This season, 5 customer teams outscored 5 manufacturors by 118.5 point.

Gone are the days when a team who had to shop for engines would get engines that were several stages behind in evolution.

Surely, that MUST be a success for the "new" rules?!

No. Success might be when F1 has a single supplier for a spec engine (GP2). Or go back to complete freedom for teams and engine makers to build their own engine.

The present system is worst of both worlds.

Why is the present system worst of both worlds?

I would personally prefer technical freedom, but in my view the changes that has been made to cut costs have been necessary to help sustain F1. And this season has been very exciting so it seems to work quite well. I find it really good for F1 that you can set up a team, buy a engine and be competitive. You don't have to be Ferrari or McLaren and have a manufacturer backing you. Good for the sport!

It sucks now because of the rev limiter, reduces overtaking

It must be hard to understand but a team can go bankrupt with a $50 million budget just as easily as with a $300 million budget. The key is not how much they spend on engines (or aero), it is how much money they can raise from sponsorship.

Yes of course, but the big budgets are harder to justify for the manufacturers so they are decreasing their budgets. And I guess the larger budgets are harder to get for all the teams. Then how much you have to spend on engines becomes very important, because you cannot raise the necessary money anymore. And the engine freeze has helped the independents afford engines. A few years ago the engine was the single largest budget post of a independent team, now they can use money in other areas and at the same time have a budget thats sustainable in the current economic climate.

Both Honda and BMW has pulled out because of the amount of money it takes. Do you think the FIA and FOTA should just sit idly by and watch the sport become even more financially unsustainable.

Maybe it's hard to understand that if you are not able to raise the same money as a few years back then you have to spend less money to survive.

No it's the typical FIA disaster.

When will F1 become relevant and go with butanol or other algae-based fuel?

That would upset Bernie's appelcart, but the political power it would give the series would far outwiegh the short-term loss....oh that's right F1 doesn't look long-term - it's Bernie's cashgrab. Not to mention the techical advancement of an alternative fuels.

But has overtaking reduced these last seasons? I have a feeling that we have seen more overtaking this season than for a few years (or am I wrong?).

What has worked is the new system for limiting the number of engines used. Because the teams have been able to compensate for a blown engine by running another extra long, we escaped the blight of grid penalties we were subjected to last year.

Think we saw quite a bit in the early season due to the problems some teams had with their cars, but this has become less as the teams have got the cars sorted. To many times we have seen cars get into the slipstream, but be unable to close up because they are hitting the rev limit.

They should get rid of the rev limit and let the teams use the engines as they wish. The simple fact that they will have to make the engines last will mean they will limit themselves.

I agree about the rev limit, but fear that it would increase engine development costs significantly.

I don't think that they are hitting the rev limit on the straights. If so the team has done a poor job of setting the right gearbox ratios. If you have a more powerful engine you will be able to gear your car to go maybe 10km/h faster on the straights. Just look at the speed trap speeds. Quite a difference between the different cars, often with the Merc powered cars fastest. So the stronger engine will still be able to do a higher top speed than a weaker engine.

One car might do 310km/h at 18.000rpm and another car 320km/h at 18.000rpm.

Has the difference in top speed through the speed traps come down these last seasons (or to put it another way, was there a bigger difference in top speed before the rev limits?)

There is an engine freeze, so no additional costs. Just delete the rev limit and leave it upto the teams to decide if or when they want to use the extra power. They won't be able to use them unlimited at all times for fear of penalties.

They gear the engines to achieve max speed in clear air, they would be losing out if geared for the occaisional slip streaming.

You are actually wrong. This season has had the least in the entire history of F1.

Ok, if the rev limit is introduced the way you describe, I agree that it wouldn't add cost (but not sure how big the gain would be as the engines are "optimized" for the 18.000rpm rev limit).

My understanding has allways been that they gear the cars to be able to slipstream the car in front. If not there wouldn't be much point in using slipstreaming as a racing/overtaking technique?? I have noticed when watching the inboard camera, when they show the rev info, that the cars never reach 18.000rpm in top gear on the straights. They allways have a few rpms in reserve for slipstreaming or if there should be a strong tailwind on race day.

Wrong? I was only asking.

Have you got any statistics to back up your claim (mind you I'm not saying you are wrong, just want to see something to back up your claim)?

I didn't mean to come off harsh.

Eh there was an overtaking chart posted somewhere with the average amount of overtakes per dry race per year, and 2009 was at the bottom, this was before Brazil by the way.

2009 was the 4th lowest for overtaking in F1's history. Here is the data: http://www.cliptheapex.com/forum/viewtopic...amp;t=822#p6976

Average Overtake per GP:

2005 - 10.89
1996 - 11.63
1998 - 12.94
2009 - 13.00

I think they leave a few revs in hand because it can damage the engine if they are bouncing on the limit, plus they don't want to risk a penalty by over revving.

No prob mate.

These have some info, but are from before the end of the 2009 season (from July so only halfway through the season) so the '09 figures should actually be better than the 2008. But all in all not very good compared to "the good old days"

http://www.cliptheapex.com/forum/viewtopic...?f=51&t=822

http://www.cliptheapex.com/forum/viewtopic...?f=51&t=814

See my post above. The data for 2009 is from July so the average data might change (could be better than 13 or worse...).

cars hit the rev limit before there was a mandated limit. cars arent designed to run in free air, "wait for the stops"

So you spend less on engine, aero etc.
They will always raise the maximum amount and then spend it to improve the car. How the budget is split between engine, aero and chassis is rather academic.

There's should be no need for F1 to be relavant...
In fact it would be better off dropping any pretense of being so...

That was rather my point. But to be able to spend less money on engines you have to have low cost engines available. Without the engine freeze there would not be affordable engines from Merc, Renault, Cosworth etc. available. With manufacturers pulling out and sponsors pulling out as well something had to be done to get the costs come down.

It doesn't help to tell the teams to spend less money on engines if there are no affordable engines available.

The problem seems to be that there is less money to raise and to be able to survive as a sport, expenditure has to go down. Earlier engines used to be the single largest post on the budget for many teams. So getting the cost of engines down helps a lot.

I would rather have free engines but I can understand, and appreciate, why something had to be done to get costs down. Merc's motorsport budget will soon be 1/4 of what it was a few years ago. BMW and Honda couldn't afford it anymore.