88 replies to this topic

[George Costanza]

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 agree with all of this.

Can anyone do this today? 2004 Spanish GP Pole Lap

https://youtu.be/cwm...?feature=shared

Incredible speed here from Michael. They don't drive like this today..tires would be completely gone.

Edited by George Costanza, 03 March 2024 - 02:00.

[Bliman]

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.

But how would this make it more unpredictable? I think it would make things even more predictable plus you would have even less budget if you got it wrong.

[dia6olo]

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.

Real track data is required to confirm things no matter what the computers say.

What I'm saying is they need more freedom to validate that what they are seeing on the computers translates to real world.

Currently they have to build the whole car based on computer ideas, test for 3 days and then race, be damned if it doesn't work in the real world, porpoising says hello...

The computers are very useful for testing ideas, but let them test those ideas more freely in the real world as they go.

[dia6olo]

But how would this make it more unpredictable? I think it would make things even more predictable plus you would have even less budget if you got it wrong.

I never said anything about making it unpredictable, my comment was based on giving the teams a better fighting chance of closing the gaps.

Edited by dia6olo, 03 March 2024 - 02:13.

[Bliman]

I never said anything about making it unpredictable, my comment was based on giving the teams a better fighting chance of closing the gaps.

But I don't see how it would give the teams a better fighting chance. I don't see how it would help anything. Unless testing is outside of the budget cap and also developing those upgrades are outside of the budget caps.

[Gravelngrass]

Absolutely not. Fans are so desperate that they are resorting to missing randomness. Remember 2006 when basically a championship was decided by unreliability? Did people like that back then? What we need is less perfection in terms of computers calculating everything and the death of the conservation paradigm. Unreliability is not it.

[George Costanza]

Absolutely not. Fans are so desperate that they are resorting to missing randomness. Remember 2006 when basically a championship was decided by unreliability? Did people like that back then? What we need is less perfection in terms of computers calculating everything and the death of the conservation paradigm. Unreliability is not it.

2000-2009 had lots of engine failures. Not so much in the hybrid era.

[ARTGP]

The hybrid era had lots of failures before 2019.  Ironically it seems to correlate with the timing of the engine freeze.  If manufacturers are not actually pushing the envelope, they aren't going to break down.

 

The manufacturers themselves agreed to this because it saves cost and it makes no difference to the viewer whether all the engines have 1100hp or 1105hp, but makes all the difference in terms of cost to not have to spend a million dollars to find 5hp. 

Edited by ARTGP, 03 March 2024 - 03:06.

[w1Y]

Unreliability just leads to unjust results. 2016 and Lewis unreliability was a killer.

IMO they should remove the clinical.nature of data. Data analytics means that everything is optimised as much as possible and leads to predictability.

If you want to go further you could have a balancing way of doing it where the leaders of the championship have less data capture during practice than others. It doesn't restrict their testing time on track, but they have to be more efficient with their time or rely a little.more on driver feedback. How is would actually be implemented I have no idea.

Maybe data is not real time during practice and instead is only available afterwards.

Edited by w1Y, 03 March 2024 - 03:08.

[w1Y]

To me this would be like telling a tennis player not to practice or a sports team not to train together. Then the quality of the matches suffers. How is that a good thing?

It's only.a good thing if it means that teams get a better chance of closing the gap through having more time optimising set up.

I.admit it probably.wpuldnt work but this seasons wdc is over before irs even began.

Edited by w1Y, 03 March 2024 - 03:09.

[MinardiCrashDummy]

Not having reliability penalties atleast gives teams a choice on where they are willing to go with car development.

 

Their will definitely be teams that are willing to risk their car blowing up if it means winning a race or two during the season but there is not point doing that if you are starting 20th every race.

 

Limited choice in where they can go with the car is what is killing the sport

[Hellenic tifosi]

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.

This. I have been an advocate of this since a long time.

You can log any parameters you want, but they can only be downloaded only when the car is in the garage, apart from safety critical parameters of course.

[PassWind]

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'.

Refuelling and sticky tires makes for hard sprinting in a Grand Prix distance, I liked refuelling races but how too create variables when the tire and fuel is spec but maybe what they can do now with fuel would matter making engines relevant to the fields overall performance. I mean isn’t the whole point of the power unit efficiency, why cant they race it against each other sprinting all the time. Fresh tire overtakes in this formula with DRS, would this not increase the incident rate and therefore variety.

Ok stop right there, we cannot go another step forwards with this plan…..or any planned reliability issues…

Safety cars, if 25 percent of the field fails and each failure consumes x number of laps when does a GP become a race under yellow? It’s not the Olden Days for those who used it.

[Ruudbackus]

Last year we finally saw the record of the 88 car (mp4/4) being broken at % of wins. So predictability has been around for quite a while already. But true reliability was surely an issue in the 90's and early 0-s. But more so punishing tracks helped to get unpredictable results. Nowadays we barely have gravel traps where a car gets stuck (and if it does we immediately have a sc or red flag depending on the mood of race control). To me that is where the problem lies mostly.

 

We always have had dominant cars (Mclaren in the 80-s, Williams in the 90-s, ferrai in the zero-s, Redbull and Mercedes in the 10's and now again redbull), but we never had a set of tracks like we have now with the extensive run off areas. But with that also comes the discussion of safety. We've seen horrible crashes in the worst cases resulting in the death of a driver, marshall or spectator. I for one don't want to have those back at the expense of having a more unpredictable result. 

 

Getting refuelling back would be fun for strategies, but thats against the "durability" agenda. If tires wouldn't be an issue anymore in the race I doubt that would change much. Now they drive to delta, but if they could push every lap I doubt yesterday results would have been different, maybe even worse given the fastest lap was 1.4 seconds faster then the 2-nd fastest. 

 

I don't have an answer unfortunately and I don't think much will change. In 2026 we get a new engine ruleset, the team having done that the best will dominate the start of the next era. 

[pdac]

The title of this is "bring back unreliability". The only way you have unreliability is if things have not been tested for the conditions in which you work them. It's pretty simple. The only way to get unreliability is to somehow stop things from being tested correctly. The moment you allow someone to verify that the part they are going to use works is the moment that you will have a reliable part.

 

The more general thought is to being back unpredictability. Then other factors (including unreliability) come into play. If you want to watch a GP not knowing whether the leader is going to make it to the finish line, then you want unreliability. If you want to watch a GP not knowing whether the pole sitter is going to passed within 5 laps and then whether the next leader is going to be passed by yet another driver 5 laps later, you're looking for unpredictability.

 

But just like not testing parts, if you want unpredictability, you need to stop the ability to test how the whole machine works in different circumstances and conditions. So, again, it's down to denying testing and data gathering.

Edited by pdac, 03 March 2024 - 10:13.

[Ruusperi]

It's not only F1 where unreliability seems to be a thing of the past. If you look at old F3000 or World Series by Nissan race results and compare them to last season of Formula Regional or F3, it's not uncommon in feeders series to have races with zero retirements nowadays.

 

But would unreliability make races better? Hardly, because today conked car = (V)SC. So if we still lived in an era where half of the field stops at the side of the track, that would mean 10 safety car periods     

[oli4]

Everybody drives to a delta and are therefore taking no risks. Bring back tires that can go the whole distance, re-introduce refueling.

And stop giving penalties for pushing someone of the track, it's getting ridiculous. Let them race.

Edited by oli4, 03 March 2024 - 10:18.

[Anderis]

This. I have been an advocate of this since a long time.

You can log any parameters you want, but they can only be downloaded only when the car is in the garage, apart from safety critical parameters of course.

If you want to introduce this, the teams will find a way to justify almost everything be put in the "safety critical parameters" and we get almost no change anyway. Just like the teams were gaining dozens of HP during the engine freeze with "reliability" improvements. 

[pdac]

It's not only F1 where unreliability seems to be a thing of the past. If you look at old F3000 or World Series by Nissan race results and compare them to last season of Formula Regional or F3, it's not uncommon in feeders series to have races with zero retirements nowadays.

 

But would unreliability make races better? Hardly, because today conked car = (V)SC. So if we still lived in an era where half of the field stops at the side of the track, that would mean 10 safety car periods   

 

I agree with you. But the problem is that some think that better racing is about not knowing who is going to win before the race starts. That never seemed a problem when Usain Bolt lined up at the start of a 100m race. Somehow it's great to admire natural talent and hard work honed to the point where the opposition are left trailing in a 100m race. But it's not fine to see it in an F! GP.

[1player]

This. I have been an advocate of this since a long time.

You can log any parameters you want, but they can only be downloaded only when the car is in the garage, apart from safety critical parameters of course.

You can add me to the list of supporters. Removing pit-to-car radio would be such a massive change to this sport, transforming it overnight, with literally zero cost, even keeping everything else the same.

 

No more "try to pick up the pace or the driver behind will get you" or "the driver in front has used their tyres, push now" or even "box now". Once in the car, whatever happens on track is 100% the driver and the car. Then I would be OK to see Verstappen dominating, because it means he himself is really better than anyone else—but in reality, everybody makes mistakes so even Max against literal monkeys would not be guaranteed to win everything over a season.

 

The problem is no one at FIA has the balls to enact such a change.

Edited by 1player, 03 March 2024 - 10:49.

[Ruusperi]

I agree with you. But the problem is that some think that better racing is about not knowing who is going to win before the race starts. That never seemed a problem when Usain Bolt lined up at the start of a 100m race. Somehow it's great to admire natural talent and hard work honed to the point where the opposition are left trailing in a 100m race. But it's not fine to see it in an F! GP.

While I don't think unreliability would make races better, I like unpredictability. That's why I like wet races, because suddenly you can't be sure that even the leader will keep the car in control. Sadly, if conditions become that difficult, they usually red flag the race while everyone are still at inters. Secondly, all new races seem to be located in places where the risk of rain is near zero. It's like Liberty Media wants to maximize predictability.

 

To add unpredictability somewhat, they should at least make tracks more punishing. Like, if Abu Dhabi had no tarmac, no generous kerbs but grass and gravel immediately beyond the white line, that would automatically make F1 as challenging as rallying: one small mistake and you're upside down in the bushes (sure, they should grow bushes, wheat and corn in the run-off areas ).

[pdac]

While I don't think unreliability would make races better, I like unpredictability. That's why I like wet races, because suddenly you can't be sure that even the leader will keep the car in control. Sadly, if conditions become that difficult, they usually red flag the race while everyone are still at inters. Secondly, all new races seem to be located in places where the risk of rain is near zero. It's like Liberty Media wants to maximize predictability.

 

To add unpredictability somewhat, they should at least make tracks more punishing. Like, if Abu Dhabi had no tarmac, no generous kerbs but grass and gravel immediately beyond the white line, that would automatically make F1 as challenging as rallying: one small mistake and you're upside down in the bushes (sure, they should grow bushes, wheat and corn in the run-off areas ).

 

Ah, what you need are sprinklers 

 

(I did say that there are other factors that can come into play when you're talking unpredictability)

Edited by pdac, 03 March 2024 - 11:00.

[Burtros]

Take the key data away. It’s data that is killing the surprise element of the sport.

[Clatter]

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

They didn't DNF though.

[Clatter]

Test sessions are boring as f***.

For who? If your talking as a TV viewer then yes. But testings purpose is not to provide great TV. If you can attend a test session then it's a great day out watching f1 cars run for most of the day. I used to go to the Silverstone tests, and up until the last couple of years before the test ban, they were free. They did get a bit tamer when the brought in the only one car rule though.

[STRFerrari4Ever]

Absolutely not. Fans are so desperate that they are resorting to missing randomness. Remember 2006 when basically a championship was decided by unreliability? Did people like that back then? What we need is less perfection in terms of computers calculating everything and the death of the conservation paradigm. Unreliability is not it.

I enjoyed the unreliability because it was an element that could strike anyone at anytime, much like an unexpected own goal in football or a boneheaded interception in the NFL. F1 is a team sport and a technologically based sport so at times that technology can malfunction and let you down, whereas it might not let your competitors down, that’s part of the competition.

I’ll tell you an anecdotal story, that 2006 season I was rooting for Schumacher, all the ups and downs, the drive in China 2006 to give him the momentum and then leading in Suzuka until that fateful engine failure. It was 4 days after my 11th birthday and having woken up to see the race and then my favourite driver retiring in a cloud of smoke, I felt devastated almost to the point of tears lol. But I remember that feeling and I was never salty about it because it’s misfortune that can strike anyone. Fast forward to 2010, another of my favourite drivers, Vettel, leading in Korea, this time I’m 15 but the feeling was just the same if not more devastating than the Schumi one because Seb hadn’t won a title yet and it felt like it was game over. However, he managed to overcome that setback and win his first title and that engine failure was just part of the journey that showed me why I love this sport so much.

[Sterzo]

I may be conflating different people's opinions here, but on the forum we scream and scream until we're sick because we want more cars in the races, then we demand they break down and park in the pits where we can't see them. Unreliability increases unpredictability. It does not improve racing.

[pdac]

I may be conflating different people's opinions here, but on the forum we scream and scream until we're sick because we want more cars in the races, then we demand they break down and park in the pits where we can't see them. Unreliability increases unpredictability. It does not improve racing.

 

People don't want better racing. They want better racing for the lead. More teams is not going to improve that (apart from putting more obstacles in the way of the front runner)

Edited by pdac, 03 March 2024 - 11:52.

[Gravelngrass]

I enjoyed the unreliability because it was an element that could strike anyone at anytime, much like an unexpected own goal in football or a boneheaded interception in the NFL. F1 is a team sport and a technologically based sport so at times that technology can malfunction and let you down, whereas it might not let your competitors down, that’s part of the competition.

I’ll tell you an anecdotal story, that 2006 season I was rooting for Schumacher, all the ups and downs, the drive in China 2006 to give him the momentum and then leading in Suzuka until that fateful engine failure. It was 4 days after my 11th birthday and having woken up to see the race and then my favourite driver retiring in a cloud of smoke, I felt devastated almost to the point of tears lol. But I remember that feeling and I was never salty about it because it’s misfortune that can strike anyone. Fast forward to 2010, another of my favourite drivers, Vettel, leading in Korea, this time I’m 15 but the feeling was just the same if not more devastating than the Schumi one because Seb hadn’t won a title yet and it felt like it was game over. However, he managed to overcome that setback and win his first title and that engine failure was just part of the journey that showed me why I love this sport so much.

The examples you give are of human error and those happen in F1 and many times spice the show. That's fine. But if they can produce cars that never break down, what's bad about it? It creates a fairer result and isolates team and driver performance from luck. Again, I think people are so desperate to see different results, especially at the front, that they fail to see the real reasons why this is so boring. For example, why are people asking for less races? Many will answer, "because it's less domination we'll have to watch", but that's the complete wrong reason. If races were good, we'd all be asking for more races, unless we got to the point of "too much of a good thing". But I don't think we're there yet. 

 

Fix the paradigm...and hope Max has a talent reduction or that another alien of similar level arrives, and we'll have a better F1.   

[Gravelngrass]

People don't want better racing. They want better racing for the lead. More teams is not going to improve that (apart from putting more obstacles in the way of the front runner)

I want better racing. I think the spirit of the rule change was broken in 2022 and the cars are too big and heavy anyway, but the principle of allowing closer following was on the right path. 

[Gravelngrass]

Take the key data away. It’s data that is killing the surprise element of the sport.

Yep and letting computers, not drivers, make the decisions. 

[Nathan]

Can anyone do this today? 2004 Spanish GP Pole Lap

https://youtu.be/cwm...?feature=shared
 

 

All I did was watch the wheel and listen to the throttle and that looks like any other fantastic pole lap we see.  I caught the nostalgic moment, but what did I miss?

 

Real track data is required to confirm things no matter what the computers say.

 

Obviously, but you get 95%+ of the performance settled before you hit the track, which is what makes most real track data collecting today 'confirming correlation'.   You can't deny the power of computing allows them to design near faultless parts, design less critical but refined aero parts outside of a wind tunnel, arrive at the track with most setup work done, and demonstrate to the drivers how the car is likely to handle on track.

 

For who?

 

The fan in the stands.  The first time or two, OK, you still enjoyed losing your virginity even if it was probably a bad performance, but the thrill of the first/second time goes away.  It's better than nothing if nothing else is all you have and I'm sure some people enjoy it but it's very few relative to racing.

[Secretariat]

As had been noted by others, it is not so much unreliability vs. reliability but primarily it is about the tires. It is a skill to manage the tires, bring them up to temp, and so on. I would like to see the eventual banning of tire warmers (an on-going discussion) and see changes to how the tire ranges are divided.

[pacificquay]

Absolutely not. Fans are so desperate that they are resorting to missing randomness. Remember 2006 when basically a championship was decided by unreliability? Did people like that back then? What we need is less perfection in terms of computers calculating everything and the death of the conservation paradigm. Unreliability is not it.

2006? Schumacher engine blowing at Suzuka? LOVED IT.

[Rediscoveryx]

The regulations should aim to have an attrition rate of something like 25%. The low attrition rate just kills the excitement, because as soon as the race has settled down it’s more or less just a case of letting the laps run down until the race finishes.

I would ditch the Part X must last Y races altogether (especially now that we have a cost cap in place). Use different tyre compounds in FP than in qualifying and races. Use qualifying tyres and instate a rule where only the driver’s final lap in each qualifying segment counts.

…and figure out how to ban launch control.

[Spillage]

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'.

Agreed. We need gravel traps back. It's far too easy when you have oceans of tarmac runoff.

[Clatter]

The regulations should aim to have an attrition rate of something like 25%. The low attrition rate just kills the excitement, because as soon as the race has settled down it’s more or less just a case of letting the laps run down until the race finishes.

I would ditch the Part X must last Y races altogether (especially now that we have a cost cap in place). Use different tyre compounds in FP than in qualifying and races. Use qualifying tyres and instate a rule where only the driver’s final lap in each qualifying segment counts.

…and figure out how to ban launch control.

 

Launch control is already banned.

[Hellenic tifosi]

Launch control is already banned.

 

It is, but elaborate launch systems to determine the correct clutch bite point are still used. Why not determine that, exactly as happens with the gas pedal, the relationship between the clutch paddle and actual clutch engagement must be linear?

[pdac]

How about including a (mandatory) competition between teams, held between quai and the race, that awards championship points for taking the car completely apart, packing it into boxes, unpacking it and rebuilding it in the fastest time. That should introduce a little bit of random unreliability.