The Official F1 Thread - V2

[baconbits]

Harder to drive from a lack of grip but attached to a rocket aspect, yes. From a knowledge of how the car works when the radio breaks (like happened to Hamilton last year), these cars are much harder to drive. The physical demands on drivers now, I think, are much higher, and they have to do all the steering wheel settings.

 

80s and 90s just needed balls and natural feel. Now you still need balls, but you need some technical know how, plus a bit of feel, plus extreme physical fitness.

 

Edit: Also, didn't Grosjean spin off in Hungary last year on the formation lap? The year before?

[KartRacerBoy]

Pussy.

[baconbits]

Just makes logical sense to me, that's all. I've got exactly 0 seconds of actual race seat time in my life. I watch F1 for the engineering aspect of it.

[KartRacerBoy]

I don't doubt driving is more complicated due to the settings but with telemetry and radio, the driver doesn't have to do more thinking.

 

Remember when Senna took a Penske for a test drive back in 1993? He was ultimately using it as a bargaining chip with Ron Dennis to get $1 million per race (paltry by today's standards), but Senna said he enjoyed it more than F1 cars since the Champ Cars were more driver, less tech. No semiauto transmission or active suspension. The drivers were more important to be fast compared to F1.

[baconbits]

I was 6 in '93 and not concerned with anything other than Legos so no, I don't remember

 

Settings and physical exertion make driving these new cars harder, I think. I'm not doubting Senna's ability at all, not that familiar with Prost other than the rivaly, so all I have to say is that from what I've read and heard, it seems that Senna had raw, natural ability to get even garbage cars in terrible weather on the podium. It kind of reminds me of Alonso a little - the idea that Alonso could take those garbage McLarens and get them as high up on the grid as he did before reliability problem struck. It just seems like Senna had an uncanny ability to feel grip and what the car was doing more than others.

[KartRacerBoy]

I think Prost was equal to Senna on race pace and when Prost was younger in 84 and 85 Lauda his teammate was stupefied by Prost's qualifying pace. Ultimately he gave up on qualifying to focus on race setup. IIRC, Prost had more fastest race laps then Senna. When Senna arrived at McLaren to race in 88, he did to Prost in qualifying what Prost did to Lauda.

 

Senna also took risks that Prost never would in last second pass attempts. In 88 when Senna won his first Championship, he crashed far more in than Prost. While Senna won the championship, Prost actually scored more points but for the WDC, the FIA only counted the best 11 finishes out of 16 races. Senna won by virtue of having one or two more wins than Prost, but Prost scored more total points (by like 10 or so when a race win was only worth 9 points) over the 16 races.

[FJuan]

http://kuvaton.com/kuvei/f1wing.jpg

[KartRacerBoy]

Ridiculous. I wish they would limit front wings to two or three elements. Less downforce, more power. Almost as ugly as the halo.

 

The 2018 Indycars got it right.

[ehsnils]

I'd vote for a single element front wing and a single element rear wing. The current wings are just weirdly overcomplex. Also limit the wing width to not be wider than the space between the tires. That way the risk of damaging the wing or cutting the tires of your competitors will be lower.

 

And relax the tire regulations a bit so that you can run different tire widths. Either wide tires and a narrow wing or narrow tires and a wider wing. Let the teams work out what works best for them on which track. The cars would be more varied that way, now they all looks almost the same regardless of team except for paint job.

[KartRacerBoy]

Senna in his day used to run two or three different compounds on different wheels sometimes. For a track that was dominated by right turns, he might have a harder compound on the left front. I'm not sure if I ever heard of anyone else doing this.

[baconbits]

It's not allowed per regulations. It happened to Bottas at Spa a couple years ago when he was with Williams - three mediums and one soft made it onto his car in a stop and he had to pull off and retire.

 

The cars are the way they are now because of the engineers... same thing happened in the 80s and 90s during the turbo era. Drivers are only so good, why not work the car to give their driver that little extra bit? Hamilton is a great driver but you put him in one of the Alfas or a Force India and he won't crack the top 10. Cars are just as important as the driver.

 

Limiting wings and tires and whatever else won't help because then the best driver will be a parade instead of the best car. A parade is a parade regardless of the reason. The one regulation I think need 86'd is the power unit limits... they do it in the name of saving costs but it does nothing but increase costs. Procurement of parts is not as expensive as developing them.

[KartRacerBoy]

Uh, the best drivers are usually in the best cars. And I have no idea of what your logic is as to limiting wings turning F1 into a parade. It's already a bit of a parade. Decrease downforce, increase braking distances means generally more passing attempts. Get on youtube and watch old races from the 80s. Passing was still difficult but there was more of it. Limit wings and engineers will have to maximize within those rules. Better design will still mean cars faster than lesser design.

 

Watch Indycar this years. The drivers universally praise the new rules cutting downforce drastically. It means less drag so better acceleration but at the cost of longer braking and corner speed. Which means more passing. Low down force. More power. Better racing.

 

As to tires, I know what the rules are. I'm saying they are silly, but everything now is about reducing costs. One tire manufacturer does that. I'd rather see a tire war, damn the costs. Multiple manufactures or at least let the teams run what they want when they want.

[baconbits]

Limiting engineers is just one step closer to turning F1 into a spec series. Watch Indy or Nascar if you want a spec series. Mercedes would still have the best engines with Ferrari close behind, so Mercedes would still win, just with narrower wings and fewer cut tires, because as you said it, the best drivers are still in the best cars, but the best cars have fewer features to play with. So what has been gained other than tying engineers' hands?

 

I watch F1 and WEC when I can because everyone is different by that little bit to try and get the edge. They might look the same but if you made those unbelievably stupid regulation gages to check Nascar car profiles, bumper shapes, etc, and put them on an F1 car, none of them would be the same.

 

Sorry, I can't get excited watching Nascar or Indy when one guy passes the other at 1mph differential speed. FFS, they're still carbureted pushrod engines.

[KartRacerBoy]

Limiting engineers is just one step closer to turning F1 into a spec series. Watch Indy or Nascar if you want a spec series. Mercedes would still have the best engines with Ferrari close behind, so Mercedes would still win, just with narrower wings and fewer cut tires, because as you said it, the best drivers are still in the best cars, but the best cars have fewer features to play with. So what has been gained other than tying engineers' hands?

 

I watch F1 and WEC when I can because everyone is different by that little bit to try and get the edge. They might look the same but if you made those unbelievably stupid regulation gages to check Nascar car profiles, bumper shapes, etc, and put them on an F1 car, none of them would be the same.

 

Sorry, I can't get excited watching Nascar or Indy when one guy passes the other at 1mph differential speed. FFS, they're still carbureted pushrod engines.

 

I never watch Nascar but I loved watching Indycars/Champ Cars in the 90s. Brutal horsepower (900-1000) with nowhere near the downforce of F1 cars.

 

Personally, I prefer racing to all out engineering. Your view leads to a few teams always in the front, like the last several Mercedes years or Ferrari/Schumacher in the early 2000s. I do appreciate modern TV coverage of F1 becz they no longer just follow the leader around on TV but try to find the drivers actually racing each other.

 

Different strokes...

[GTEASER]

Obviously baconbits is not much of a racing fan, at least from the technical perspective, or he'd know that NASCAR has been fuel injected since the start of the 2012 season.

[KartRacerBoy]

Obviously baconbits is not much of a racing fan, at least from the technical perspective, or he'd know that NASCAR has been fuel injected since the start of the 2012 season.

 

That is worth NOT knowing. Actually, I do occasionally watch Nascar if it's a road race at Sonoma or the Glen. It's fun watching drivers in heavy cars with little road racing experience try to figure it all out.

[baconbits]

Obviously baconbits is not much of a racing fan, at least from the technical perspective, or he'd know that NASCAR has been fuel injected since the start of the 2012 season.

 

Like I said, I don't watch Nascar because someone going 201mph in an oval for 5 hours on end passing a guy going 200.5mph isn't exciting. Same can be said for Indy.

 

I never watch Nascar but I loved watching Indycars/Champ Cars in the 90s. Brutal horsepower (900-1000) with nowhere near the downforce of F1 cars.

 

Personally, I prefer racing to all out engineering. Your view leads to a few teams always in the front, like the last several Mercedes years or Ferrari/Schumacher in the early 2000s. I do appreciate modern TV coverage of F1 becz they no longer just follow the leader around on TV but try to find the drivers actually racing each other.

 

Different strokes...

 

That's just it though. Mercedes isn't winning all (most) of the races because their front wing is best. So make the front wing narrower or simpler, and I'd bet money they still take the constructor's championship. So what has been gained? Teams admit the driver's championship is nothing more than bragging rights, so in the end, what's it matter other than bullshitting with fans about drivers? You limit the wings, the engines, the tires, the chassis, suspension, etc, and it's still likely Mercedes winning, at least now, because Hamilton is the best driver. So again, I ask, what has been changed?

 

You're just going to turn F1 into Indy by limiting everything, with the only difference being that F1 (thankfully) doesn't race on ovals.

 

Less tires have been cut because the front wings are narrower, but now there's more crashes because people are getting too gutsy with the overtakes under braking and hitting people on the inside. I sure would love to watch a race where 5 people finish.

[KartRacerBoy]

Horse. Water. Yada, yada.

 

Or in summation. Better racing with more passing all the way down the field.

[KartRacerBoy]

Ferrari might actually be a match for Mercedes this year. And here's to Kimi. Hope he wins it.

 

As for McLaren, how humiliating is it for Toro Rosso-Honda to outqualify with Gasly? McLaren is declining to Williams status without Ron Dennis.

Edited April 7, 2018 by KartRacerBoy

[ehsnils]

Damn!

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNCD7P1nc4g]ABANDONED F1 CARS 2018 New ✅ - YouTube[/ame]

[ehsnils]

Nice race. Not too many disasters but I hope that the mechanic in Ferrari didn't get too badly hurt.

[baconbits]

That pit stop was a disaster all around... the wheel hadn't even come off and Kimi was dropped and signaled to go. Hopefully he's just shaken up but where the mechanic's knee was relative to the tire, I can't imagine how he didn't tear something in there.

 

I'm surprised Vettel held off Bottas and from the radio, it sounds like Vettel was surprised he could too. Hamilton and Bottas seemed pretty upset about it.

[KartRacerBoy]

The Ferrari mechanic broke his leg (two bones). Some really stupid pit stops in the last two races (Haas and Ferrari).

 

I was hoping for a Kimi win today, but that guy can't buy a break. Or pace anymore.

[baconbits]

The Ferrari mechanic broke his leg (two bones). Some really stupid pit stops in the last two races (Haas and Ferrari).

 

I was hoping for a Kimi win today, but that guy can't buy a break. Or pace anymore.

 

Just saw a slo-mo video of the stop. That guy's leg was ugly - 90° bent 6 inches above his ankle.

 

There was nothing Kimi could have done to know what was going on, but I bet he feels awful about that. I have a feeling Ferrari is going to change their red light green light procedure for stops. From what I understand, their computer saw green because the wheel hadn't been removed yet so once the other side went green from a proper change, the jack guy dropped it and away he went.

[Knight705]

two races in and two pit incidents with premature releases..... geez, maybe this whole pit release system needs to be overhauled by each team.