340 replies to this topic

[Beri]

And what would exactly be beneficial to Formula One to have more teams? To a fans point of view; yes, I can see that because I share this. But to Formula One itself? Not so much.

[sportyskells]

Why do people keep forgotten about a certain factor when Red flags come in what about when it RAINS that brings out the red flag?

[DeKnyff]

Do you want a wild one? Le Mans style starts. With modern technology, it would be easy to prevent cars from moving before drivers are perfectly belted or if there is someone on the track. And there is not a more beautiful image in motorsports and more attractive for new fans than the drivers running to their cars.

 

[Collombin]

Sadly, jumping the start would be easily detectable these days though, so no more "Hawthorn, you bastard" type incidents.

[Sterzo]

^ But it would be worth it in the hope that life would emulate the fifties Autosport cartoon, with one driver left and no more cars.

[lewislorenzo]

Get a far better driver in the other RB. Would love it to be Alonso

[Wuzak]

I think it would have been more interesting to REDUCE the battery size in 2026 and increase the power of the MGU-H.

As you say, the H is more relevant to how an F1 car (or any race car) operates.

 

The power of the MGUH depends on the exhaust flow/energy.

 

To increase MGUH power significantly would likely require more power from the ICE.

[absinthedude]

as of today, with the news about FOM rejecting Andretti-Cadillac....burn the whole thing to the ground and start again. 

 

Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[absinthedude]

And what would exactly be beneficial to Formula One to have more teams? To a fans point of view; yes, I can see that because I share this. But to Formula One itself? Not so much.

 

Why ever not?

 

F1 has been running on the bare bones 20 cars, where grids visibly look less than full, for too long. More teams means more competition, more stories to tell, more chance for a giant killing performance, more chance for a frontrunner to trip over a backmarker. 

 

The story of F1 isn't just the current winners....it's Minardi, Connew, Osella, Marussia, Larrousse, Hesketh, Zakspeed etc. 

 

More teams means more drivers get a shot at F1. We live in an age where the F2 champion isn't even likely to secure an F1 race drive, along with many other worthy drivers, because there aren't sufficient seats. 

 

It benefits EVERYONE.

 

The teams are being so effing short sighted and greedy, their golden goose will eventually implode even if this version of F1 does carry on for a few years. And when they eventually cash their retirement cheques and leave......what's left? "Oh, we did it for the benefit of our wallets and waistlines". Screw the effing lot of them.

[sladealonso]

If someone hasn't already made this joke, I'd move Hamilton to Ferrari...

[ensign14]

We've had similar threads before but I think, especially with threads asking if F1 is a bit rubbish, that it's worth finding out what people would do to improve F1 right now, in early 2024. Big changes or little changes - all are welcome. If you were suddenly put in charge now, how would you improve the sport? I'll come back at some point with my own input.

TAKE THE ****ing FRONT WINGS OFF

[PlatenGlass]

I think the main thing I would address is the fact that F1 is a completely closed shop with just 10 teams and 20 drivers. The fact that the same drivers are starting 2024 that finished 2023 shows how bad this has become. Any sport to be taken seriously is far more open with competitors able to freely flow in and out of the top levels.

 

So to start with, I'd make F1 a much wider and open category with far more teams and drivers able to compete. Cars would be simplified with perhaps multiple spec parts and a much lower budget required to be able to compete.

 

...

 

In terms of the cars - drivers would only have the controls necessary to drive the car and none of this proliferation of buttons on the steering wheel, and there would be no telemetry in races. With these simplified cars (with drastically reduced or even eliminated wings and lower performing brakes), following and passing cars would become more possible without DRS having to exist. I think even one compound of spec tyres is enough, durable enough to last a race. This would make it more about racing than things other than racing.

 

As well as the bigger changes, there's a lot wrong with F1 at a procedural level. E.g. track limits. I've always been of the view that it's better to fix the tracks than turn F1 into tennis umpiring. Whether you have gravel, a lower grip surface on the outside or what (e.g. low grip removable kerbs if other series don't like it), it should never be necessary to penalise a driver for going wide. Chicanes, where they are necessary, can probably mostly have gravel, as a low grip surface won't help in that case.

 

The safety car / VSC / race stoppages should not be a way of engineering more exciting races. The purity and integrity of the race should be maintained as much as is possible. After a race stoppage or safety car, drivers can each be given a "delta" to drive to, to get the original gaps back. A lower pitlane speed limit should be adopted during VSC periods to negate the advantage of pitting at this time. The safety car should probably be phased out anyway. If something can't be covered by the VSC, then it's probably big enough to warrant a stoppage. They shouldn't just be wasting race laps. But stoppages don't have to be so long. Clear the track and get the cars straight back out. They don't need a long warning period.

 

More effort should be made to enable F1 cars to run in the wet. Better wet tyres that also raise the ride height enough. Cars being too low to run in the wet should not be a thing. Guards to reduce spray.

[Hinkypunk]

- Get rid of the hybrid engines and bring back NA V10
- Bring back refuelling (with no limits regarding the fuel usage)
- make the car shorter, lighter and more nimble
- 13" rims with a decent tyre manufacture
- no contingent for engines, gearboxes etc

- no parc ferme
- let the teams adjust their gearbox ratio every session/race

- a lot more tracks with gravel traps and grass as track limit

Edited by Hinkypunk, 17 February 2024 - 16:58.

[Westcoustskt]

V10's

[Gravelngrass]

I would step right back and say, what is motor racing all about, what risks does it face, and where do we want it to head in the long term? No two people will give the same answer, but we need some sort of vision to determine the future of F1. My own inclination would be to say:

 

1. Racing's days of being all about technical innovation are finished.

2. Speed / laptime is unimportant for the same reason. Technically, we could have supersonic driverless cars; we just choose not to.

3. Being farcically expensive adds nothing; in fact it detracts from the sport.

3. What matters is a demonstration of skill and enjoyable competition.

 

Therefore: lower tech, lower speed IC cars that can race anywhere that Indycars and GTs can go. World championship on a selection of really good circuits. (Who decides, you ask? I'll do it). Lots of non-championship races too, and do away with F2.

Yeah, there are a lot of good concrete ideas here like "get rid of DRS" or "scrap the mandatory use of compounds", but I think we have to go deeper, as you have done in your post. In other words, let's start thinking about how to improve the paradigm or vision of what we want F1 to be and once that vision is set, the concrete changes or "rules" if you want, will emerge.

 

For me, probably the most important change would be to forget about the need of F1 to have "road relevance". I think normal street cars and F1 cars have never been really related to begin with, apart from the fact that both are cars in the broadest sense of the word. Yeah, due to that fact, there were things that could be learned from racing cars and applied to regular transportation cars or sports transportation cars, but road relevance has never been the main or one of the main reasons for gathering 20 racing machines in a circus that tours the world's race tracks every year since the 50s.

 

Furthermore, this gap between racing and transportation is growing further apart every day: more efficient public transportation, self-driving cars, new generations being less interested in cars in general, more speed limits in more places and more efficient ways to control them, eco-awareness, etc., etc....But instead of seeing this trend and running with it (or, better, against it), it seems the major participants in F1, mainly the ones related to auto manufacturers, insist on drawing the rules according to the transportation and efficiency paradigm. There has never been something as inefficient as auto racing, and that's exactly how it should be. If you think about it, speed itself is inefficient, racing another car is super inefficient, breaking and steering hard, being on he limit as long as possible, blocking, etc., these are all desirable traits of auto racing but they are all very inefficient.

 

Why is it then that a relatively small group of interests has managed to hijack what is a fantastic show, a spectacle, to turn it into basically another R&D and PR and marketing extension of their operations? The best eras of F1 were probably the ones where it existed for people passionate for auto racing...to go auto racing: create a team to construct a fast car, hire a talented driver and beat the rest of people that are doing the same...

 

So yeah, if we start from the top down, the basic paradigm of F1 has to shift, or shift back, to its purest form. If that means, in current times, to create, or re-create, this series that is primordially about a racing spectacle, as something completely separated from the auto/transportation/technology/materials/etc. industries and the prevalent conservation mentality, so be it. Formula 1 has to become just like any other sport/spectacle: tennis, football, basketball, etc., so exist for its own sake and with no other main objective than, at its most basic, a competition to entertain people. I fear that only if this is understood and implemented, will we have something that could incorporate all the details that people have been mentioning here, many of which are simply band aids that you have to remove that wouldn't even exist if the main vision was the right one.  

Edited by Gravelngrass, 05 March 2024 - 00:02.

[MKSixer]

V8s with synthetic fuel and simple KERS.

Shorter, Lighter and more nimble cars

Much less aero from the wings

RACE tires, emphasis on RACE, that can be pushed for a reasonable stint of 20 laps without complicated warm-up procedure and cheese construction.

No more Tilke off-camber corners. They screw up racing. 

Keep quail exactly as is without Parc Ferme restrictions.

 

3 car teams with one mandatory car for an actual young driver, not a Young Driver Alonso type.

The aforementioned young drivers, 10 during the season, will rotate to each team in an apprentice fashion.  This gives each team a look at each driver and a real chance for the young driver to become firmly ensconced into the paddock with his/her skill and teamwork laid bare to all.  There will be a secondary young driver championship with the winner taking home the Alonso Cup for Young Drivers.

 

All restarts to be standing starts but only 5 mins to work on cars, no matter the delay time period.  No tire changes...you go out on what you came in on.   

No pitting during VSC,

No more 5 or 10 second penalties. Drive through, stop/start, or 30 second stop/start. Bring back Black Flags, Race Suspensions, etc.  

 

Everyone has to use the same FIA mandated wind tunnel for 75 hours, per team.  No factory wind tunnels large than 20%.  

 

Stewards-25 permanent stewards with a lottery to determine which 4 go to a race.  No 2 stewards can work with each other more than 4 times in a season or 3 times, consecutively. Driver Stewards will come from a separate pool and must either have competed in F1 for more than 4 seasons, raced prototypes in the WEC or equivalent for 5 seasons, Raced in the DTM for 5 seasons, or raced in Indycar for more than 6 seasons with wins on road courses.  The Driver Stewards will come from a pool of 10 and be selected by lottery with 2 attending each race. They will ALL be contracted directly to the FIA with No connections to Liberty or the Teams.

 

Team infractions such as breaking Parc Ferme will be judged on a scale of severity with all penalties being financial. No more grid place drops.

 

Since we have simple engines, no more limits on quantity over the season but only 2 per race weekend.  No exotic materials either.  Grenades are legal, however.

 

Spec transmission programing with a 0.5 second upshift time and 0.25 second downshift time.  Gear ratios unlimited with 7 speed, single clutch, sequential box.  Change ratios whenever you please.

 

3, in-season, 2-day test per team to be taken simultaneously after designated races in the first 3/5ths of the season.  Car development locked after that.  Run what you have for the final races. Good luck.

 

No celebrities clogging up the grid. Daytona style access on all days. Figure it out, F1.  Each team required to do a lottery for each race for 2 fans to attend the race with Paddock Club access and full VIP treatment.  It's high time F1 gave back to regular people...especially after the LV fiasco.  Winners must make under $100K per year.

 

Gravel runoffs at ALL tracks beginning 1 meter off the track boundary.  Keep it on the track fellas,.

[10kDA]

1. Single element wings

2. Single tire compound

3. No datalink/telemetry

4. 20k USD or 20k Euros Claiming rule for PU

5. No DRS, push-to-pass, or similar contrivances

6. Since so much is made of financial oversight of team operations, this one should be easy: No more than 10 behind-the-pit-wall non-pit crew employees allowed per car per event. Next season make it 5.

 

Edit:  To be clear, the question was "... RIGHT NOW?" My suggestions could be done immediately. Going forward, more changes would be beneficial but would involve radical changes to the hardware and to the administration of the spectacle.

Edited by 10kDA, 04 March 2024 - 12:57.

[ForzaFormula]

Put Hamilton in the Ferrari
Max in the Mercedes
Albon in the RedBull
Sainz in the Williams

Watch Perez callaspse under the possibility of winning a title in the fastest car and Albon become a world champion but in a fight with Hamilton in a Ferrari.

Edited by ForzaFormula, 04 March 2024 - 13:38.

[MinardiCrashDummy]

Smaller more nimble cars with tires you can push on for more than 3 laps

[Melbourne Park]

I've said much the same for years. 

 

So once again:

 

Publish all the vehicle drawings from each team after the summer break.

 

If that change doesn't happen, then rotate the drivers from team to team. Two drives of each car per season. Drivers paid on their WDC position. They can have their own marketing team, manager, fitness personnel and a few engineers who follow them from car to car. Bid for TV rights to follow the top drivers, including access to the teams. Allow the teams to remotely adjust car settings during the race, and televise those changes and settings. Have long practices on Thursday and Friday to familiarise the drivers to their new car. Allow the teams to carry a spare car to each race. First lap shunts to be re-started, drivers can use the spare car if their car is damaged. Restarts to be rolling ones, even if a first corner crash debacle stops the race by corner 2.

Edited by Melbourne Park, 04 March 2024 - 13:58.

[AlexPrime]

BoP.

[Sash1]

Simple N/A engines with sufficient capacity to produce 800hp+
Nothing hybrid. Make the PU cheap and allow them to push high so they can break down without penalties.
Smaller and lighter cars

Steel brakes for more sensitivity in the braking zone (overtaking opportuinities)

Set wing dimensions and limit the amount of elements in the front wings to 4.

Tire freedom and better tires. A soft must be fast and wear hard, a hard must be slow and wear slow.

No max set of tires, if you want to burn 4 sets of new softs on race day, you must be able to do that

Off-track time gaining should slow or damage your car, else it is not off-track.

No ground effects. 

Racing starts end of march, and ends end of october.

Less races

No sprint bs

No flapping rear wings

No traction control / engine output must be the same in any gear at the same throttle input.

[derstatic]

15kg of lead in Max' fuel tank. Don't tell anyone. 

[BlackCat]

Standardised steering wheels

https://www.jegs.com...70/213/10002/-1

[1player]

1. Single element wings
2. Single tire compound
3. No datalink/telemetry
4. 20k USD or 20k Euros Claiming rule for PU
5. No DRS, push-to-pass, or similar contrivances
6. Since so much is made of financial oversight of team operations, this one should be easy: No more than 10 behind-the-pit-wall non-pit crew employees allowed per car per event. Next season make it 5.

Edit: To be clear, the question was "... RIGHT NOW?" My suggestions could be done immediately. Going forward, more changes would be beneficial but would involve radical changes to the hardware and to the administration of the spectacle.

7. Somehow make it cheaper and lower the barrier to entry so we have as many teams and engine manufacturers as possible.

Also, I was wondering if it was possible to have a football-style championship: if you're at the bottom of the championship, you get relegated to F2 and likewise a team gets promoted to F1. But I do not really think it's feasible.

[Sterzo]

Also, I was wondering if it was possible to have a football-style championship: if you're at the bottom of the championship, you get relegated to F2 and likewise a team gets promoted to F1. But I do not really think it's feasible.

It could be done for drivers. Last two get jettisoned, two new ones come in. (Could be a bit of a disaster if the same team is the slowest every year though).

[Rediscoveryx]

Anything that adds variability/unpredictability. I mesn, if we are to have 24 races in a season it’s not reeeeeeeally important that every single one of them is won by the ”correct winner” (i.e; best car/driver combo on the day).

A few things:

1) Do the FP sessions on other tyres than the ones used in the race.

2) Do quallies on superduper soft tyres.

3) Also; either do one lap quallies or impose a ”only final lap counts” version of the current qualifying system. The purpose of qualifying shouldn’t be that it should be entertaining in its own right - it should instead produce an interesting grid on Sunday.

4) Scrap all reliability rules. We need to brung back the suspense of ”will his car last the distance?”.

5) Ban replays of the start. Or at least specify that they can’t be shown during the first stint.

6) Get rid of DRS. If Max is mired in midfield once every ten races or so, the last thing we need is a bunch of drive-by passes for him to get back into contention immidiately and effortlessly.

7) Bring Back Gravel Traps.

8) Never cancel or delay a race due to rain. Like ever. Have them trundle around at 40 mp/h if that’s what it takes.

9) Allow each event to play around with the format. Three hour race at Monza? Ok, sure. One-lap qually at Monaco? Go for it. No free practice at all at Zandvoort? Bring it on.

10) Figure out how to mandate that they paint their cars. If the races are boring, could we at least have some nice livery variation???

11) Ban all forms of pit-to-driver communication. If there’s a safety issue, have Michael Masi (or whoever is doing his job these days) ger on a public feed to inform all drivers of the hazard.

Edited by Rediscoveryx, 04 March 2024 - 20:57.

[EvilPhil II]

48 sprint races. 

 

Sprint on Friday.

Grand Prix Saturday. 

Sprint on Sunday. 

 

Grids decided by team bank balance. 

[markpenske]

More races.

More teams.

Less hair-pins and slow corners.

[Primo]

Make tyres that can stand some beating and work over a broader temperature range. A warmup lap should not need to be computer controlled.  

[NickeF1]

-No DRS

-16-18 Races

-In season testing

-Q-Engines

-60 min Q/ 12 laps

-Tyre war

-Refueling

-Smaller and lighter cars

[Nemo1965]

Apply good old journalistic ethics to social media and internet in general and this will cover F1 and other motorsports too. No anonymous posts and protecting anonymous sources only if they are known to the editors/moderators of the publication. It will perhaps not improve F1 but it will improve the discourse.

[mclarensmps]

I would do one thing and one thing only. 

Have Liberty hire Adrian Newey, and make him design 1 standard part for every car each season. The teams have to build their cars around that one part.

Every season, it's a different part, and the old part is ditched completely. 

[dissident]

1. No more than 20 races per season

2. No sprints

3. Free up tech regs and testing (while keeping the budget cap)

4. Reduce car size/weight

[Cadence]

A lot of ideas I agree with here.

One idea nobody's brought up is salary caps for drivers.

F1 consumes obscene amounts of money for the show it produces. I recognize that their current budget cost-cap evolution is a step in the right direction, but no driver is worth what Max and Lewis take in.

[ivanalesi]

I would make the budget cap proper, not this 10% works here, 90% there bs. Also only driver salary would be excluded & everything engine/PU included. It's a fake budget cap right now.

I would also make it 1 set of dry tires per weekend, simply bcs this is the dirtiest part of racing & it's so boring/confusing to follow who is with which tires etc. It just has ZERO relevance to road cars. Tires is the largest bill for young drivers up to F3, where the largest bill is the stupid profit that needs to be generated for FOM. Making tires last a whole weekend will attract other tire manufacturers too. Remember 1997?

If the budget cap is proper, not this joke, then it'll be way more competitive, so we won't need fading tires etc.

Edited by ivanalesi, 04 March 2024 - 21:16.

[DeKnyff]

Many fans asking for a reduction in the weight and size of the cars, but could this be done while keeping all the hybrid stuff and the current levels of safety?

[PayasYouRace]

Many fans asking for a reduction in the weight and size of the cars, but could this be done while keeping all the hybrid stuff and the current levels of safety?

 

Keep the safety features.

[dissident]

Many fans asking for a reduction in the weight and size of the cars, but could this be done while keeping all the hybrid stuff and the current levels of safety?

 

Not by a huge amount, but a reduction in length & width combined with smaller wheels and tyres would already help. 

 

Dipping below 700 kg again would not be possible with the current powertrain regulations, though.

[mclarensmps]

Keep the safety features.

 

Yup, I accept the Halo for what it is, because it's saved enough drivers already

I was very against it when it first came out (just an example)

Edited by mclarensmps, 04 March 2024 - 21:25.

[RPM40]

There needs to be more done to penalise the higher level teams in performance.

 

That was meant to be reduced wind tunnel / cfd but its obviously not working. It seems if anything the budget cap is locking in advantages rather than reducing them which was the intention. 

 

Stricter penalties for the top team in the previous WCC may work.

[J2NH]

V-10's.  

MUCH smaller and lighter cars. 

Refueling.  

 

Fixed.  

 

Cars are fast and light therefore easier on tires, refueling brings strategy back into race day.  

[pdac]

Improve?? Right now F1 is more fun than it's ever been.

 

In the war of attrition, first Horner's car has started to fail, now Ben Sulayem's is looking like it's not going to finish.

Edited by pdac, 04 March 2024 - 22:01.

[RekF1]

Improve?? Right now F1 is more fun than it's ever been.
 
In the war of attrition, first Horner's car has started to fail, now Ben Sulayem's is looking like it's not going to finish.

Yep. Everyone says take away the Red Bulls and the field is closer. That's true, but it's still immensely boring racing in the lower order.

[azza200]

Eliminate the slowest car every 10 laps 

During the race every driver has to spend at least 1 pit stop stood still for 45 seconds - would add a bit of strategy into a race 

Less telementry go back to tech levels in the early 90's 94-97 era

No simulation running 

Can only use a certain amount of DRS per race depending on championship position the higher in the standards you use it less the drivers below the top 10. Top 5 very limited use max 5 times for example, If you are leading the championship for more then 3 races in a row no DRS for you in any race only in Quali and practice sessions

[AncientLurker]

Do you want a wild one? Le Mans style starts. With modern technology, it would be easy to prevent cars from moving before drivers are perfectly belted or if there is someone on the track. And there is not a more beautiful image in motorsports and more attractive for new fans than the drivers running to their cars.

Yes!
And no more pit to wall radios or telemetry. Only a ride on mechanic with a laptop.

[Lurb]

Drivers are contracted by FOM and not the teams. All drivers drive all cars in turns. If there are more GPs than cars make random assignments for the extra GPs, or ditch them I dunno.

We then have a proper WDC and WCC.

Not going to happen in a million trillions years but I would love it.

[Cadence]

Improve?? Right now F1 is more fun than it's ever been.

Stop! It hurts when I laugh!!

[ARTGP]

Many fans asking for a reduction in the weight and size of the cars, but could this be done while keeping all the hybrid stuff and the current levels of safety?

 

Yes I think so. There are several areas of the regulations where the teams are prevented from using exotic materials to save weight and/or required to produce a part above a certain weight. I think the ICE, energy store, and MGU-K all have minimum weights mandated by regulation.  Teams are simply not allowed to build light weight parts in some areas. 


For example:

 

Edited by ARTGP, 05 March 2024 - 00:07.

[917k]

1.0L ICE, unlimited layout, materials, boost, rpm….along with much smaller batteries.