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The way to fix F1 - Part Three: Great rules to build a new lasting legacy

FEATURE BY MAX NOBLE
13/03/2017

"Knowledge speaks, but Wisdom listens." - Jimi Hendrix (1942 - 1970)

"Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are." - Kurt Cobain (1967 - 1994)

Kurt would have been fifty years old on 20th February this year, and Jimi would have been 74 on 27th November last year.

That's legacy.

So to part three of our review of the excellent feedback from readers.

Editor Balfe has posted many comments that were emailed in, and readers posted many comments directly to the site. We have done our best to provide a synthesised view of the comments, rather than call out each submission. So before going further I'd like to thank each reader that took the time to write. Chris and I have read and pondered every single entry so our thanks goes to you all. The quality of submissions shouts loud from the roof tops the quality and depth of Pitpass reader thinking about the sport. Again, my thanks to you all for making time to send in your ideas, and apologies for not responding direct to every word submitted, but for that to be fairly done this would turn into a seventy-five part series!

Our thanks for caring about a unique sport, and our thanks for taking the time to, in most instances, share eloquent and well-reasoned thinking. If my attempt to review and present a composite view of it fails to capture your precise meaning, please forgive me. The art of the diplomatic compromise can over shadow the light of that which is right. If you could ask Kurt or Jimi they would tell you just what it costs to burn with a pure light of your own belief. But then what price legacy?

So one last thanks before we swim into the tide of detail lapping at our shores. Bernie we salute you. Yours is a remarkable legacy of crafting a global sport. A heartfelt "Thank you" for crafting a rabble of backyard boys into a global sporting empire of dizzying scale that over the years has given us all manner of joys, frustrations, sadness, and delight beyond measure.

Now just one last aside and I promise we will get to the main event.

This past couple of weeks has seen the 2017 cars launched and then on track action for the first time this year. Editor Balfe has already passed comment on the weak showing for launches compared to the glory days.

Again Liberty has a job to do here. Car launches are not a centralised "launch by the league" as a Super Bowl, Olympics, or World Cup launch would be. Each is for the specific team and their sponsors to generate some excitement... or not. Williams take the 2017 prize for launch most likely to be mistaken for a drunken tweet. Why? Money and the current investment environment. The teams wish to spend every dollar on winning, and since the 2008 GFC anything that looks like corporate excess is a very bad look. Many people in Europe, indeed around the world, are either unemployed or under-employed, including those previously employed with Manor.

This makes a team's appetite for big splashy launches very small. Possible fix? I recommend a single launch date set by and run by Liberty in the country of the current constructors champions. Hence we would have our current launch day in Germany. Preferably at a race track so the cars run. Then sell tickets, invite fans, have some group excitement, interview a few drivers on stage, have Taylor Swift (or similar...) perform. It could be an all-day event with an evening of celebration. Have the central launch, each car rolling out, not unlike the cyclists launching down the time trial ramp at the Tour de France, and then allow the teams to go to their individual paddock areas for more personal sponsor-centric launch excitement.

Job done! Excitement generated. Centralised advertising and cost sharing. Everyone gets their time in front the camera, and then in some pre-fight trash talk we can have a suitably scripted interview between the current World Champion and the new pretenders.

Depending on your taste in live events this could be like the Goodwood festival of speed, the Circus Maximus, or the entrance parade in the Hunger Games. Working together on a joint live launch which changes country is going to generate far more excitement for everyone. Especially compared to the "Please don't look!" Approach taken by teams this year.

Now back to the main program, being an area where passions burned brightest for Pitpass readers, the Sporting Regulations. My, what a bonfire of vanities, irritations, vexations, and murderous intent we find here!

I will start at the bottom and work up. So without further complication, let us consider tyres.

Tyres!

I love tyres. I change them on all my road cars. I fiddle with pressures. I actively seek tracking and balancing centres that use precision German machinery as they have the finest tolerances on the planet because you really do not want four tyres wobbling in a manic manner at 255 kph on the autobahn. I've filled them with nitrogen, and simple fresh air. What's not to love?

Some readers want control tyres, some want unlimited, some want a couple, some like the status quo. We all agree we want great racing... what to do? I think it is a question of the overall goal.
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Overall we want great racing. By which most of us mean close racing where it is clear the most deserving car and driver combination won after delivering us, the dear viewers, an excellent battle for first place. What the teams want is a predicable tyre that they can model to the last second of its life that perfectly suits their chassis while delivering a pox to all other teams. And here we have our first Big Issue.

Do we return to tyre wars whereby tyre manufacturers and certain teams combine forces, or do we issue a control tyre? Readers are split on which will result in "great racing". I cast my vote with tyre wars. Let the teams and tyre companies join forces as they wish, with the only bounds being minimum and maximum weight, and safety regulations as mandated by the FIA.

Governments love all forms of measurement. Measurement allows control, and control allows charge. We measure your income, we tax it. We measure your speed, we fine you. We monitor the alcohol in drinks we tax it... you get the picture. The FIA has become obsessed with measuring and controlling items that deliver no value to the racing event. Do we need specific tyres, monitored and handed out? Does that generate better racing? Or would a "Do what you will " approach, bounded by safety, weight, and overall car dimension limits deliver a great result? Pitpass readers are divided.

A control tyre levels the playing field, while removing all possible innovation. An open book hands an advantage to the most monied... or is that to the most creative... yet the money will attract the most creative. This is a vital point. Fans miss that the best monied teams tend to attract the most talented staff. It is a simple law of capitalism. The best staff do not say to themselves "I must go to the worst team, with the least finance to prove my genius overcomes lack of funds". No they tend to be drawn to the most monied, most likely to succeed teams. This is a very important point. Remember it as we move forward.

So a control tyre moves the variables to other options. Engine, aero, suspension, brakes, anything where variation is allowed, that is where the money will be spent. Yet the genius of partnering your chassis and suspension with a unique tyre has just been lost to the smaller teams with some bright ideas. Each time we remove options it refocuses the spend on fewer and fewer parts, which means the impact of extra dollars is amplified because you have so few areas in which to apply them. Spread the possibilities and you open up the options for small teams to excel.

I'm siding with those that want unlimited tyres. Well, not totally. To stop spending being insane we might want to limit each team to generating three unique dry tyres and two unique wet tyres. Then the FIA set safety standards, such as tethering, and safe failure modes as the tyre ages, and off we go.

Chassis

Why do we need more than a reasonably dimensioned 3D box within which the chassis must fit, and then a maximum and minimum weight, coupled with mandatory crash tests? This was the thrust of readers suggestions. A few recommended moving to a "one make" series, but then the drama and intrigue of engineering development is totally lost. Let us agree now, a one make series is not in the interests of Formula One.

Most agree that safety rules coupled with physical limits and weights should allow freedom enough to create, coupled with bounds enough to restrain infinite spending. Why does the FIA find this so hard? Planks, wing mirrors, barge board limits, camera mounting points. Unnecessary complexity! This would appear to be the simplest of areas to control in a 'free' manner and yet the FIA does not apply sensible rules. I believe we have defined the answer, and the FIA should sit back, reflect, and implement.

Bound the 3D box. Set the safety criteria. Set upper and lower bounds for weight. Handover policing of the outcome to our dear old friend Miss Physics. Job done.

Readers are further split between guiding rules based in pure Physics and safety, and those firmly rooted in the "Golden Days" of the 1950s/60s/70s, that is retro-Physics, depending on the age, one presumes, of the reader. As drivers have noted, a winning car tends to be viewed as a beautiful car. One does indeed need to go back to original Lotus, and Ferrari chassis of those early decades to view non-winning cars that still possessed an elegance and grace that has been stripped one delicate curve at a time from the modern chassis by ever more restrictive rules. I believe the consensus is for a great simplification of the rules, allowing more freedom to the designers.

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READERS COMMENTS

 

1. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 8:15

"YES, there is no need to lose life for a sports event. No one (anymore) wants to see blood (anymore)."

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2. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 8:13

"The ideas about adding technology for wet conditions are just GREAT !"

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3. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 8:12

"Given that the drivers are more safe than today, means adding a proper head protection, I would vote for allowance for changing race line twice. "

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4. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 8:08

"ON TRACK RULES: and tarmac run-off zones do not enhance safety in case of brake / tyre / suspension failure, or in case of wet conditions, or in case a car slithering upside down. "

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5. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 8:04

"ON TRACK RULES: I wouldn't vote for the electronic limiter; still there was no risk to leave track. But it should be truly penalised in my opinion, as it was with the gravel traps. Best were those who still allowed the cars crawling out of it, but it was a big pain anyway. Also, it just does not look appealing when aside of the race track, there is another one, or two. It just -- it's like having the lines in Tennis broad as a racket. Even if you put sensors to narrow the limit on the line, it would not look so difficult anymore. People could not see the fault, they would need to be told by a computer. Imperfect in my opinion. "

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6. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 7:54

"Costs: Well, Daimler and FCA could also easily run their own wind tunnels in parallel to the centralised one."

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7. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 7:43

"Tyres: Marbles to be prevented, in my opinion. It narrows the playing field dramatically. If there was only one pit stop allowed, compounds could be more stable. With more freedom for engineering ingenuity, speed would not suffer, I believe. Especially with tyre sizes that allow for more mechanical grip than aero downforce. With small, simple front wings and without diffusers and no rake (looks awful) I bet the balance would be better."

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8. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 7:34

"THANK YOU for this one: "Each time we remove options it refocuses the spend on fewer and fewer parts, which means the impact of extra dollars is amplified because you have so few areas in which to apply them. Spread the possibilities and you open up the options for small teams to excel." "

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9. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 7:32

"The best monied teams tend to attract the most talented staff. Yes, and there is much more talent around than 10 teams may sign. If there was a more sportive = equal (basic) funding, small teams could perform and pay well. "

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10. Posted by sagosac, 24/03/2017 7:27

"Tyre Wars: PERFECT ! F1 is about tailor-made & peak performance; and rubber matters -- big time. It could be also argued that this individual approach levels the playing field more than a standard gum. It happened that teams developed expensive cars that just wouldn't work well with the much less expensive tyres -- horrific scenario. Those teams who are not attractive for tyre companies to be well cared shall receive funding to pay a tyre company.

"

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11. Posted by Max Noble, 20/03/2017 9:37

"@Spindoctor - Indeed noted! Yes, promoting technology, while stopping it being a spending sprint, is another complex challenge for Liberty. As ever I think the off-track action this year will be as exciting as ever. Far more unpredictable than the racing!"

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12. Posted by Spindoctor, 20/03/2017 8:03

"@cricketpo
I quite agree, FTA is a non-starter now that the "Rights" to F1, (formerly 'Rights to promote & sell F1') are bought and sold like so much offal in the marketplace.
Unless FIA takes a more active stance than recently; a Used Car Salesman's version of F1 will be followed by an Adman's.
Your "Gourmet Burger" analogy with all those 1950's Golden Age American Dream resonances sounds increasingly likely.

Your points about Testing and Development are well-made.
This highlights the glaring paradox in Formula 1. You can't be at (or even near) the pinnacle of so 'technical' endeavour unless you allow, indeed encourage, constant development and innovation. Today's F1 actively prevents such development & innovation it with the predictable [sic] consequences we have seen in recent seasons.

@Max Noble
I hope you have registered those ideas....

"

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13. Posted by cricketpo, 19/03/2017 18:20

"Beware F1 fans! We may all be treated to the motor racing version of twenty twenty cricket, which by the way as a Test Cricket fan I find an abomination.

I should trudge away and lick my wounds in my cave"

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14. Posted by Max Noble, 19/03/2017 2:34

"@cricketpo - as ever many thanks for the robust feedback!
Your clear statement of what each considers "value for money" being so different is an excellent point.

The idea that Liberty are chasing "Gourmet F1" is an interesting observation. As you say, identify those willing to pay for it, and then reshaping the product to suit them is a more likely outcome.

So rather than pandering to the aging audience seeking lost "Golden Days" deliver a new and exciting entertainment experience that is a direct hit on those willing to pay for it.

...which probably means a reality TV show mixing the elements of a gourmet kitchen, with desperate house wives (team owners), and a strange man shouting "You're Fired!", all set during the half time show at the Super Bowl. "

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15. Posted by cricketpo, 19/03/2017 1:06

"As usual I have entered this debate a little late. I have tried to ruminate on all 3 articles and post on this one so apologies if I re hash subjects covered by previous comments.
Let me begin by upsetting a few of you. If I have gauged the editorial right many respondants wanted to see a return to free to air TV for F1 in the future. Well strap yourselves in Pitpass and readership you are not going to like what is going to happen. Liberty have invested money and will want a return on that investment. If it detects its core viewers (I am assuming you all are) are not willing to cough up for the product they will seek the people who do and pander to them instead.
That is my first point. My second is around funding. I do want to see a more robust method of passing around the finances but I am not sure that being able to take a profit whilst just showing up is any way to improve racing. A Team who only has to rockup and get two cars on the grid to make a profit will do just that. There will be no incentive to push any envelopes or even barriers. The team will tootle around the track and collect. What I want to see are teams with a passion for racing. Which means not only must the dividend be shared more fairly there must also be a protocol in place to allow the teams at the back to turn it around.
In my opinion the lack of testing time and restrictions on development mean that we have entered the era of “Marginal gains.” Tweak everything to gain synergistic advantage. Do all the little things right and the big stuff looks after itself. It means that a team like Maclaren whose cars had enetered an aero dynamic black hole are not only unable to rectify the position but they are also lumbered with an engine provider that won’t be able to rectify the situation any time soon either. My suggestion would be unlimited design and testing for the next season for teams who fill the bottom half of the constructors championship.

The rules of building an F1 car are mind boggling I admit but that has been part and parcel of F1 for my lifetime at the very least. I am not against it as such because it can drive designers to mount new challenges for some sort of advantage. I remember the days the aerodynamic kits got banned because two big players had opted for the power strategy of turbos and were made to look like donkeys. It kind of is what F1 is all about.

I am afraid free to air F1 may well be a thing of the past. It has been said on this website if not only by me, that TV is just so much more diverse than it was. The advertising revenues will change accordingly. I remember a time of only 3 channels here in the UK. But now there are 40. Advertisers can be much more savvy about how and when to show the adverts. This will ultimately see income fall at previous big hitters. Streaming is the way forward, multichannels headcams, you name it all piped into your 4K TV.

Finally it is funny what people will pay for. I recently went to a trendy restaurant where I had Hamburger and fries served on a tin tray with greaseproof paper and got rushed for £15 a head. I could have gone to my local McD’s and had a similar meal for under £5 each. The extra “ambience” and retro dining set apparently made the whole thing worth extortioning me.
Perhaps this is what Liberty have in mind - Gourmet F1. Where it is presented on a slate plate with greaseproof paper and a side of coleslaw and we will all willingly pay more for the experience. Or maybe some of us

As I said it is interesting what people ARE prepared to pay for. The author was quite frank about how he willingly gave a tired old hack some extortionate amount of his hard earned cash so he could bash out a few tunes that made him famous 40 years ago whilst was entirely comfortable watching two athletes in the peak of physical fitness who have dominated the sport of tennis for the last ten years go head to head in an examination of who is the hardest and yet he considers this not worth parting with a dime for. Imagine how he cheated he would have felt had the final just been a montage of Federer and Nadal’s greatest moments over the last 15 years culminating in a clapometer test to see which the audience preferred and the winner declared Open champion. If I were federer I would be looking jealously over at Mr Springsteen and wondering how cruel life is. Except he is probably too busy counting his gold in his numbered Swiss bank account"

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