Racers ?!
I don't know how many of today's drivers are actually racers.

The clip is erroneously labelled. The car is actually a Norma M20 with 400 BHP 3 litre BMW power. Nice sound for a six.

(Driven beautifully by Alain Castellana.)

1] What's wrong with having bells and whistles ?!
GP racing was conceived as the top form of motorsport, the one with the bells and wistles. Don't let the garagiste era fool you.



2] That's the point I agree with you, it is B*.

I recall reading in an Red Bulletin article, Patrick Head mentioning that technologies like active suspension actually reduced/eliminated the need for aero development. He mentioned that in 1992 the Monza aero package really mean removing the diffuser (and modifying the wings AoA).

The ban on AS, TC, ABS and co. was really one of the reasons that costs spiraled further, as teams turned to multiple wind tunnels, supercomputers, super-simulators and had to develop multiple and specific aero packages, redesign of suspensions and such.

The more retarded and BS the cars became, the more waste there was.


The principle of going for a retarded aero-brick with powerful but restricted/frozen engines was very wrong IMO. It reduced/eliminated the diversity-innovation-relevance all for a superstars event to put more money in Bernie's pockets.

He's not talking about the drivers but the people who make the racing possible. Ironic that you didn't grasp that with your "the drivers are meaningless" creed.

No. I enjoyed the sound of the McLaren SBC - just prefer a few more revs and the sound of RAPID acceleration. (That Norma accelerates hard for something with "only" 700 bhp/ton.)

The higher the gap between the drivers/the lower the number of good driver, the more they are meaningful, the lower the gap/higher the number of good drivers (like today), they less meaningful they are.

Fangio was a god/drivers made a difference, because he was racing a bunch of amateurs and/or naive youngsters like Moss who quite grasped the role of a team and car.

You make some good points here DOF. I agree in general with:
1. F1 is a development category and development budgets are huge (and not entirely fake)
2. These budgets could be better focused on worthwhile technologies if the rules were better thought through. Even the current administration can see the insanity of mega-dollars wasted on incremental aero improvements, skirting around the artificial aero rules - witness the "budget cap."

Not just at you but at everyone who has this same speil...

Why is F1 a development category? Where is it even slightly implied by the FIA currently or in a previous form in the history of GP F1 that it is?

In fact as far as I can see through history the FIA/previous have done nothing but halt developments the moment they are off and running.

Although the FIA/previous certainly like to keep GP F1 somewhere near or be the premier class if possible, there is absolutely no evidence to support the notion that it is or has ever been a development class.

Replace the word "developments" with "innovations" and I will agree, although many of the innovations nonetheless survived for some time in F1 - turbos, active suspension, traction control, GE, pneumatic valve springs, inerters. This contrasts starkly with series that mandate pushrods, carburettors, live axles . . . .

Well lets take this for what the Governing bodies must do.

Every time the F1 teams find development advances, sometimes huge (everyone laffed at Renault for going turbo) the FIA has had to be fair and allow a time changeover to cover the teams investment - F1 racing would collapse if not.

So you think NASCAR hasn't developed?

Maybe someone else has the figures to hand but I'm sure the HP, speeds and lap times of those 'Yank Tanks' has severly changed over the last 20 years.

My personal thinking is that if the FIA ran F1 more like the Americans do things we wouldn't have these pickles and shit series we have today - does anyone here really think the DD diffuser nonsense wouldn't have been sorted out in 5 minutes flat under US rule? - "your not running that, piss off".

What amazes me was the Lotus 88 they did exactly that, but what happened to their balls every other time?

Any guess on the expiry dates for GE, pneumatic valve springs, inerters, composites, clutchless shift, telemetry, data acq . . . .?

1] If it wouldn't have been a development, than a certain BRM/Lotus guy couldn't have done some ground effects.
Are you this out of touch with motorsport ?!



2] FIA ?!

GP racing was created by the ACF and conceived by Gordon Bennett, not FIA.

FIA never had any rights of propriety till 81 nor sanctioning till the 90s officially/86 unofficially.

NASCAR is an organization who's main series suffers from falling ratings since 2005 and who's dominated by the likes of HMS with their official and unofficial satellite teams.
Jesus, you're so out of touch, that you have to point out the things as bad or maybe worse then FIA/F1 as an example.

You're not able to make the difference between motorsport and racertainment.
GP racing begun a motorsport series.

Which one of these isn't currently controlled or restricted Grunt?

Ahhh . . what isn't?

Oh yeah. It's rather startling to watch the cars on the track now, actually. At tracks like Michigan and Atlanta the cars are as fast as the Indy cars were not that long ago. The lap averages have increased around 30 mph while the trap speeds are now well over 200 mph.

It is deeply impressive how 'wound up' a Sprint Cup car can get at most tracks and a lot of that has come in the last 5-7 years.

The great thing about shacks in the woods is that you get to have real fur skins covering the dirt floor after you have procured dinner. Now since your the one of 16 kids who actually went to school and can use a computer I'm guessing all your sisters say your the best kisser too?