6 replies to this topic

[lumepo03]

I would like to know how adding ballast to a race car is going to level the playing field. We know that adding weight to a car will affect its performance but there are many variables that have been left out;

1) Safety aspects of adding weight to a car.

2) Space, where exactly would the weight be added? A F1 car is not exactly a Touring vehicle.

3) What happens when Minardi, ARROWS, or one of the other lessor teams leads the championship, how will they overcome the problems encountered by
ballast?

4) How has it changed DTM racing? I still see the racing dominated by the same teams as before.

5) Increase in costs. You do not actually think that Ferrari or the other top teams will just except ballasting. Ferrari will more then likely have a team set-up specifically to experiment with ballasts. This would drive up costs as more testing would be needed.

6) How will the tyre manufacturers cope with having to design a new tyre to handle the higher loads? This could lead to a safety issue. Aerodynamic issues aside, they are dealing with specific load carrying capacity.

7) How much ballast would be needed to actually surpass the performance of the Ferrari?

8) Would the ballast be placed where the teams wished?

9) What if Ferrari designed the next generation car to overweight and then unballasted the car, so as to optimise the forseeable ballast they would be penalised?

10) Would magnetic attraction/repulsion become the vogue? Make the scales read something that is untrue.

11) What happens if they still dominate the championship?

Unfortunately racing has never been a sport in the true sense of the word. It is not exactly physical abilty versus physical ability. What we have is a process of design/engineering/physcial ability. Motor racing came about to show the world technical know-how. For this task a driver was needed to push a machine to its limitations. Since the dawn of racing, just having the best driver is not a recipe for success. Jim Clark would have won many more championships had his car been up for the task. Such is life. One only has to look at the decisions that the FIA, or its predeccessor the CSI, have made over the years. NOt one of them have worked in slowing the cars down. The solution is to stop worrying about marketing and start worrying about PR. Free up the rules and allow more 3-Dimensional thinking, but that
would be too simple. Better to compound one bad decsion with another.

[The Sensational]

*sigh*

For the second time today:

http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=48977

[maclaren]

Originally posted by The Sensational
*sigh*
For the second time today:
http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=48977

I guess this topic was about dangers of ballasts, not ways to slow Schumacher

Originally posted by lumepo03
2) Space, where exactly would the weight be added? A F1 car is not exactly a Touring vehicle.

I think teams could deside themselves where the ballast is assembled. It doesn't need to be FIA standard ballasts, it's enough for FIA to measure the weights of cars

[SlateGray]

Perhaps they could alter the position of the fuel pick up in the cars. Ferrari's could be raised a little so that they would not pick up all the fuel.

This way they would be limited in the pit strategy as well as carrying extra weight as fuel all the time.

At the end of the race if they did not have 10kg's of fuel then DQ...

Flame away I am wearing Flame proof clothing.

[Booster]

In my opinion, any kind of ballast rule is simply not the way to go. At the risk at sounding a Scuderia Fan, which I'm certainly not, I do not think any thing should be done to slow Ferrari or any other team as a matter of fact.

The only thing I wish they would do is to banish all form of team orders. I know, I'm dreaming in technicolor / 3D / lasers and smokes...

Every team strives to acheive the top. Ferrari is there at the moment. Let them enjoy it...while it lasts !

[RiverRunner]

As for #5,I fairly sure that everyone is doing ballasting today,IIRC they banned depleted uranium a few years back as ballast material and went to bismuth,so if that is the case they are already doing it,and testing with variations.
If it is to be fairly applied (and it's a dumb idea in my book) they must make some sort of compartment under the driver to accept the weights,that way it will apply the same to all the teams as to where it will be.
Bismuth is greater in density than lead and also harder,so it wouldn't take up much space at all.

[CONOSUR]

Ballast is handicapping, and F1 has never been about handicapping. I just don't see how the teams would ever accept it. F1 has always required the slower cars to catch up with the faster cars, not slowing the faster cars to be equal with the slower cars. Stabilizing the rules does more to reach that end than anything else, imo.








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