What would you do?

[NeilB]

3 Easy Steps involved in my plan -

1) Get plans for cars from the 80's.

2) Make them to current FIA safety standards i.e. crash tests, not groved tyres.

3) Tell the drivers to get into the car and race.

[scoobysrh1]

make all engines produce the same horse power. Minardi suffer because they are about 2000bhp down an a push bike!! Put a 850bhp limit on engines, this would also reduce engine wear, remove the rear wing as is and replace with a single one bladed standard issue. No more TC, and slicks as standard.
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people who drive on the limit are living life. those who drive over it race. all the rest are walking dead. long live adrenaline

[Sean Brian Kirby]

How I'd change the regulations to make for a better product:

1. Dumb-down nothing. This includes moving from carbon to steel brakes. This is an elite motorsport; the cars are supposed to be fast. These are the best drivers in the world - and they're passing just fine, once they get in contact with he who lies ahead. Keep it high-tech... and may the technology continue to grow. This ain't no NASCAR.

2. Bring back slicks. Real racecars use slicks. And there are the overtaking benefits to be considered.

3. Reduce the wings and go back to cars of a more substantial width. This would greatly aide in drafting and overtaking. And it would help the best drivers.

4. Go back to three-car teams. People keep complaining that the "little guys" should be helped out by the big ones. Excuse me? Since when was F1 a Communist/Socialist nation? If Jordan can't hang, Jordan can't hang. (And we have had plenty of evidence of why they can't. Eddie's had plenty of opportunity to join the top teams.) With three cars teams, more top driver can have top drives. For instance: McLaren could field cars for Mika, David, and Kimi. Neat, huh? (Not that a McLaren looks anything like a top drive, this year.) The costs of the cars is mainly in development. A three car team would greatly enliven the sport... and make more room for more good, viable cars with the best drivers. In most sports, if you can't cut the mustard, you get left behind. And so it is in the world's premier motorsport. It would be good to free up grid spaces for truly competetive cars.

5. Go back to true Championsip points. Ten points, six points... on back to sixth. Bring back real qualifying. Wouldn't you rather see the weekend's true poll-winner, rather than a lottery? Come on - you know David's a better qualifier than this! Let the mechanics have at the cars when qualifying is done. (Isn't this rule still in effect?) Fuel to be added as the team sees fit before racing. In other words: Racecars, not strategies, take their grid positions, primed for the event ahead.

I could go on and on. Dumbing down the sport and making Mickey Mouse rules will only remove its air of superiority, and thereby kill it. This is still the World Driver's Championship. (That's another thing: my one hold on technology would be an attempted total removal of drivers' aides. We'd like to think Barry Bonds isn't juiced. It's also nice to know our racing heroes can keep that monster on the track without an assist. Of course... this rule would also benefit the sport's best drivers, and create a greater gap.) Keep F1 fast and elite... and of course remember who ultimately pays the bills...
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Give me Liberty, or give me food stamps.

[Sean Brian Kirby]

Oh yeah! And the duffusers, too! (Thanks for reminding us, Shant.) Get rid of 'em. The racing would improve 100%.

(Sequential gearboxes would be another item to look into. But here, we could be dumbing-down. Again, though, where driver-control is concerned, a driver with full control of the faculties of the car is the ideal. Remember - World Drivers' Championship...)

[variante]

Way to long for me to read at this hour. think i'll do a recap tomoz.
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The minute you think second is a good win, you have already lost

[Leslie]

Interesting topic you've raised here Shant.

I've watched F1 racing over 5 decades now and always the cry is "more overtaking". My recollection is that in all that time there has been little or no overtaking saving perhaps the Prost/Senna/Maclaren days when even Senna was reduced to punting Prost off rather than attempt a genuine pass.

The idea that cut and thrust racing is a part of F1 is, unfortunately, a myth. Generally speaking there is a superior car/driver combination on the day all down the grid, if you see what I mean...it doesn't seem to take much to make one car just that bit quicker than another until you get a very quick driver in a slightly slower car and the fun starts in the middle of the field. Also the idea that overtaking is nearly impossible because of technology and circuits in a bit of a fallacy; imagine one of the top few driver/car combos having to start at the back of the grid for some reason beyond their control, what would you get...a lot of overtaking!

I'd truly like to see more racing than we do but I've come to the conclusion that it's just not going to happen. If you watch a good historic meeting such as the Goodwood Revival you see tons of good racing but that's not the pinnacle of motor racing. At Albert park the only events that blessed us with overtaking and re-overtaking were the Formula Fords! The other races were close but overtaking was at the minimum except where the V8s tapped the car in front to get by.

I don't like it but I think we are stuck with it.

Couple of thoughts:
1. Do CART cars have steel discs and do the overtake more? I don't see them very often so I don't know.

2. It's strange that a Formula 1 driver gets there by winning races/having money. When most of them arrive in F1 they are then destined to never again win a race until they get past their sell-by dates and move off to some other form of racing.

[Pump Daddy J]

This has been a very interesting topic ruined by the sad fact that what we wish for and what will happen are going to be two sadly different matters.
I noticed that none seemed to get on the "fly by wire" issue which I believe is pretty central to the problem as well. Nearly all items on the modern F1 car are electronically activated if not directly controlled. It's pretty hard to see them working at all without these gizmo's.
Cutting aero is highly recommended, trouble is you take it off, take off TC and make them shift maunual/no electric with the power they've got and the RPM their pulling they are going to be an utter handfull to keep on the road and likely to go bang on the first missed shift. It's a real bain teaser.

The only real chance I believe is to start from a clean sheet of paper and set out a reduced engine capacity and categorically state what is and is'nt allowed.

Personally, I'd like to see them back on carbs and dispense with all the EC monitored "widgets" and driven thru a mechanically activated H pattern box. It'll never happen, but it would bring the machine some what back into line with what the stars of the past flogged around. Given the fact that the damn things shift themselves, the art of gear changing has been lost for ever. And sequential boxes are bullshit in my mind as well as the art of ratio jumping (4/2 downshifts for example) have gone the way of the world. As they stand now F1's are really glorified go-karts.

[Shant F]

[xynaria]

[Sean Brian Kirby]

Leslie - wow.

Yeah, all the F1 I remember - usually involved a driver taking over the weekend. We see people pointing to a handful of races in the '70s and saying, "Wah - no overtaking." NASCAR has gobs of overtaking; what would you rather watch? We will remember passes such as Jacques' at Estoril as long as we live... and that's not the only one. A pass in grand prix racing is special. Leslie's right - it will never be a dime-a-dozen thing, in our belovéd sport. But - would you want it that way?

That said, overtaking should be possible when the nose meets the gearbox. Keep the carbon brakes, or whatever proves to be the state-of-the-art - this is a high-tech sport - but widen the cars back up and bring back real racing tires. And get rid of those steenking diffusers. They ground effects, ain't they? Oh, and less wing would be neato (unless it will seriously hurt the money coming into the sport), so we can watch these cats really drive.

Oh, and that suggestion about F1 lending cash to the less-viable outfits - hey, that's fine with me. Just don't make the best teams subsidise those who fail to deliver.
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Give me Liberty, or give me food stamps.

[Sean Brian Kirby]

Shant - we've had one race, and everyone's crying "foul" already. Not foul as in cheating, but foul as in walkoff. I think this season's going to get very, very interesting. This is just business as usual. In that Michael did not win for the first three races of the year, last season, was an aberration. And Fernando Alonso won Hungary in similar fashion in a Renault, last year. Relax.

And you want to close up the hole! Air-blocker. This is so funny... I was going to joke that we shouldn't go to restrictor-plate racing in F1 - something which is universally unpopular in NASCAR - but figured no one would go there. But you did. I'd favor smaller mills over restricted flow. If you absolutely feel you must slow it down. And what is this schmutz with a restriction to a set number of cylinders? Who doesn't long to hear a 19,000rpm Ferrari V12? Or some crazy U.S. concern showing up with an insane V16? (No, I'm not building an engine.)

The technology must continue to advance. (Ask Phil Hill. I think he'd agree.) Last year, sportscar racing attendance suffered - because they dumbed it down. No one wanted to watch that. I have a good friend who's been watching F1 since the 1950s, and he said if they keep making these stupid rules (like the silly qualifying and idiotic one-engine rules), he'll stop watching. And that's saying something, because no greater passion for the sport lies in any man's chest. Trust me on the technology bit. If you want me to be honest, I'd say the best thing to happen to F1 would be this: Breakaway. Bernie made Formula One. Now he's ruining it.

[Sandy]

After reading all the posts the general feeling is: That we are all seeking the ideal that current F1 does not provide, if only we could hit that
"restore" point and transport F1 back to Formula One. Where racers prevailed in the days of heroic overtaking, blitzing starts, fly by wire
technology, the Garagistes versus the European marques.
The best we can hope for is that the current regs will be modified to provide Bernie (forget that I think for once he's seen the light)
The FIA with a more entertaining spectacle.

[Sean Brian Kirby]

Three-car teams, Sandy. Three-car teams.

[Sandy]

'Mmmm And Who's expendable?? Given the 24 car grid max??
Throws my privateers argument out the window!
Think it's throwing the baby out with the bath water.!!

[themark]

Doesn't Ferrari currently have a 4-car team?

What about suggestions I have heard in earlier discussions, such as bringing back off-the-shelf constructor chassis, and the really novel suggestion of turbo-DIESEL engines? That suggestion came from an article on Atlas F1 by Dieter Rencken and which IMHO had great merit. An excerpt:

"Basing new engine formulae upon existing V10 engines - converted to turbo Diesel - would require considerably less investment [than V8's] , allow bi-directional F1/road car technology transfer, increase engine life, reduce fuel consumption and fire risks, reduce straight line speeds whilst increasing acceleration, remove traction control as well as attract newcomers (such as, perhaps, VW-Audi) to the sport."

Full article here (members only?)
http://www.atlasf1.com/2003/dec03/rencken.html
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Look into my eye...