69 replies to this topic

[spacekid]

This isn't another 'F1 has gone rubbish' thread (or maybe it is in disguise), more a kicking off point for discussion.

Although it has been a part of F1 for many years now, I have been getting increasingly frustrated with the amount of micromanagement of the drivers races from the pit wall, with lap deltas, instructions to set to certain maps, don't push now let him past you, and even instructions on what gear to use when and how to drive a certain corner. During the worst of the Pirelli cheese tyre period I had the nasty feeling I was watching two dozen computer simulations of optimal rubber degradation play out, rather than a motor race.

What do you all think of the banning of real time car to pit telemetry?

Pros:
Returns control of the car to the driver. There would be no point in being Prost in 2014.
More exciting races - a less optimal run will provide variations.
Cost savings - those teams of people with laptops who analyse all the data must cost. Plus they need to be transported - not very green.

Cons:
Safety? The team being able to alert the driver to a potential problem? Although I think anything major should be apparent to the driver anyway.
Cars not being run to optimal pace. I can't decide if purposefully doing something to make a race car run in a less efficient way is very F1. Meh, perfection is dull.

Thoughts?

[smitten]

Telemetry is fine...just ban the use of radios except in safety circumstances (SC/fire/puncture etc).  Cheap, and just lets the drivers race.

[jcpower13]

How would the team be able to warn the Driver is their sensors say there's a problem with the brakes? An exploding brake disc because the Pits couldn't tell the driver would be a catastrophe. Especially if it happens in traffic.

[dweller23]

How would the team be able to warn the Driver is their sensors say there's a problem with the brakes? An exploding brake disc because the Pits couldn't tell the driver would be a catastrophe. Especially if it happens in traffic.

There are things called pit-boards and other stuff. They managed to do that for many years, plus radio failures weren't that uncommon in last 10-15 years.
 

[SenorSjon]

They have a flatscreen on their steering wheel. Make it blink bright red and it is bound to draw attention. Before this neutering, races were won as well.

[Jon83]

I love a good banning but see no reason for this or team radio to be banned. 

[wepmob2000]

I would love to see the pits to car radio banned, safety warnings could be via flashing lights in the cockpit, pit boards, and flags. I have a feeling that I'm watching a battle between pitwall teams currently, with the driver as a useful puppet in the cockpit, almost like watching RC car racing, and we know how exciting that is....zzzzz.

A ban would return an exciting element of uncertainty to F1, some drivers would run out of fuel, kill their brakes and tyres, and do stupid things. Others would use their intelligence to outperform those in better cars.

[Seanspeed]

Intentionally making it confusing and difficult for the drivers to know what's going on and what they should be doing sounds horrible.

[P123]

I think you'd need to ban a lot of tech on the current cars to make such an idea feasible. Just make them a slightly faster version of GP2 cars based on the same technology. But would that be F1?

[Seanspeed]

There are things called pit-boards and other stuff. They managed to do that for many years, plus radio failures weren't that uncommon in last 10-15 years.

F1 is far too complicated nowadays for a quick flash of a pitboard once a lap to be enough info for a driver.

[eronrules]

actually, with the current LCD screens on the steering wheel, the drivers can see fuel usage, brake balance, ERS harvesting, controlling MGU-K&H, choose harvesting mode, check temp etc etc. it wouldn't be very difficult to show any warning/hazard/sensor or component failure data on the LCD as well. perhaps the team can have the power to send message to driver to change tire or retire if deemed necessary. (but only in those 2 cases). 

 

BAN CAR TO PIT RADIO   

 

bottomline is, let the driver use their brain to choose the preffered fuel mode, torque demand, harvest setting. should bring out the Prost and senna out of them in racing situation. 

[alfa1]

What do you all think of the banning of real time car to pit telemetry?

Thoughts?

 

Last time I looked, the sport was a TEAM sport, not a driver sport.

I feel a team should be allowed to participate in a team sport.

[spacekid]

Last time I looked, the sport was a TEAM sport, not a driver sport.
I feel a team should be allowed to participate in a team sport.

Well the team build the car, and I am not proposing that the team have zero input to the race.

I am merely suggesting that the real time data that the team collect which in my view leads to excessive micro management of the race gets scaled back significantly.

I honestly think the races would be a lot more fun to watch if the drivers were responsible for monitoring their own tyre use and wear through feel and judgement, for instance, but looks like I'm in a minority of one here!

[DampMongoose]

With all the problems coming from tyre degradation and the driving to deltas resulting from that, we just need the tyres/fuel management to be removed by having sensible levels of fuel and tyres that last an entire race, so all drivers have to drive as quickly as possible all the time. No need to tell the drivers anything then...

[eronrules]

With all the problems coming from tyre degradation and the driving to deltas resulting from that, we just need the tyres/fuel management to be removed by having sensible levels of fuel and tyres that last an entire race, so all drivers have to drive as quickly as possible all the time. No need to tell the drivers anything then...

we don't have tire deg ATM ... pirelli have brought properly aged Chedder tires that won't fade during the races ... 

[Jejking]

With all the problems coming from tyre degradation and the driving to deltas resulting from that, we just need the tyres/fuel management to be removed by having sensible levels of fuel and tyres that last an entire race, so all drivers have to drive as quickly as possible all the time. No need to tell the drivers anything then...

I've read a transcript of Brazil 2006 once. One of the easier 'flat out' races. The amount of radio transmissions going on car to pit and vice versa was incredible. So forget it, even when they go flat out, they still have to deal with large amounts of tactical speech.

[Zeroninety]

Frankly, it's pit to car radio, more than car to pit, that I'd love to see them abolish. I see no problem in the team spending their days and weeks preparing the cars, then crossing their fingers as they trust the drivers to do what's needed in the race. Also, it would favor smarter, more experienced drivers. In the pre-radio era, you can bet some smart-ass in his early 20's wouldn't have won four titles in a row, no matter how much of a rocketship he was driving. I don't know, it can be annoying to see the best drivers in the world (and for the top half of the grid at least, I'd say that's true) have such a small role in how the races actually play out. *Sigh*, I guess I'm just too American. 

[wepmob2000]

Frankly, it's pit to car radio, more than car to pit, that I'd love to see them abolish. I see no problem in the team spending their days and weeks preparing the cars, then crossing their fingers as they trust the drivers to do what's needed in the race. Also, it would favor smarter, more experienced drivers. In the pre-radio era, you can bet some smart-ass in his early 20's wouldn't have won four titles in a row, no matter how much of a rocketship he was driving. I don't know, it can be annoying to see the best drivers in the world (and for the top half of the grid at least, I'd say that's true) have such a small role in how the races actually play out. *Sigh*, I guess I'm just too American. 

Agree with every word of that! Vettel is slowly growing on me, but his stats put him in the league of Senna, Prost, Clark, Lauda, Stewart, etc, which is laughable.

[DS27]

yes - ban radio's during the GP.

[ExFlagMan]

Guess what happens when a team/driver loses his car-pit telemetry for a race - a large no of posters on the forum slags the driver off for not being as fast as his team mate!

Congratulations to Nico and the team for a great recovery drive.

I wonder how many other drivers would have managed to cope with that situation without going into overload.

[toofast]

Guess what happens when a team/driver loses his car-pit telemetry for a race - a large no of posters on the forum slags the driver off for not being as fast as his team mate!

Congratulations to Nico and the team for a great recovery drive.

I wonder how many other drivers would have managed to cope with that situation without going into overload.

 

If anything, it shows that you don't really need telemetry to race.

[ExFlagMan]

I wouldn't disagree, but it must be somewhat disconcerting to suddenly be put in that situation just before the start of the race.
I assume Mercedes had some contingency plan to switch to - if so it would probably be another example of the Ross Brawn legacy.

[Jon83]

Is there anything else which we could call on to be banned?

[chipmcdonald]

They may as well bring back two way telemetry.  I'd rather they just adjust the car directly and let the driver DRIVE instead of managing the car by proxy.  

 

 

 

[BRG]

I think the Rosberg case demonstrated how little telemetry is really needed.  It is part of the anal tendency of F1 to check and recheck things instead of leaving well alone.  One of the best things the FIA instituted was the post qually parc ferme.   Before that every team would take a perfectly good car and tear it to pieces and rebuild it before the race, for no good reason other than that they could.  When that was stopped, it was no coincidence that reliability increased massively, proving the rule that 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.  

 

Even in these complicated days, it proved possible for Rosberg to relay fuel usage data to the puts to keep them happy, or at least until he (quite rightly) got fed up with that and told them not to bother him again.  

[PayasYouRace]

I can see the appeal, but I still think Grand Prix racing should be about a team of people getting a car across the line first, and I don't like the idea of limiting their communication so drastically.

[alfa1]

I think the Rosberg case demonstrated how little telemetry is really needed.  

 

Given that he ended up 20 seconds behind his teammate, it could also be argued that the Rosberg case demonstrates how much telemetry IS needed.

 

For all we know, some small differential settings or engine mapping (that they didn't know were needed) could have gained him a third of a second. Given how much the drivers are told to do these things in the normal course of a race, I do suspect some opportunities to tweak car settings were missed.

[SenorSjon]

I think the Rosberg case demonstrated how little telemetry is really needed.  It is part of the anal tendency of F1 to check and recheck things instead of leaving well alone.  One of the best things the FIA instituted was the post qually parc ferme.   Before that every team would take a perfectly good car and tear it to pieces and rebuild it before the race, for no good reason other than that they could.  When that was stopped, it was no coincidence that reliability increased massively, proving the rule that 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.  

 

Even in these complicated days, it proved possible for Rosberg to relay fuel usage data to the puts to keep them happy, or at least until he (quite rightly) got fed up with that and told them not to bother him again.  

 

 

Well, for me parc fermé rules were the start of the F1-downfall, so I hardly see them as a good thing.

• T-car banned, so no time to rebuild a car. Bin your car in FP3 and no qualification for you. The restarts when something went terribly wrong are gone too.
• Warm-up cancelled, less F1-time for everyone on and near the track.
• Excessive reliability rules, what is the fun in that?
• And the list goes on, but that is another topic.

 

 

And F1-cars don't really need a driver these days. I hardly found it a otherworldy performance from Rosberg to talk about fuel figures during the race. He could play CandyCrush on his steering wheel if he wanted to.

 

 

Edit

@above

Last race, Rosberg would have had the same gap, but was rescued by the SC.

Edited by SenorSjon, 21 April 2014 - 10:14.

[undersquare]

Seems obvious to me that Prost would have loved this era.  Lots of emphasis on data use, communication, all kinds of whispering driving technique, and still the need for top passing and defending skills...

[spacekid]

Is there anything else which we could call on to be banned?

You've made two posts saying basically the same thing.

I'm not calling for pit to car telemetry to be banned. It's a jumping off point for a discussion as to the effect on GP racing if there was no pit to car telemetry. Would it make much difference, is it against the spirit of F1 to go backwards, would we appreciate the likely variation in races that the resulting sub-optimal running of the cars would produce.

I am NOT just randomly suggesting banning something for the sake of it.

I put effort into constructing an argument in my OP. Have you really nothing to add other than the same snarky comment over and again?

[spacekid]

Seems obvious to me that Prost would have loved this era. Lots of emphasis on data use, communication, all kinds of whispering driving technique, and still the need for top passing and defending skills...

Would he though? I don't know. I've always thought that being Prost in this era would be a waste of time. He did it I thought more through his own feel and judgement. Now it's all run through computer models of tire degradation and teams of people with laptops telling the drivers what pace to run and when to use certain settings.

I could be wrong about Prost, I don't know what he likes, but I don't think the driver needs to do much of the thinking at the moment.

[eronrules]

here's what we can ban ... fuel mixture knobs. let the driver's use throttle pedals to manually adjust revs to save fuel. just give them the fuel bar and nothing else.

 

also, ban too many fidley knobs on the wheel. let them have 

 

1. radio

2. drinks

3. boost /overtake 

4. shut down

 

that's it.

[Atreiu]

I don't mind telemetry and radios, but I wish there were less knobs and buttons on the steering wheel and more left for the drivers to manage with their heads, feet and hands.

 

And manual gear shifts? Anyone?

[eronrules]

I don't mind telemetry and radios, but I wish there were less knobs and buttons on the steering wheel and more left for the drivers to manage with their heads, feet and hands.

 

And manual gear shifts? Anyone?

well, using manual clutch with these engines and ECUs are quite literally impossible. but i am a sucker for joystick sequential boxes. they'll have to use one hand to use it, and make it mechanical as opposed to fly-by-wire system. we need mechanical clunking noises. like this one ...

 

[undersquare]

Would he though? I don't know. I've always thought that being Prost in this era would be a waste of time. He did it I thought more through his own feel and judgement. Now it's all run through computer models of tire degradation and teams of people with laptops telling the drivers what pace to run and when to use certain settings.

I could be wrong about Prost, I don't know what he likes, but I don't think the driver needs to do much of the thinking at the moment.

I reckon drivers have to do more thinking than ever.  It's true that during a race the strategy is given to them, along with engine settings etc etc, but driving the car is more of an art form than ever, juggling coasting, braking, harvesting, tyre temps, ers and drs...

 

Then after a race they have to go and do their homework, study their telemetry and their teammate's, and go and practice in the simulator trying to find a teeny bit more pace on the same fuel or a bit more or less front-left tyre temperature or whatever it may be.

[bub]

I don't really care either way. With or without telemetry/radio is fine by me.

[BRG]

Given that he ended up 20 seconds behind his teammate, it could also be argued that the Rosberg case demonstrates how much telemetry IS needed.

 

Don't play dumb.  It would be banned for everyone, not just Rosberg  .

[Neophiliac]

Given Rosberg's example, what exactly would be achieved? Making drivers read out fuel stats (and then probably more metrics too as we go on - watch out for the engine temps, oil pressure, gearbox alarms, etc., etc. appearing on the drivers dashboard) as they race at 200mph? Whatever for?

[BRG]

Given Rosberg's example, what exactly would be achieved? Making drivers read out fuel stats (and then probably more metrics too as we go on - watch out for the engine temps, oil pressure, gearbox alarms, etc., etc. appearing on the drivers dashboard) as they race at 200mph? Whatever for?

The teams would gradually be weaned off the need to 'know' everything about the car at every second of the race.  The drivers would only report if something went wrong, just as they used to in the past.  They would pretty soon tell the teams that they didn't have time to satisfy their morbid curiosity, just as Rosberg did in China.  Anyway, who cares about the temperatures and pressures as long as they are OK?  Thye can have a data recorder and download the data after the race and the hundreds of analysts can analyse it to death back at base.  Or they could use their resources to move forward instead of contemplating their navels....

[undersquare]

I don't see why WE shouldn't know the tyre temperatures.

[CoolBreeze]

I kinda like the idea of banning telemetry. It's more mysterious, and lets the driver just focused on racing. Not being advised to switch to this and that crap. 

[slideways]

They manage without radio in the bikes and other categories. Makes for better racing IMO.

[CHIUNDA]

I think what would happen is that more of the monitoring systems will be managed by an in-car computer with appropriately timed alerts and notifications much the same way as RBRs current beep system making it pointless to get rid of the car to pit telemetry. Only data outside normal or acceptable limits would be notified to the driver e.g if tyres are too cold or overheating etc

Edited by CHIUNDA, 22 April 2014 - 04:27.

[CHIUNDA]

Don't play dumb.  It would be banned for everyone, not just Rosberg  .

 

 

Given Rosberg's example, what exactly would be achieved? Making drivers read out fuel stats (and then probably more metrics too as we go on - watch out for the engine temps, oil pressure, gearbox alarms, etc., etc. appearing on the drivers dashboard) as they race at 200mph? Whatever for?

 

Telemetry does not play a very critical role during a race if the car is running well and a race does not have incidences or safety car. In most cases, the pit wall just confirms that the driver is doing well and managing the car as expected anyway. The stops, with or without telemetry are normally within a lap of what was agreed several hours before the race. Pit boards have been effective in the past for this purpose. However, as is the nature of F1, every once in a while, a team and driver are guaranteed to have a few dramatic races in which case then, constant telemetry could save a race. On previous occasion, this happened severally to Vettel when he had to nurse his car from the lead. There are also cases when telemetry can be considered to have been totally useless as regards to saving a race e.g. Lewis Hamilton in Australia 2014 but useful nonetheless for after-the-race diagnostics and troubleshooting.

 

Therefore, from the perspective of diagnostics and troubleshooting and testing, it is impossible to push through a ban for car-to-pit telemetry as this provides the primary data that engineers use to improve their cars over the course of racing season.

Edited by CHIUNDA, 22 April 2014 - 04:49.

[zztopless1]

Last time I looked, the sport was a TEAM sport, not a driver sport.

I feel a team should be allowed to participate in a team sport.

 

This.

Edited by zztopless1, 22 April 2014 - 05:01.

[Jon83]

This.

 

x2

 

Too many people want everything banned.

[Gorma]

There are also cases when telemetry can be considered to have been totally useless as regards to saving a race e.g. Lewis Hamilton in Australia 2014 but useful nonetheless for after-the-race diagnostics and troubleshooting.

Still in that kind of a situation telemetry can be very useful in saving the engine. 

[SenorSjon]

And a news flash with instructions on his widescreen steering wheel wouldn't work? I find it odd the driver still has manual control over things as the fuel mixture. It should and could arrange itself without pitwall intereference.

 

The fuelcounter for example. Make a digit next to the current one with a target fuel value based on elapsed laps. The driver can see the text in green or red, depending on his fuel saving. Why is there a need for a pitwall neutering the driver that way? Hell, they could give him a target percentage on his pitboard.

[CHIUNDA]

And a news flash with instructions on his widescreen steering wheel wouldn't work? I find it odd the driver still has manual control over things as the fuel mixture. It should and could arrange itself without pitwall intereference.

 

The fuelcounter for example. Make a digit next to the current one with a target fuel value based on elapsed laps. The driver can see the text in green or red, depending on his fuel saving. Why is there a need for a pitwall neutering the driver that way? Hell, they could give him a target percentage on his pitboard.

 

Actually on reflection, with some not so complicated algorithms, in-car computers should be able to give drivers most the information the engineers give them over the radio. There is probably some prohibition in the technical rules preventing this but don't see why it is not done if there is none. It would free the pit-wall to focus on managing tactics and strategy better.

[F1ultimate]

Banning pit to car telemetry doesn't make sense in an era when cars are powered by very complex systems of batteries, generators and motors.