88 replies to this topic

[FirstnameLastname]

Back in the old days when I started watching F1 - every few corners, a wheel would fall off, an engine would blow up, and the steering wheel would fall off. And that was just the Prost Grand Prix cars

Everyone’s bulletproof now - so small teams never get a chance to shine.

Well, that needs to change…

To spice up the show, it’s Time to bring retiremants back to F1. Every team MUST retire each of their cars from at least 25% of the races. They can decide before the season, but can’t announce it - obvz. The twist is, they get points based on how spectacular the failure is. 1pt for something like forgetting to screw the rear wing on, or putting enough fuel in… and 10pts for a proper engine blow up. Because the engines run on recycled rain water and grass, they are allowed to attach smoke canisters to simulate a good old 1990s engine grenading itself.

Thoughts? (Positive ones only, obvz)

Edited by FirstnameLastname, 02 March 2024 - 18:17.

[P123]

With sporting penalties built into unreliability (a double whammy) and improvements in manufacturing, this is what we get.  I think you have to go all the way back to the late 90s / early noughties to get some old school levels of unreliability.  BMW and Honda engines have made some star appearances over the years since, but that's about it.

 

But additional points for a red arrows display.... sure. 

[Massa]

Mercedes were unreliable today.
Leclerc's car too. Didn't change anything.

[F1Frog]

It is not the unreliability that F1 is missing. It is too easy now for the drivers. The biggest mistake that anyone made in Bahrain was a lockup that caused them to drive off track and lose a couple of tenths. Bahrain is such a featureless and easy track with run-offs that just watching the cars drive around, when nothing is happening in the race, is not interesting. If they were making constant corrections, looked faster and more nimble, and it was an achievement to get through an entire race without a spin, then races would not be boring. Yet this can't happen because even the banning of tyre warmers was rejected because it is 'dangerous'.

[sportyskells]

Well did everyone forgot the next four races have things that might bite the drivers (walls Saudi and Australia gravel traps for Japan and China)

[Jops14]

It is not the unreliability that F1 is missing. It is too easy now for the drivers. The biggest mistake that anyone made in Bahrain was a lockup that caused them to drive off track and lose a couple of tenths. Bahrain is such a featureless and easy track with run-offs that just watching the cars drive around, when nothing is happening in the race, is not interesting. If they were making constant corrections, looked faster and more nimble, and it was an achievement to get through an entire race without a spin, then races would not be boring. Yet this can't happen because even the banning of tyre warmers was rejected because it is 'dangerous'.

Thats a big point, mistakes are never punished, and because everyone is managing tyres they all driving at like 80% anyway. Barely see Monaco crashes these says outside quali cos everyone is coasting

[ensign14]

It's not so much unreliability - it was always rampantly ridiculous that someone could lose the "world title" because of something so out of their control - but the cars are so within their capabilities now that there's no capacity for error.  Nobody can miss a gearshift now.  There's so much grip that nobody is going to go flying off a corner having gone in a little too deep.  This is the problem with other formulae too.  NASCAR restrictor plate racing appears to need no special ability whatsoever and the winner is completely random.  And that everyone is so close in qualifying - entire grids fitting inside the gap between 1st and 2nd at the old Ring - demonstrates that.  Even Latifi never fell outside the 107%.   There's not enough room for skill to prove itself.

[pdac]

I'm sure if they had set the budget cap at $40m as was proposed, you'd see a little more unreliability. The only way to get it nowadays is to severely limit time, money and testing resources (especially the use of computers). Realistically, it's not an option that is ever going to be considered.

[PayasYouRace]

I don’t know how you bring back unreliability. The teams’ have basically cracked their QA processes, and unless you introduce a points system that won’t unduly penalise DNFs and give the teams a lot more development freedom to try new things, I don’t know how you might incentivise not having such a robust QA process.

[ensign14]

I'm sure if they had set the budget cap at $40m as was proposed, you'd see a little more unreliability.

1. Set the budget cap at $40m.

2. Throw open the field to anyone who has competed at a high level (Indycar/F2/sportscars).

3. Change the formula more often.

 

That will shake things up every time.

[ForzaFormula]

Mercedes were unreliable today.
Leclerc's car too. Didn't change anything.

But they still finished without a problem.

 

In the old days that was not the case, now the cars are usually rock solid even with minor issue's they still finish usually.

Edited by ForzaFormula, 02 March 2024 - 19:55.

[pdac]

I don’t know how you bring back unreliability. The teams’ have basically cracked their QA processes, and unless you introduce a points system that won’t unduly penalise DNFs and give the teams a lot more development freedom to try new things, I don’t know how you might incentivise not having such a robust QA process.

 

You can disrupt the QA processes by not giving them enough time to test or removing the ideal testing equipment that takes away most of the hard work. As someone who did a lot of software testing in the past, I can tell you that it takes a good deal of time and effort to create test suites, but once you've done that you can confirm the viability of new development in minutes, Without that, it would take days or months.

Edited by pdac, 02 March 2024 - 20:01.

[dia6olo]

Bring back more testing.

To me that's a real issue now.

Budget cap is fine, maybe it can be increased a little but generally it's fine.

More freedom with testing could/should result in the upgrades having a much bigger impact.

[Risil]

You can disrupt the QA processes by not giving them enough time to test or removing the ideal testing equipment that takes away most of the hard work. As someone who did a lot of software testing in the past, I can tell you that it takes a good deal of time and effort to create test suites, but once you've done that you can confirm the viability of new development in minutes, Without that, it would take days or months.

Did anyone ever tell you not to bother with testing so it would "spice up the user experience"?

[LolaB0860]

Less reliability and different outcomes:

 

No shared spec components (less identical outcomes)

No engine freeze (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol1)

No cost cap (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol2)

No testing ban (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol3)

No engine/gearbox allocation penalties (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol4)

No cheese spec tires (no stupid lifting and coasting and saving tires, hence driving to the limit of the car vol1)

No DRS (not entirely relying on DRS passes to fix everything, hence driving to the limit of the car vol2)

No parc ferme (bolder setup decisions)

Circuits that punish for going off (hard surfaces may also cause negative effects on cars)

Edited by LolaB0860, 02 March 2024 - 20:12.

[KLF1F]

Fan vote to blow up at least one engine a race.

 

Safety car lottery 

 

(or bring back Latifi and Masi)

 

Oh, and sprinklers.

[pdac]

Did anyone ever tell you not to bother with testing so it would "spice up the user experience"?

 

I couldn't possibly say. There certainly have been people that wanted to skip testing or reduce the time spent on it.

[AncientLurker]

Less reliability and different outcomes:

No shared spec components (less identical outcomes)
No engine freeze (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol1)
No cost cap (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol2)
No testing ban (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol3)
No engine/gearbox allocation penalties (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol4)
No cheese spec tires (no stupid lifting and coasting and saving tires, hence driving to the limit of the car vol1)
No DRS (not entirely relying on DRS passes to fix everything, hence driving to the limit of the car vol2)
No parc ferme (bolder setup decisions)
Circuits that punish for going off (hard surfaces may also cause negative effects on cars)

Where do I sign the petition?

I would add a minimum amount of fuel to start, enough that it is pointless to save or lift and coast.

[Bliman]

Bring back more testing.

To me that's a real issue now.

Budget cap is fine, maybe it can be increased a little but generally it's fine.

More freedom with testing could/should result in the upgrades having a much bigger impact.

But what can more testing do if you are bound by a budget cap? Then you just see your car is just not fast enough.

[Bliman]

Less reliability and different outcomes:

 

No shared spec components (less identical outcomes)

No engine freeze (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol1)

No cost cap (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol2)

No testing ban (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol3)

No engine/gearbox allocation penalties (leads to in-season development with experimental and potentially explosive solutions vol4)

No cheese spec tires (no stupid lifting and coasting and saving tires, hence driving to the limit of the car vol1)

No DRS (not entirely relying on DRS passes to fix everything, hence driving to the limit of the car vol2)

No parc ferme (bolder setup decisions)

Circuits that punish for going off (hard surfaces may also cause negative effects on cars)

You can have my axe

[1player]

Bring back more testing.
To me that's a real issue now.
Budget cap is fine, maybe it can be increased a little but generally it's fine.
More freedom with testing could/should result in the upgrades having a much bigger impact.

Why do you want more testing? Testing is the process of eliminating unreliability. What is this fascination everybody has for teams testing the bejeezus out of the car so that there is never any surprise?

The only way to have some chance to upset pre-established results is to get rid of winter testing and free practice. Straight to qualifying and race. Certainly suboptimal, but more fun than another more week of time for the dominant team to extend the gap even further, and teams to collect data about every single pebble on the track.

Testing, telemetry and pit-wall driven racing is the very reason this sport is so terrible and uncompetitive. The driver is nothing more than a puppet controlled by the pit wall.

That meme about a monkey being able to drive modern F1 cars was prescient.

Edited by 1player, 02 March 2024 - 21:00.

[chrcol]

Its not just reliability, but rules have been setup to make things predictable, teams like predictable as it makes them look more professional and consistent.

 

All of the following can shake up things but have been dropped in rules.

 

Refuelling.

Harder tyres (push the car more, which in turn of course also affects reliability and increase effect of driver skill, also less overall grip, harder to warm up etc).

Wet racing.

Overlapping done on merit not assisted blue flags.

Unlimited budget.

Engine development.

Engine modes during race/quali.

Innovations (most get banned within year, this leads to teams taking the safer path of just copying the fastest car).

 

A good idea of reverse grid never happened, most likely again because the teams probably dont like the idea.

 

Put fric, flexi wing, blown diffuser, f-duct etc. into pool teams pick one to use from raffle before each race.

Edited by chrcol, 02 March 2024 - 21:20.

[1player]

I mean, if driver skill meant anything, we would not have results ordered neatly by team as we have seen over the past 3 or 4 years.

[Nathan]

Testing, telemetry and pit-wall driven racing is the very reason this sport is so terrible and uncompetitive. The driver is nothing more than a puppet controlled by the pit wall.

 

So, since the 80's now?

Edited by Nathan, 02 March 2024 - 21:06.

[PayasYouRace]

You can disrupt the QA processes by not giving them enough time to test or removing the ideal testing equipment that takes away most of the hard work. As someone who did a lot of software testing in the past, I can tell you that it takes a good deal of time and effort to create test suites, but once you've done that you can confirm the viability of new development in minutes, Without that, it would take days or months.

I don’t think people are yearning for software bugs. They want mechanical failures, and the teams are very good at making mechanical components that can do the job straight out of the box from good design now.

[Astandahl]

Leclerc has an insane amount of reliability issues

[Bliman]

Also budget caps don't work imo. I think the solution would be to attract very big players like Porsche and Audi and more that also can spend as much as the other big players. Now it feels like we have a small club of players that are stagnant in development. We certainly need fresh blood from very big players. And they should be allowed to spread their wings not be clamped by budget caps.

[TomNokoe]

The Pirelli era has run its course. The entire ethos of F1 needs to change.

[BoDarvelle]

I think the biggest issue is they are all driving around to a delta to preserve the tires. 

 

Watch an in-car from 20+ years ago and watch them sawing the wheel. Do that now and the tires would be dead in a lap.

 

And bring back refueling. Adds another variable to the chess match.

 

*And bring back V10s.

[chrcol]

I think the biggest issue is they are all driving around to a delta to preserve the tires. 

 

Watch an in-car from 20+ years ago and watch them sawing the wheel. Do that now and the tires would be dead in a lap.

 

And bring back refueling. Adds another variable to the chess match.

 

*And bring back V10s.

I so hate the delta, its trashing the sport.  Very frustrating when see a car randomly go a couple of seconds faster (usually for in/out lap or fastest lap point) knowing they can go much faster, but instead its a tyre endurance race.

[ClubmanGT]

Also stop having testing sessions at the season opening venue and expecting anything but a procession. 

[RacingFan10]

They should enforce the engines to rev higher, that would improve the sound and decrease reliability, all in one.

[chrcol]

Also stop having testing sessions at the season opening venue and expecting anything but a procession. 

I would also drop or significantly reduce FP, as it makes it more likely someone wont have a very bad setup which again makes things more predictable.  Instead have those sessions on a monday after race for in season testing or not at all.

 

We have 4 sessions which refine the pace order, which is at start of race and then wonder why there is minimal shake up.

Edited by chrcol, 02 March 2024 - 21:24.

[LolaB0860]

Also stop having testing sessions at the season opening venue and expecting anything but a procession. 

 

In theory, the new Avalon circuit that's supposedly being built (at least I hope it still is...) near Melbourne and that is also supposedly aiming to have FIA Grade 1 or 1T license, that could hold F1 testing week or two before the season opened at Albert Park... one can at least dream about it  

https://www.motorspo...valon/10456450/

Edited by LolaB0860, 02 March 2024 - 21:26.

[BoDarvelle]

They should enforce the engines to rev higher, that would improve the sound and decrease reliability, all in one.

 

As I understand it they don't rev anywhere near the mandated limit as they would never make it on fuel if they did so.

[Gyan]

One thing that is unreliable are the tires, and that definitely doesn't help the racing. We need better tires.

[azza200]

It is not the unreliability that F1 is missing. It is too easy now for the drivers. The biggest mistake that anyone made in Bahrain was a lockup that caused them to drive off track and lose a couple of tenths. Bahrain is such a featureless and easy track with run-offs that just watching the cars drive around, when nothing is happening in the race, is not interesting. If they were making constant corrections, looked faster and more nimble, and it was an achievement to get through an entire race without a spin, then races would not be boring. Yet this can't happen because even the banning of tyre warmers was rejected because it is 'dangerous'.

 

The lock up i saw by Éclair did not look that dramatic compared to back in the days when the cars were lighter and nimble the car hardly reacted he just turned in like normal very little correction compared to what it used to be like 

[1player]

One thing that is unreliable are the tires, and that definitely doesn't help the racing. We need better tires.

Are they? The strategy is set before the race even starts, and all teams follow the same strategy, with no deviation. Tyres do not fail, explode or fall off. They are utterly reliable, probably because they are driving to a delta.

What concerns me greatly is that the last time they had the chance to go full beans for the entire race, unconcerned with tyres (Qatar 2023), drivers fainted because of the enormous effort. Are modern F1 cars that exhausting to drive, or are modern drivers only trained to cruise for 2h preserving tyres?

[RacingFan10]

As I understand it they don't rev anywhere near the mandated limit as they would never make it on fuel if they did so.

 

There has to be a way to force them to do so, and find another way to save fuel

Edited by RacingFan10, 02 March 2024 - 21:44.

[Sterzo]

If Sainz and Russell had blown up in the first couple of laps, Bahrain would have been so much more exciting. Oh, just a minute...

[pdac]

I don’t think people are yearning for software bugs. They want mechanical failures, and the teams are very good at making mechanical components that can do the job straight out of the box from good design now.

 

I was merely relating my experiences with the thought that people would see the parallels. If you are restricted in what tools you have to test, then the testing is going to take longer and you're probably not going to be able to do exhaustive testing (meaning that you won't find all of the problems and there's the possibility of failures being exposed). QA is QA, regardless of what you are testing and how you are testing.

 

To address your point specifically, mechanical parts first need to be designed and the designs need to be tested - which could be a matter of manufacturing a prototype or even just using computer modelling. Suppose you were restricted in the computer modelling you could do. You'd then need to be prototyping, which takes time. If you get it right first time, the extra time may not be an issue, but if you have to go back and re-design, it all stacks up.

 

Then after that, there are always manufacturing faults. There's always a certain amount of quality assurance testing on manufactured parts too, If you can have a computer-driven machine do that testing, you won't notice the time. If you have to take samples and physically test then, it all adds up.

Edited by pdac, 02 March 2024 - 22:00.

[dia6olo]

But what can more testing do if you are bound by a budget cap? Then you just see your car is just not fast enough.

You do a lot more real world testing before spending your limited budget on an upgrade.

You learn a lot more about what your cars real issues are and what can be done before second guessing an upgrade, currently it feels like a bit of a shot in the dark.

[Bliman]

You do a lot more real world testing before spending your limited budget on an upgrade.
You learn a lot more about what your cars real issues are and what can be done before second guessing an upgrade, currently it feels like a bit of a shot in the dark.

But this is all in the budget cap.

[dia6olo]

But this is all in the budget cap.

My point is they can make much better use of the budget by making every $ count, they are currently second guessing a lot through sims, CFD, wind tunnel, that's all well and good but it is not real world and will never come close to real world testing/learning.

[ClubmanGT]

In theory, the new Avalon circuit that's supposedly being built (at least I hope it still is...) near Melbourne and that is also supposedly aiming to have FIA Grade 1 or 1T license, that could hold F1 testing week or two before the season opened at Albert Park... one can at least dream about it  

https://www.motorspo...valon/10456450/

 

That's how this should work. Plenty of countries that had multiple tracks/races over the year - test at one, race at the other. Alternate year-on, year-off.

 

I would absolutely love to hop on a plane and go to an F1 test session, but short of an OE with my family in tow, it is never going to happen. Australia though, that I could do. 

[Nathan]

Test sessions are boring as f***.
 

What concerns me greatly is that the last time they had the chance to go full beans for the entire race, unconcerned with tyres (Qatar 2023), drivers fainted because of the enormous effort. Are modern F1 cars that exhausting to drive, or are modern drivers only trained to cruise for 2h preserving tyres?

 

The diet and fitness regimen of almost every driver on the grid today are at the once lauded levels of Schumacher and Senna.

 

You do a lot more real world testing before spending your limited budget on an upgrade.

You learn a lot more about what your cars real issues are and what can be done before second guessing an upgrade, currently it feels like a bit of a shot in the dark.

 

I know people don't like to accept how close to reality it's abilities really are, but all of this is simulated with software.  I don't know if anyone has noticed, but teams now do as much on track testing in a year as the top 4 teams tested in one week 20 years ago.  And that is zero exaggeration.  Teams had to hire two drivers to pound around.  So no, track testing isn't what is making todays cars so reliable, it's not what allows cars to come to the track with 98% of the speed already 'dialed in', it's the accuracy of simulation tools from aero, to dynamics and most especially in using finite element analysis to design mechanical parts.  And let's be honest, the software either exists or is about to exist to say "hey, here are all my parameters, design me the lightest component for the job Mr. Super Computer."

[dia6olo]

Test sessions are boring as f***.
 

 

The diet and fitness regimen of almost every driver on the grid today are at the once lauded levels of Schumacher and Senna.

 

 

I know people don't like to accept how close to reality it's abilities really are, but all of this is simulated with software.  I don't know if anyone has noticed, but teams now do as much on track testing in a year as the top 4 teams tested in one week 20 years ago.  And that is zero exaggeration.  Teams had to hire two drivers to pound around.  So no, track testing isn't what is making todays cars so reliable, it's not what allows cars to come to the track with 98% of the speed already 'dialed in', it's the accuracy of simulation tools from aero, to dynamics and most especially in using finite element analysis to design mechanical parts.  And let's be honest, the software either exists or is about to exist to say "hey, here are all my parameters, design me the lightest component for the job Mr. Super Computer."

All well and good, but it took Ferrari months to work out how to make their SF-23 work, if the computers were so good they could have figured it out overnight on their mighty computers.

It took them months because it required real world data not computer nonsense.

 

Rinse and repeat for Mercedes and so on....

[ClubmanGT]

Test sessions are boring as f***.

 

There's 'boring as ****' and there's 'actually getting to see F1 cars in real life' which isn't a thing that we have down here as we don't have a race. So you have to hop on a plane but it's pretty expensive around GP time to fly to Oz and it's usually at the worst time of the year possible work-wise. 

[pdac]

All well and good, but it took Ferrari months to work out how to make their SF-23 work, if the computers were so good they could have figured it out overnight on their mighty computers.

It took them months because it required real world data not computer nonsense.

 

Rinse and repeat for Mercedes and so on....

 

I think the point is that if they did not have great sims to get close before they start track testing, how much extra track testing would be required and would there ever be enough time to do that. The cars are as fabulous as they are because computers allow them to do what would have required oodles of time and man-power in the past. Sure, it's not perfect. But really it's just not perfect for one team compared to another team. Ferrari might have had months of work, but did the others? Just because their sim was not working well, does not mean that someone else's wasn't.

[JimmyClark]

Mandate no car to pit telemetry. It's down to the driver to feel if something is wrong. Right now, any slight issue and it's "management mode". The amount of data going to the pits is basically a driver aid.