119 replies to this topic

[917k]

So simple - do what Indycar has done forever.

 

Throw out the SC for each and every tiny event on-track - bits of debris, a stalled car, too many marbles, even [in the case of Sonoma] a slow moving car on track.

 

Close the pits and force everyone to pit at the same time. Anyone who has pitted before any SC gets a huge advantage of on-track position and the packing up of cars will lead to more incidents and likely more SC periods. We see this in Indycar all the time. Despite the fact that Indycars are inherently closer in performance to one another, most races become rather F1-like without some sort of intervention. After the intervention, we are host to clash after clash, SC after SC and [more often than not] a SC occurring late in the race - giving us a ''dash to the flag''.

 

Excitement in most races is produced with cars out of position - so you need a means to take the cars out of position. Forget the F1 purity argument - we now have Pirelli's and DRS etc., so that argument is moot these days.

 

I have been big Indycar fan for years but can't say I'm really a fan of the whole race manipulation via questionable SC periods but it would work in F1 and would go a long way to producing closer [if not more artificial] racing. All this for no new aero development, track changes, engine changes etc.

 

For sure something to rile up the purists but would [no doubt] spice up the show, and that seems to be what is important these days.

[1Devil1]

 

Interesting 

[Marklar]

The crying of some drivers after the race would it be worth

[LuckyStrike1]

[Vibe]

Well they've done just the opposite, introducing the VSC.

[Fastcake]

Strictly speaking Bernie will have to fill up the Merc during the race, so they'll have to pay something.

[917k]

Well they've done just the opposite, introducing the VSC.

 

Exactly, which blows me away. People are screaming about the lack of race excitement, then they introduce a SC system that actually removes the excitement an SC would produce.

 

That's another thing - Charlie has had the option to throw the SC on occasions where races desperately needed ''spicing up'', but resisted and let marshalls haul cars off track. You would think they would throw the SC just to tighten up the field, to give journo's something to write about but, no, the whole ''integrity of the race'' thing comes up.......'race' integrity is long gone so why the resistance?

 

Both NASCAR and Indycar know full well the numbers of people that turn off a dull race and take measures to ensure a tight and competitive race. In fact, a seasoned viewer knows when a ''competition caution'' is coming - leader too far ahead, things getting boring.....

Edited by 917k, 10 September 2015 - 16:59.

[KWSN - DSM]

Make it about the drivers and their ability over cars and engines. Drop pit-stops, multiple tire compounds and DRS which are artificial gimmicks not doing anything but dumbing down the sport.

 

[travbrad]

Why not sprinklers?

 

They could also write long dramatic feuds between the drivers which they could [badly] act out before each race.

Edited by travbrad, 10 September 2015 - 17:10.

[JAW97]

How expensive would it be to introduce rocket launchers?

[SlickMick]

I'd rather go with the pathetic idea of handicapping or the pathetic idea of reverse grids than the pathetic idea of artificial safety cars.

[RealRacing]

Or they could put oil on the track.

Or hack drivers Twitter accounts and randomly send offensive messages among them.

Or play "secret friend", where at the beginning of the season each driver picks another's name from a hat and gives him a present and a clue every GP until, at the end of the season they reveal themselves and have cake and tea. 

 

Better ideas,  just from the top of my mind:

 

-Eliminate mandatory use of compounds

-Use only one set of tyres per race, but good ones.

-Eliminate DRS

-Limit front wing complexity

-Eliminate fuel limits

[Vettelari]

I do not think he is talking about "artificial" safety cars at all, SlickMick.

 

I think he has a GREAT idea here. With all of the cries for more safety, taking on Indycar's model of having a safety car whenever a car is wrecked on the track would be more than welcomed by me.

 

They can make the change to increase the amount of safety cars under the guise of safety, but actually spice up the show ten-fold in the process without changing a single thing.

 

EVERY single race has a car break down or a car wreck these days. Bring out the safety car. It bunches the field up and can give cars a massive amount of "luck" based on the circumstances.

 

For all of the theories I have read on this board on how to improve "the show" in F1, this is BY FAR my favorite.

 

If a car wrecks, breaks down, or throws debris on the course, send out the safety car. None of this virtual safety car BS. Take the tip from Indycar and NASCAR, but there is no need to go to that kind of extreme. I do not see many people complaining about having 1 or 2 safety car periods in every single GP. I think it would be great.

 

917K, you win the award for poster of the year, in my opinion.

 

This is the most practical way to improve "the show", increase viewership and add unpredictability to the races. The best part? It does not cost anyone a penny and it makes the races safer for every driver and marshall at the GP.

 

PLEASE make it happen.

[Garndell]

Watch Lap 1 and turn off before turning on for the final lap.  It works for my step-dad, provided I remember to tell him the last lap is about to begin.

[August]

I was thinking exactly about this when talking about young viewers' short attention span. Throw a ghost caution 10 to 5 laps before finish and introduce GWC. Works just fine in NASCAR. If you can't stay concentrated throughout the race, tune in only for the final shootout. The hardcore fans would still watch the entire race to know how they got the order for the final restart.

[Radion]

Banana peels.

To be used on track.

Each driver has three of them.

[johnmhinds]

[johnmhinds]

Both NASCAR and Indycar know full well the numbers of people that turn off a dull race and take measures to ensure a tight and competitive race. In fact, a seasoned viewer knows when a ''competition caution'' is coming - leader too far ahead, things getting boring.....

 

 

Wasting 3-5 laps trundling along behind the safety car at 50mph, thats what will gets the fans REALLY excited....!?!?!?

 

What are you smoking...

 

Most fans want to watch a full race, not short meaningless sprints between caution periods.

Edited by johnmhinds, 10 September 2015 - 17:47.

[thegforcemaybewithyou]

There's a better way to create confusion during a race, shift all the responsibility to the driver!

 

The pit to driver communication is limited to safety related issues. The driver can only rely on his feeling regarding tyres, brakes, lap times, gaps to other drivers, when to push, when to pit and when to use more fuel as his steering wheel does not contain a dashboard.

 

What about that?

[PayasYouRace]

This is one of the reasons why F1 is in such trouble at the moment regarding keeping fans happy. On the one hand, crazy ideas to spice up the show like yours get support from enough people, but the purists hate them. On the other hand, moves to appease the purists are considered boring.

 

No wonder the FIA, the teams, FOM and everyone else have no idea what to do, because any silly idea gets equally supported and panned.

 

Personally I'd rather see the races with as little interruption from safety cars as possible.

[ThisIsMischaW]

I'd rather see reverse grids than artificial safety cars.

[Spillage]

No ta. I want F1 to be close, but I don't want it to provide random results.

[viceroy1]

They should remove all radio communications to the driver except safety related info (notifying of a crash/debris/slow car) There should be a big leaderboard posted at 4 intervals around the track with huge lettering so the crowd can make it out, and the drivers can set up a holographic display inside their visor with info

[chhatra]

Monza spec wings everywhere.

[Dalin80]

Reduce the race to a series of 20 3lap sprints with a different car on pole every time!

[surbjits]

making the cars harder to drive wouldnt be bad either

[surbjits]

This is one of the reasons why F1 is in such trouble at the moment regarding keeping fans happy. On the one hand, crazy ideas to spice up the show like yours get support from enough people, but the purists hate them. On the other hand, moves to appease the purists are considered boring.

 

No wonder the FIA, the teams, FOM and everyone else have no idea what to do, because any silly idea gets equally supported and panned.

 

Personally I'd rather see the races with as little interruption from safety cars as possible.

 

what % do the purists make up of the f1 demograph?

[Mat13]

Wings, engine covers and wheels to be fitted with explosive bolts, that detonate randomly (or not at all).

Made-up videos of drivers' wives kissing Bernie flashing randomly on the big screens.

"Fan boost"- every half hour, 100 lucky fans throw boost bars at the race leader.

DRS- Duck reduction system. Haven't thought about this one yet, except it'll be 12 bore and the RSPB won't like it one bit.

[Frank Tuesday]

This is one of the reasons why F1 is in such trouble at the moment regarding keeping fans happy. On the one hand, crazy ideas to spice up the show like yours get support from enough people, but the purists hate them. On the other hand, moves to appease the purists are considered boring.

No wonder the FIA, the teams, FOM and everyone else have no idea what to do, because any silly idea gets equally supported and panned.

Personally I'd rather see the races with as little interruption from safety cars as possible.

Wish that they would just decide which way they want to do. Can't make everyone happy, so pick the purists or the short-attention-spanners, and make the rules accordingly. Trying to find the middle ground just irritates everyone.

[TheManAlive]

How about we stop trying to find ways to make F1 'exciting'. Brand me a purist if you like but ALL attempts to make the sport 'exciting' have not done so. Either you find cars racing at 200mph exciting or you dont. Gimmicks wont help, all they do is make things look artificial or stupid and ridiculed. Look at other sports, have they changed the rules in football to make it more exciting? Rugby? Cricket (yes 20 20 but that is it). Cycling (nope unless you count taking drugs) etc etc etc. 

 

IF they are going to do such changes then at least try to make out that it is linked to the sport and not bastardising it to bring in new punters. Any changes brought in should NEVER be based on it would be more exciting. I'll cite the example of the skid blocks this year. Had they said that they wanted to bring back the ability to run the cars low and therefore authorised the use of new materials then we all would have cheered at the first race when we saw sparks were back. BUT instead the idiots told us that we are idiots who get excited by sparks, so we will bring them back to make us smile.

 

Finally, 'purists' are the people who have followed the sport for years. They are the people whose support got the sport to where it is. Change it enough and you will lose you base and then it will collapse. A bit like getting rid of all the original historic tracks...!

[Ruusperi]

I hate SC periods. They always took too long and after SC comes in only the first 5 corners may be interesting until the the gaps spread out. Plus it's much more unfair than VSC. Why should leader lose his 20 sec gap just because some car is stopped in the track?

Besides, I don't remember that yellows have bred yellows in F1. The drivers are very careful. Even Monza was totally clean incident wise and there was nothing that Charlie could have should have done to spice it up. There are other ways to make better racing than gimmicks. Just look at GP3, F3 or FF.

[917k]

There is nothing artificial about a SC, if there is some warrant to them - it's just a matter of being more pro-active on that front and using a lower threshold.

 

People here complain about boring races and domination but also complain about manipulation and gimmicks. If you look at what would be considered some of the great races of the modern era, most involve some sort of incident that shuffles the field order and this is just a means to that end without making major changes to the cars or tracks. The natural order is - fastest car on pole, fastest car leads, stretches lead and wins by a big margin. That's all fine and good for the purists but [eventually] even these people get fed-up with one or two cars dominating.

 

I'm an old-timer - started watching in the 70's, have lived through many eras of domination and boredom. I'm not necessarily saying this is the ''right'' thing to do, but it is something to do and certainly doesn't involve the cost or complexity that the Working Group ideas involve. I completely understand the viewpoint that this is just more [unneeded] gimmickry but here is an idea that doesn't involve any costs to implement. So, really, I'm pretty surprised that F1 hasn't thought of this on their own considering all the other crazy suggestions.

[Dalin80]

Actually, easy solution here guys... ban the cars from being more then 1s away from the next car. simples.

[917k]

Why does model work for many [most] other series but not F1? Is F1 somehow too pure for this?

 

With this, you could ditch multiple tire compounds, DRS, fuel saving etc.

Edited by 917k, 10 September 2015 - 19:23.

[Frank Tuesday]

Actually, easy solution here guys... ban the cars from being more then 1s away from the next car. simples.

Perfect, use gps and if you get too far ahead, your engine power is automatically cut. 

[Frank Tuesday]

Why does model work for many [most] other series but not F1? Is F1 somehow too pure for this?

 

With this, you could ditch multiple tire compounds, DRS, fuel saving etc.

 

You can ditch DRS and multi-compounds without increasing SC usage, and I would welcome the removal of all of them.  There is no way to get rid of fuel savings.  Teams will always calculate the fastest way, and if carrying less fuel is faster, they'll do it.   

[ArchieTech]

Nope, the kind of random results you get with Indycar on road courses don't interest me. Amusing for a brief while, but if it's basically a lottery then... meh.

[Diablobb81]

Screw IndyCar and their fake yellows for fake spins and slow cars and their brilliant idea to close pits. I'm still pissed off.

[Atreiu]

Please, no.

Indycar sucks. Not really. But it does.

[SenorSjon]

Can we have red and green turtle shells as well?

One of the drawbacks of Indycar is 5-10 laps of SC for a burger wrap. It takes forever.

[chadwick8505]

The racing isn't exciting enough... I suggest we have more laps that neutralize racing... That'll make things more exciting. Especially considering the fact that SCs bred SCs. Maybe we could get to the point where they run the entire race behind a SC! Think of the drama!!

How about no.

[Frank Tuesday]

And at each safety car, they should hold a random draw to determine the restart order.  That'll make things more exciting.  Imagine how exciting Abu Dhabi will be:  50 laps in, Hamilton has a 49 point championship lead over Rosberg, and Rosberg just had a technical problem which put him at the back of the field.  The only way for Rosberg to win the title is to win the race (double points) and Hamilton doesn't score.  And the safety car is out.  The drawing is held, and Rosberg will restart in P3 behind the two Manors, and Hamilton drew 19th.  We go green with 3 laps to go.  Will Rosberg pull it off?  What a brilliant end to the season. 

[Peter Perfect]

Same points for qualifying as for the race, and reverse grid starts.

[jonpollak]

Please, no.

Indycar sucks. Not really. But it does.

 

No, you just have no sense of the ridiculous.

[Nonesuch]

Indycar sucks. Not really. But it does.

 
If you watch IndyCar as entertainment rather than racing, you'll probably have a good time and see some exciting racing on a regular basis.

Edited by Nonesuch, 10 September 2015 - 21:18.

[Dan333SP]

Or they could put oil on the track.

Or hack drivers Twitter accounts and randomly send offensive messages among them.

Or play "secret friend", where at the beginning of the season each driver picks another's name from a hat and gives him a present and a clue every GP until, at the end of the season they reveal themselves and have cake and tea. 

 

[Dan333SP]

Please, no.

Indycar sucks. Not really. But it does.

 

Are you a bitter DRACONE fan?

[Lotus53B]

All laps except the final lap under safety car.

 

Final lap, all rules suspended...

[August]

I gotta say I like the strategic opportunities presented by IndyCar's caution/pit policy. To see drivers pitting early in hope of a caution before the lead cars pit and how those lead cars protect from that scenario. Or a driver not pitting during a late caution, hoping for another caution to make it to finish. Actually, IndyCar SHOULD introduce GWC; just imagine the lead car having to pit just because of a GWC, yet recovering to podium when most had to pit before the third GWC. The major issue of that system is drivers being encouraged to pit early, in damp conditions going to slicks early, and restarts on damp track leading to more cautions.

 

Is that IndyCar system fair? Surely there are many reasons to say it's not. Still it's the same for everybody and over 16 races good and bad luck should even out. Given how few technical retirements there are these days, it brings some unpredictability. Previously we were worried if the leader's engine lasts till finish, in IndyCar you're worried if a caution costs him the win. Modern F1 doesn't really have either of those aspects.

 

But maybe this just isn't in F1's DNA. And even if it were, I'm sure F1 could make it dull anyway. Maybe we'd just get Rontalk criticizing the SC rules.

[RealRacing]

Auto racing per se is exciting, given that it is allowed to happen in a way that makes it real. If you start fiddling with the fundamentals of it, as they have done in F1 and other categories too, it may cause more artificial excitement now and then, but it will disappoint the "purists" and eventually drive them away. The Indy thing of this thread is an example of artificially making races more exciting. I'm not saying there should not be room for that but, as I have said many times elsewhere, we have reached the point where F1 can't satisfy all of its fan base at once and it's probably time to separate the category into at least two different ones: the "pure" one and the one geared for new generations of fans, or simply for people looking for a show that may or may not have anything to do with true auto racing. Personally, I don't mind a race with zero overtakings, given the right conditions, so given that I'm happy with how the variables are managed. I know that at some point something great will happen and I'll be able to enjoy it that much more because I will know it is authentic.

 

Someone has said in this thread, it's impossible to keep everyone happy. I think it is possible, just with two different categories. The sooner it happens, the better.