were so prominent, it would never take it to a US-sports level where they try to balance teams out completely.
The foreign player rule is about trying to boost national players rather than international players and has nothing to do with trying to even the (metaphorical) playing field.
You're right, but up until 10 years ago the best driver still had a chance. Schumacher turned Ferrari around, proving it. And that's when they really started changing the rules to promote random outsider wins.
You're posting as fact about something which you've admitted being out of touch with for a decade.
Do you not think Vettel is the best driver in F1? How is the fact that he has now won 4 consecutive championships aligned with your statement that the rules promote random outsider wins?
The best F1 driver was Schumacher. The greatest F1 driver was Senna. My favourite is Jodie Sheckter. Greatest car is the McLaren MP44 - an unmitigated beast. Favourite car the Tyrell P34. Race commentary isn't the same without Murray Walker. One of my greatest moments was watching Keke Rosberg do a 360 and keep going[1]. That was at the US GP in 1983, when I was 13 and thought those drivers walked on water.
F1 is not what is once was - the romance is gone. Vettel? He's a n00b that does it for the money.
No it isn't! Racing has always been the source of innovation in automotive- safety harness for example.. ABS, etc
Its exactly the fact that racing became "about best car + drive" that innovation slumped and we still drive cars that are pretty much no different than when Fuel Injection was introduced in the 70's!
I welcome these challenges.
I have been slowly developing my own diesel/electric hybrid using similar technology, it makes more sense than full electric at this point in time. Hub motors are very inexpensive and modern diesels running on waste bio can last upwards of 1,000,000 miles. Thanks to Audi and their endurance Diesel R8 racecar... They challenged themselves under no regulation and it helped prove a technology.
Respectfully disagree. Your post suggests that motor industry innovation is driven (pardon the pun) by F1. Some of it is, but typically for super cars. Certainly not all of it, or even most of it.
Besides, constraining the car specs in and of itself stifles innovation. How much F1 tech is there in Tesla, for example?
I know very little about Tesla, but quick search tells that its made from carbon fiber, probably has a tyres yes?
Tyres very much evolved because of formula 1. Carbon fiber and a few more. No need to underestimate development in F1, especially when manufacturers itself are involved. Prove of that is that Honda announced coming back to F1 as an engine manufacturer straight after new rules was confirmed.
I agree. The silly cost and stil 840 hp @ 1x,000 rpm is just a bunch of window dressing for the Lefties. The entire enterprise of F1 will never be "green", once you take into account the production of the cars, the crash repleacements, fuel used in training and lower Fxx series, and...the fact that these clowns fly all of this junk around the WORLD to drive. They are doing to f1 what they did to the America's cup. Basically turning a sport into a spectacle to which no 'normal' sportsman can really relate.
Have you considered,that technologies developed for F1 by lets say....Mercedes, can later be used in their regular cars and therefore improve efficiency of not just a single F1 car,but millions of cars on the road?
With the promotion of turbochargers in F1, a stupid amount of research is going to go into them - and they are used in pretty much every diesel car on the road now, so if the technology can be improved further, then it's all for the best.
I've read the article and I don't think it mentions making F1 greener - it's not what it's about.
Audi's opinion for years has been that Le Mans has far more relevance for road cars than F1, thus their involvement there. They've been running turbos since 2006 (when the R10 was introduced), and in 2013 were running a single-turbocharged variable-geometry-turbo diesel V6. There's far more liberty in the LMP1 class, especially when it comes to engine design. As of next year, the primary restriction on engines is fuel consumption.
> I've read the article and I don't think it mentions making F1 greener - it's not what it's about.
(1) Max Mosley and the International Automobile Federation decided 18 months before the 2009 season that all teams must develop a Kinetic Energy Recovery System, or KERS, for use in the 2009 season. It was part of the effort to make Formula 1 more <environmentally clean and relevant>.[1]
(2) Equally, efficiency will be key in 2014. And guess who had the most aerodynamically efficient car and fuel-efficient engine. Yes, Red Bull and partner Renault.
(3) These engines will be governed by two different fuel restrictions: a maximum fuel-flow rate of 100kg an hour; and a maximum of 100kg of fuel to be used through a race.
Now, that being said...the magnetic ers recovery of the turbo over-spin and electronic wastegate seem interesting and quite cool.
The £300 million that the f1 teams have wasted on these engines is a drop in the bucket compared to what all the manufacturers spend on their road cars. And none of the tech comes out of f1 , only in.
Have F1 cars been remotely close to something that normal people could relate to since the 60s?
Are you sure its just them trying to make F1 green? The cost standpoint helps keep large companies involved and aids smaller companies so they are competitive. The power limitations I believe have always been tied to price and safety. I doubt they were trying to appear "green" when they banned turbos in 89.
You're equating 'responding to' with 'blame'. The former is factually true as an antecedent point of history. The latter is at once both unknowable and irrelevant.
Same here, stopped watching around 1998. I though it's mostly about the car (which is largely random per-season, yes) and instead of celebrating the design/engineering behind the only things celebrated around f1 are the personalities of drivers, their excesses and their egos.
the only things celebrated around f1 are the personalities of drivers
I don't think that's quite true. Quite a lot gets said about at least a couple of designers, most especially Adrian Newey (all agree that Vettel is an amazing driver, but also that the recent RB cars that Newey has designed are dominant). We hear a lot from team principals like Horner, Brawn, Kaltenborn (first female in this role!). And race engineers like Rob Smedley and Rocky Rocquelin get their voice heard as well.
But a lot of the regulation changes aren't really about safety - things like standardised suppliers of tyres, or limiting the amount of track testing allowed. Sure, unlimited budgets would allow some companies to absolutely dominate - but that's not really any different today.
And yes Vettel is possibly the best driver. But the car and the support he gets from the team give him a pretty good head start.
F1's not about the best car you could build (or even the best "safe" car you could build), or about the best driver. It's mostly about the best car you build within the set of sometimes arbitrary constraints set by the FIA.
