For a long time I have been both annoyed and in awe of the evolution of the F1 cars. Annoyed because almost every rule change since as long as I can remember, and that is quite long, has aimed to reduce the cars performance. In awe because in spite of those rule changes, the geniuses in the teams headquarters still manage to make the cars faster. So fast that the rule makers must make them slower.
A F1 car is not a very practical vehicle. If you'd take it on a road trip you can not bring the hottie you met at the coffee shop last week, the luggage would be restricted to a pair of boxers and, maybe, a toothbrush. You would need to spend hours finding a route that would not leave you beached on a speed bump or run into a strip of road construction. It would also be expensive to accommodate and feed the crew that must follow you everywhere, in a van, ready to start your car if you stall it in a traffic jam. Parallell parking would also be frustrating.
So I call BS on the claims that the developments in F1 gives us better road cars since any car is a better road car than a Mercedes-AMG F1 W12 E Performance, which is the best car in the world. Almost everything that makes it the best car in the world is useless in any car that is to be used in the real world. So what's the point? To make the fastest car possible? They gave up on that 80 years ago. Quickest around a corner? That idea was scrapped 50 years ago. Sure, some development within F1 might appear in a station wagon some years after, but a more optimized version of that would have appeared in our family cars sooner, had the focus been on actually making better road cars.
I guess they can go on like this indefinitely, develop, restrict, develop, restrict and so on, in a perverted Sisophysian dance that takes them further and further away from actual cars, but maybe there is another route to take? Could F1 include bumpy roads, gravel sections and a white zone for loading and unloading only? Could they do like Indycar and use mostly standard parts, same for everyone? Could they invent an absolutely ridiculous concept that would guarantee that the cars would never be so fast that they'd need to alter the rules to slow them down and therefore allow for various innovate ideas? Currently, the regulations are basically designing the cars and if you take the paint off modern F1 cars, they all look the same for a non-expert.
The wast majority is watching F1 on a screen, many many miles from the track and that means that the speed is literally an illusion. Is that maybe a way? That, instead of developing the cars for many many millions, they could focus on the illusion? A F1 car on a huge track does not really appear faster than a F3 car on a smaller, narrower, track. Or maybe they could introduce robot drivers? Robot drivers with personalities that fans can relate to? GeForce Jonsson, Bitcruncher Interface and Random Access, all three of them WDC contenders, line up a the title finale in the Bonneville. Might get hot.
Or is should F1 be more about the human beings we can see? The Hamilton's and Sennas', the Horner's and Dennises?
World Cup in football is not the biggest sport event in the World because they use a superior football or because the grass is greener. It's because that's where the best players are. All at once. I, for one, love Indycar and I often think "I wish all the best drivers were here!". It is not only the cars, the fact that any team can win, it is also the general presence of the human elements. And the smell of oil and petrol instead of deodorant that manages to pass through my TV screen. Can F1 really be considered "the pinnacle of motorsport" if only 1/5 of the drivers have a realistic chance to win? Is F1 not instead just "the pinnacle of engineering"? How exciting is it really when Ferrari introduces a new curve on an element in the front wing, something that a faceless team have spend hundreds of hours designing in order to cut 0.01 second from the laptime? How important is it that the F1 car is fastest when we know that it is possible to build a car that is faster if the regulations allowed it?
Maybe the strategy element should be elevated? As I see it, the strategy part has been bigger before. The "must use two compounds" has added one parameter, but "no refuelling" took one away. The "start with the Q2 tires" added one parameter, but the parc ferme took one away. The engine mode lock took one away. The strategies now are predictable and any deviation often dictated by a failure rather than a decision. Is there strategic elements that can be added?
Tell me about your wildest visions.
EDIT: Added some parts that got lost from distraction.
Edited by Singularity, 04 January 2022 - 12:29.
