78 replies to this topic

[femi]

McLaren chief Zak Brown thinks so. I agree with him, so long as what we see on track still look like F1 cars. A six-wheel F1 car is taking it a bit too far for me

 

https://www.motorspo...brown/10412480/

 

 

[Scotracer]

Don't agree. If you get it wrong, you're screwed.

[ConsiderAndGo]

Yeah, nah thanks.

[Disgrace]

Don't agree. If you get it wrong, you're screwed.

 

And become utterly insufferable lobbyists.

[Augurk]

And become utterly insufferable lobbyists.

Which is different than now, how exactly?

[pdac]

Don't agree. If you get it wrong, you're screwed.

 

Just like it is now then. Maybe it's time to think spec series if you're worried about that.

Edited by pdac, 18 December 2022 - 16:46.

[Chillimeister]

I was under the impression that the tech rules now are what they are principally to try and control the kind of aero development that took place up to 2020, that made cars too difficult to follow closely.

[cbo]

I'm all for freeing up the tech regulations. A six wheels car driven by a counterpiston diesel engine racing against a double rearwing fourwheeler driven by a wankel would be fun 😀

Never going to happen, though.

[RacingGreen]

Let the engineers build the best car they can within budget, and let's see what they come up with. Sure, someone will get it spectacularly wrong, and the "sporting entertainment" could suffer but F1 needs more visible innovation and visible difference between the cars that it is being staved of by the ultra restrictive technical regulations. 

[frosty125]

I was under the impression that the tech rules now are what they are principally to try and control the kind of aero development that took place up to 2020, that made cars too difficult to follow closely.

This would be my concern, we could end up with worse racing. But the innovation it would allow is very much in the F1 spirit.

[Sterzo]

Firstly, I don't think the cost cap is fully in place - it's in its early stages, and needs both reducing, and tightening to plug the many loopholes.

 

Secondly, it's all about what we want Grand Prix racing to be. It started as a technical-cum-commercial competition between manufacturers, so you can argue tradition is on the side of freeing up rules. However, I (and probably no-one else) think it's long since outgrown that. Racing has always contained the seeds of its own destruction. With no tech rules at all, we could have supersonic driverless cars that don't touch the ground, using current technology and nothing revolutionary.

 

I know that level of freedom is not what's being proposed. My point is to illustrate that technology has long since outstripped the practicalities of racing, and the rules are an artificial construct to ensure we have a watchable sport. Maybe, coincidentally with the impending doom of the IC engine, it's time to think of racing as more of a game and less of a tech platform, rather than the other way round.

[AustinF1]

McLaren chief Zak Brown thinks so. I agree with him, so long as what we see on track still look like F1 cars. A six-wheel F1 car is taking it a bit too far for me

 

https://www.motorspo...brown/10412480/

Not 100% sure where I stand on freeing up the tech regs, but I've been saying for a while that with a budget cap in place they should free up testing limits, CFD, wind tunnel time, etc, and Parc Ferme as well. Since everything happens now with a budget cap, let each team decide what to prioritize, and let them succeed or fail based on their choices.

Edited by AustinF1, 19 December 2022 - 01:20.

[917k]

Considering things are coming down to fractions of a 10th of a second between top cars, open innovation will likely result in multiple seconds of gap. I am all for it but the sport is run as a business now, if it hasn’t always been lol, and needs eyeballs to make it work.

[Anderis]

Not sure about the technical rules but at the very least they could lift the testing, wind tunnel restrictions etc. because it no longer does what it was primarily intended to do (to decrease costs).

 

But more testing means more carbon footprint etc. so not gonna happen.

 

Maybe they could lessen restrictions on allowed materials so we could hopefully reduce the mass of the cars a bit.

Edited by Anderis, 18 December 2022 - 22:50.

[danmills]

There is absolutely no point freeing up tech rules when there is so very limited testing.

It's like having a car that can do 0-60 in 3.2 seconds but having just 4 metres of track to play with.

I'm sure lots more design ideas could be tried even with the cap, but race weekend laps are too precious to waste.

I'd like to see the race weekend open up an extra few test sessions either before or after the race action. Teams, staff, infrastructure, fans are already there, why not capitalise? It would be the cheapest possible way of getting mileage AND for the fans.

Post race day track booking also gives us the chance to delay a race entirely when its too wet to avoid the recent issues.

You could have it at every race or several. A few extra sessions of complete test days.

 

The carbon footprint argument is nonsense. The problem of airline pollution far exceeds the emissions from racing. To fly teams in and out of bespoke test sessions in March does more harm than 20 extra single test sessions in a place they've already flown to.

Easiest thing they could implement, yet they come up with crap like tokens.

Edited by danmills, 18 December 2022 - 23:53.

[OO7]

A potential problem I see if the reigns upon the tech regs are slackened with a budget cap in place, is that the larger teams likely have a cache of outlawed technologies they could introduce with little additional developmental spend.  Smaller teams would have to take sizable bites out of their budgets to match to technologies.

[YamahaV10]

I don't get why automatic transmissions are considered taboo. Today's trannies have all the components of an auto except a human flicking the gears

[IrvTheSwerve]

I'm all for freeing up the tech regulations. A six wheels car driven by a counterpiston diesel engine racing against a double rearwing fourwheeler driven by a wankel would be fun

Never going to happen, though.

Must…resist…joke…

[danmills]

I don't get why automatic transmissions are considered taboo. Today's trannies have all the components of an auto except a human flicking the gears

 

[pdac]

There is absolutely no point freeing up tech rules when there is so very limited testing.

It's like having a car that can do 0-60 in 3.2 seconds but having just 4 metres of track to play with.

I'm sure lots more design ideas could be tried even with the cap, but race weekend laps are too precious to waste.

I'd like to see the race weekend open up an extra few test sessions either before or after the race action. Teams, staff, infrastructure, fans are already there, why not capitalise? It would be the cheapest possible way of getting mileage AND for the fans.

Post race day track booking also gives us the chance to delay a race entirely when its too wet to avoid the recent issues.

You could have it at every race or several. A few extra sessions of complete test days.

 

The carbon footprint argument is nonsense. The problem of airline pollution far exceeds the emissions from racing. To fly teams in and out of bespoke test sessions in March does more harm than 20 extra single test sessions in a place they've already flown to.

Easiest thing they could implement, yet they come up with crap like tokens.

 

One of the changes that have happened over the years that some people cite as lost excitement is reduction in unreliability. In the past a car could be leading the race by a substantial margin, but you never quite knew whether it would make it to the finish until it did. That has largely disappeared because of the vast improvements made in design manufacture and testing.

 

Because powerful computers can be used throughout the process, human error is drastically reduced. As far as testing is concerned, sensors can be used to collect massive amounts of data that can be analysed to detect the finest of imperfections. By reducing testing, you not only save money, but you also clip the amount of data that can be collected and processed.

 

If you then couple that limited testing with an increase in the ideas that need to be tested, you end up with throwing more of the responsibility of getting it right back on the humans. For some, that might be seen as a big positive.

Edited by pdac, 19 December 2022 - 09:46.

[f1rules]

Well mclaren managed to produce a dog of a car even with strict limits, imagine how bad they can screw up with more tech freedom ahahaha

[ArchieTech]

It's difficult to know how open the rules could be made, but some restrictions previously aimed at reducing costs could go. e.g. the rule that makes you nominate the gear ratios at the start of the season. In the cost cap era that's no longer needed and if a team decides it's worth spending budget there then they should be allowed to.

[jjcale]

McLaren chief Zak Brown thinks so. I agree with him, so long as what we see on track still look like F1 cars. A six-wheel F1 car is taking it a bit too far for me

 

https://www.motorspo...brown/10412480/

 

 

Zak is supposed to be a businessman - and a Team Principal .... yet he has not figured out that an intended by-product of the cost cap is to drive F1 even further in the direction of becoming a spec series.

 

I hope for his sake that he is just trolling the rest of F1 and he is not really this obtuse.

[RedRabbit]

It's difficult to know how open the rules could be made, but some restrictions previously aimed at reducing costs could go. e.g. the rule that makes you nominate the gear ratios at the start of the season. In the cost cap era that's no longer needed and if a team decides it's worth spending budget there then they should be allowed to.

This kind of thing would be good. At least allow a limited number of gear ratio sets, and other possible items that could offer teams more options or variety at different tracks.

[femi]

Zak is supposed to be a businessman - and a Team Principal .... yet he has not figured out that an intended by-product of the cost cap is to drive F1 even further in the direction of becoming a spec series.

 

I hope for his sake that he is just trolling the rest of F1 and he is not really this obtuse.

Each time I read about spec-series and F1 in the same sentence, I feel a bit uncomfortable. Not particularly convinced this is the way to. By comparison, how are the current spec-series viewing figures compare to those of F1? Not sure lots of fans want to see 40 cars in F1 start grid. I know I don't 

[RacingGreen]

Not 100% sure where I stand on freeing up the tech regs, but I've been saying for a while that with a budget cap in place they should free up testing limits, CFD, wind tunnel time, etc, and Parc Ferme as well. Since everything happens now with a budget cap, let each team decide what to prioritize, and let them succeed or fail based on their choices.

 

They should free up testing limits but as pdac points out they don't need to. With current sensors and telemetry a team gets more usable data from 4 or 5 laps on a Friday morning than a team in the 70's or 80's got from 4 or 5 days of in season testing.

[pdac]

Each time I read about spec-series and F1 in the same sentence, I feel a bit uncomfortable. Not particularly convinced this is the way to. By comparison, how are the current spec-series viewing figures compare to those of F1? Not sure lots of fans want to see 40 cars in F1 start grid. I know I don't 

 

F1 viewing figures are entirely down to brand awareness and has very little to do with the product that's delivered.

[femi]

F1 viewing figures are entirely down to brand awareness and has very little to do with the product that's delivered.

Maybe you are right, I don't know. You sound absolutely sure... Speaking for myself, brand didn't influence my being drawn to F1. The sound was so sweet plus the thrill of watching the fastest cars in the world race against one another. I am sure the thrill of driving fast myself helped.

[Michkov]

Let them go wild in within the budget they have. Free testing and engines included of course.

[cpbell]

One of the changes that have happened over the years that some people cite as lost excitement is reduction in unreliability. In the past a car could be leading the race by a substantial margin, but you never quite knew whether it would make it to the finish until it did. That has largely disappeared because of the vast improvements made in design manufacture and testing.

 

Because powerful computers can be used throughout the process, human error is drastically reduced. As far as testing is concerned, sensors can be used to collect massive amounts of data that can be analysed to detect the finest of imperfections. By reducing testing, you not only save money, but you also clip the amount of data that can be collected and processed.

 

If you then couple that limited testing with an increase in the ideas that need to be tested, you end up with throwing more of the responsibility of getting it right back on the humans. For some, that might be seen as a big positive.

 

This is an argument me and absinthedude have made for ages.
 

[danmills]

Trouble is you'd then invent a new argument for cars being unreliable and then blowing up more thus wasting resources. But is it worse a car running a whole race? Lol. The infinite excuse cycle.

Basically there is no solution, everything will offend or imbalance the problem of the moment. The goalposts are always changing so what is OK now won't be tomorrow.

Luckily history has phases so soon enough we will get unreliable cars back but we will get something else to compromise on.

[pdac]

Trouble is you'd then invent a new argument for cars being unreliable and then blowing up more thus wasting resources. But is it worse a car running a whole race? Lol. The infinite excuse cycle.

Basically there is no solution, everything will offend or imbalance the problem of the moment. The goalposts are always changing so what is OK now won't be tomorrow.

Luckily history has phases so soon enough we will get unreliable cars back but we will get something else to compromise on.

 

It depends on what you think the competition is about. Is it about striving for perfection - in which case, the closer teams come to perfection, the more predictable and, in some peoples minds, the more boring the racing becomes. Or is it a challenge to teams of humans to design and build the best car - in which case the onus should be very much on the humans to get it right. Or is it a racing challenge - in which case it's about the driver, so the cars should not be allowed to vary in competitiveness (spec series). Take you're pick.

[femi]

I really don't see spec-series as offering advantages to car manufacturers as this will only differentiate drivers not cars as such. It also imposes a finite development scope/growth leaving racing and competition niches to be filled and these will be because it is natural for gaps and holes to be filled. That's why they exist in the first place. F1 will be replaced if spec-series is their end goal.

[Nathan]

I don't think very many car makers want to go the ultimate prototype route.  How many actually possess that kind of experience and expertise? How many would risk their reputation going 'no holds barred' with companies that have been playing the game full time for decades now (Ferrari, Woking, Mercedes, Red Bull, Silverstone, Enstone, Hinwill), that have all the political advantage, and have all that technology experience, infrastructure and I.P. advantage... The Toyota Way didn't work in F1,   Remember Honda '15?  F1 requires it's own technology and management. No holds F1 technology would be completely foreign to Hyundai, Ford, GM, Stellantis etc..

 

So, remembering todays auto makers don't do anything related to modern F1 technology to begin with (open wheel, winged aerodynamics, hand built, leading edge composites, F1 tires, aerospace quality), you then have to ask yourself what sort of R&D purpose is served?  Frankly, it's just the opportunity to brand the technically unrelated commercial production version whatever you called the F1 version.

 

-------

 

At what point does A.I. take over most of the design work in F1? Leaving humans to the programming and polishing out the problems and last 10% of what was spat out?

 

Zak is supposed to be a businessman - and a Team Principal .... 

 

Zak is not the TP of McLaren.

Edited by Nathan, 27 December 2022 - 19:57.

[Primo]

Firstly, I don't think the cost cap is fully in place - it's in its early stages, and needs both reducing, and tightening to plug the many loopholes.

 

Secondly, it's all about what we want Grand Prix racing to be. It started as a technical-cum-commercial competition between manufacturers, so you can argue tradition is on the side of freeing up rules. However, I (and probably no-one else) think it's long since outgrown that. Racing has always contained the seeds of its own destruction. With no tech rules at all, we could have supersonic driverless cars that don't touch the ground, using current technology and nothing revolutionary.

 

I know that level of freedom is not what's being proposed. My point is to illustrate that technology has long since outstripped the practicalities of racing, and the rules are an artificial construct to ensure we have a watchable sport. Maybe, coincidentally with the impending doom of the IC engine, it's time to think of racing as more of a game and less of a tech platform, rather than the other way round.

Yes. In the early days the regs was basically, well figuratively, a round hole and "if you can get the car through it, you're good".  With time, the shape of that "hole" has been getting increasingly complex and for quite a while now, the cars that "pass through" look almost exactly the same. Strip the paint off and only experts can identify the tiny differences that separates them. The regs now is as if FIA builds a lock ask the teams to build a key. From that point of view, I'd almost prefer a spec series. Now the car's look spec, but they are not. From an audience perspective, we cannot see any innovations, they are invisible for us and had to be explained by confused commentators with a terminology that makes no sense to most people, many of them that last season hoped that Zhou, Alonso or Vettel will "win the next race". They never had a chance.

Freeing up the regs is not an option because they are there to make the cars slower and more equal. More like spec. They have to because the wast majority of the fans are cheering for a driver, for a team, not for a car. How many t-shirts with the print 'Adrien Newey' has been sold? In Indycar, Penske and Chip has proven that even if the cars are spec, the team can still make a huge difference. 

I do like the construction element in F1, but I do not like a World Drivers Championship (nobody, not even those who pretend to, really cares about the WCC) where 80% of the competitors are given an insurmountable penalty at the start of every race.

[george1981]

I was under the impression that the tech rules now are what they are principally to try and control the kind of aero development that took place up to 2020, that made cars too difficult to follow closely.

 

 

I've been watching every F1 race since 1994, in all that time everyone has always complained that the cars can't follow each other closely and the racing was better in the old days. But this keeps coming round, I hear people say it was better in the mid-90s, early 00s etc. but I remember people complaining at the time about the quality of the racing. When refuelling was allowed a faster car just waited for the stops and put some hot laps in, there wasn't a lot of quality overtaking. 

[femi]

I think quite a bit has been done to facilitate overtaking.  What about making turns following straights wider at entry and exits?

[Deeq]

Not 100% sure where I stand on freeing up the tech regs, but I've been saying for a while that with a budget cap in place they should free up testing limits, CFD, wind tunnel time, etc, and Parc Ferme as well. Since everything happens now with a budget cap, let each team decide what to prioritize, and let them succeed or fail based on their choices.

What he said.
Lets not try to reinvent the wheel, just do improve what we have.. starting by removing the restrictions on testing.
The series are now all but more or less restricted as spec series.

[juicy sushi]

I would love to see the tech rules open up under the cost-cap, but there is no way the teams/manufacturers would say yes to this, given their fear of being out-thought greatly exceeds their curiosity and courage for building something really cool.

[juicy sushi]

I've been watching every F1 race since 1994, in all that time everyone has always complained that the cars can't follow each other closely and the racing was better in the old days. But this keeps coming round, I hear people say it was better in the mid-90s, early 00s etc. but I remember people complaining at the time about the quality of the racing. When refuelling was allowed a faster car just waited for the stops and put some hot laps in, there wasn't a lot of quality overtaking. 

The mid-1990s in retrospect were not as bad as we felt at the time, I think.  The cars weren't ideal, but battles did occur, just not up front and the poor TV direction/production at the time meant we never saw it.  The rules from 1998-on seemed to get increasingly incompetent in terms of helping the on-track product.  I agree that refuelling was pretty rubbish for the racing, and during the long 2000s stretch of truly junk racing, the only bright spot was the year that banned tire changes.  I think if I were going to try to improve the show, I might eliminate all pit-stops save for repairing damage, as that element of endurance seems to help create the pace differentials needed.

[Nathan]

The automobile has been developed and refined  In the 1960s it was a 60 year old devise that did not benefit from computer aided design and free flows of communication.  Since the mid 1970s what automobiles are now had largely been determined and we really haven't strayed from that design framework since.  How do you innovate what has been innovated to death for a century now? Lot's of things you can only discover once, like the power of air, the ideal structure design, how brake discs do the job, eventually everyone realizes an ideal amount of cylinders, an ideal size and shape, and ideal way to build something.

 

the cars that "pass through" look almost exactly the same. Strip the paint off and only experts can identify the tiny differences that separates them... Now the car's look spec, but they are not. From an audience perspective.... we cannot see any innovations, they are invisible for us and had to be explained by confused commentators with a terminology that makes no sense to most people
Freeing up the regs is not an option because they are there to make the cars slower and more equal. 

I do like the construction element in F1, but I do not like a World Drivers Championship (nobody, not even those who pretend to, really cares about the WCC) where 80% of the competitors are given an insurmountable penalty at the start of every race.

 

This reads like a cynical old man in his 70s.  Since F1 began 80% of the grid has had the exact same pre-race handicap.  You can't tell me, stripped of paint, any consistent F1 fan of 2022 would confuse a bare carbon Ferrari, from a Mercedes, from a Red Bull.  I would also believe you could strip the paint off most grids from the past 60 years and end up with the same confusion you say exists today, with only the iconic cars of the time, or design styles of particular designers standing out.  You can ID Na unpainted Newey car like you can a Chapman car.  Most F1 cars from the 60s and 70s look very similar, in fact most can probably only be differentiated by the exposed engine handing a clue or two.  One of the talking points of 2022 was how a whole new rule set can create such diverse interpretation yet you are trying to pass them off like they are all Dallara's.  If talking tech goes over the heads of the viewers, how important is it to the viewers? Why promote what isn't understood/cared for?

[juicy sushi]

Yeah, that has been a consistent complaint which has never really been true. 

 

I think the only real places left for innovation are on the materials side, rather than the form of the car.  Unless you want to completely allow for any and all methods of downforce generation, and get terrible race cars with insane downforce and no passing, there is not much visually that would change with these cars.  You could go all EV and the manufacturers could go to town on battery chemistry and technology, which likely would be extremely innovative, along with going crazy on the materials that build an F1 car, to get the weight down.  But not much is going to change otherwise. You have very low-flying airplanes with fixed landing gear in constant contact with the ground.  That's roughly the viable concept in this universe for this set of laws of physics.

[RacingGreen]

The automobile has been developed and refined  In the 1960s it was a 60 year old devise that did not benefit from computer aided design and free flows of communication.  Since the mid 1970s what automobiles are now had largely been determined and we really haven't strayed from that design framework since.  How do you innovate what has been innovated to death for a century now? Lot's of things you can only discover once, like the power of air, the ideal structure design, how brake discs do the job, eventually everyone realizes an ideal amount of cylinders, an ideal size and shape, and ideal way to build something.

 

Which is an argument for less regulations not more because if the cars are all going to tend be the same anyway you don't need a set of rules to force them to be. So if someone want's to experiment and waste their budget on developing a V12 with 6 wheels, active suspension, dual steering, separate front and rear brake pedals and movable ballast, built out of papier-mâché let them. Hell, let them build a V11 with 5 wheels if they really want to, and who knows one day someone's left field, outside the box, thinking may even work. Of course if it did work everyone else would protest and it would be promptly banned, but that's F1 too.

[pdac]

Which is an argument for less regulations not more because if the cars are all going to tend be the same anyway you don't need a set of rules to force them to be. So if someone want's to experiment and waste their budget on developing a V12 with 6 wheels, active suspension, dual steering, separate front and rear brake pedals and movable ballast, built out of papier-mâché let them. Hell, let them build a V11 with 5 wheels if they really want to, and who knows one day someone's left field, outside the box, thinking may even work. Of course if it did work everyone else would protest and it would be promptly banned, but that's F1 too.

 

Indeed. Now there is a cost cap, there's no reason to restrict things to avoid a spending war. The only reason to restrict things now is for safety.

[Primo]

 

This reads like a cynical old man in his 70s.  Since F1 began 80% of the grid has had the exact same pre-race handicap.  You can't tell me, stripped of paint, any consistent F1 fan of 2022 would confuse a bare carbon Ferrari, from a Mercedes, from a Red Bull.  I would also believe you could strip the paint off most grids from the past 60 years and end up with the same confusion you say exists today, with only the iconic cars of the time, or design styles of particular designers standing out.  You can ID Na unpainted Newey car like you can a Chapman car.  Most F1 cars from the 60s and 70s look very similar, in fact most can probably only be differentiated by the exposed engine handing a clue or two.  One of the talking points of 2022 was how a whole new rule set can create such diverse interpretation yet you are trying to pass them off like they are all Dallara's.  If talking tech goes over the heads of the viewers, how important is it to the viewers? Why promote what isn't understood/cared for?

Haha, that reads like a post-cynical man in his 80
You want to keep things as they are simply because it is as it was. You talk about the 1% of fans who can spot a ride height change between FP1 & 2 as if they where the 99%. Of you think about it - many authoritative figures attributes F1's recent upswing to 'Drive to Survive'. How much tech is it in there? I admit I have only seen a couple of episodes of that cringey drama, but those episodes was all about humans interacting with humans. 

Fact is that the "hole" is now so bizarre and complicated that it is unlikely that we will ever get a new team in to F1. We might get new owners, new brands, but nobody will come in with a new team and a car they've designed from scratch. Porsche, the great Porsche, was about to, after a very lengthy consideration phase, to join the party with a Honda engine. Same group of fans?

The "development" the teams do is certainly impressive, but almost all regulation changes results in a car that is slower than before and as soon as the team has come back to the  level of performance they had before the change, the regulation people are called in to push them back once more. At least Sisophys, when finding himself in a similar situation, did not have to pay for the pleasure of starting over. 

[New Britain]

The "development" the teams do is certainly impressive, but almost all regulation changes results in a car that is slower than before and as soon as the team has come back to the  level of performance they had before the change, the regulation people are called in to push them back once more.

Isn't that because almost all the regulation changes are in fact intended to make the cars slower than before?

[Primo]

The "development" the teams do is certainly impressive, but almost all regulation changes results in a car that is slower than before and as soon as the team has come back to the  level of performance they had before the change, the regulation people are called in to push them back once more. At least Sisophys, when finding himself in a similar situation, did not have to pay for the pleasure of starting over. 

 

 

Isn't that because almost all the regulation changes are in fact intended to make the cars slower than before?

Yes

[RedRabbit]

Any idea why the regulations are in a worded format, and not something more visual?

The FIA provides a reference drawing of some kind, to scale, with key notes for exclusion areas?

[baddog]

zak is nuts. this would just mean the best teams get even better. 

[pdac]

Any idea why the regulations are in a worded format, and not something more visual?

The FIA provides a reference drawing of some kind, to scale, with key notes for exclusion areas?

 

I suppose there's no need to provide anything visual - the target audience should be able to fully understand the text. It's probably just always been done that way and they feel no need to change.