[gabbaman]

Bad tracks = Bad racing

If Australia gives us a boring race then let's talk.
Melbourne and Sepang are to very good tracks, I would even say that Melbourne is one of best flat tracks in the world and Sepang is by far the best Tilke track.

Having said that,
Standardized Diffuse.

[grubnismarl]

The real problem is the cars and the FIA's continued inability to get the tech regs right. They should have banned the double diffusers when they had the chance but, as usual, dropped the ball.

By calling for more pitstops, refuelling or different tyres all you are doing is skirting around the issue and not addressing the real problem.

Agreed

[Evoncalabbalo]

Abandon the tyre specs, keep the ban on refueling so a driver could potentially pick a hard tyre and do the entire race on that set of tyres. Have a 'free for all' qualifying session - like years ago.
As for the tracks - less Tilkedroms please - won't happen though - they've paid big money - and Bernie loves money.

[appletango]

I'd also like to see the end of parc ferme conditions after quali. How do we expect any shake up in order when the car on pole is faster than the guy in 2nd on Saturday - its gonna be the same on Sunday if they're not allowed to touch the cars.

Back in the day Schumacher was a master at turning an average qualifying car into a mega race car by tweaking and fine tuning the setup over night.

I've never understood what the point of the parc ferme is. If a car has an engine problem (Ferraris) or wants to change the rear wing on both cars (Mercedes), then they're allowed to. So why stop anyone working on the car??

I agree with your idea, let the teams do pretty much whatever they want to the setup, wings etc, we might see a bit of a shake up.

Plus, get the tyres changed.

[9wQlZkIj]

From the sporting side they just need to keep the rules as simple as possible. Sanitized rules equals sanitized racing.

The refuelling ban represented an excellent opportunity to right some of the wrongs of the past few years - but they elected to replace race fuel qualifying with race tyre qualifying instead of doing the logical thing and returning it to how it was pre-2003. The Q1/Q2/Q3 knockout thing is OK I guess, although the hour long session was probably better and purer IMO.

Then there's the stupid two-tyre rule in the race, which combined with the current compound choices means all teams are locked into doing one stop. What the hell did they expect to happen?

Then let the teams do whatever the hell they want with the tyres for the race. Super soft, super hard, anywhere in between, run non-stop on the super hards, do three stops with super softs tearing up, and so on. I liked the old system Goodyear had where they had lettered compounds A (hardest), B, C, D, E (softest) and it was a complete free for all.

As for the technical regulations, they need to stop pussy footing around the aero thing and make a firm decision. Either accept that modern F1 is not going to be about wheel-to-wheel, close, overtaking-heavy action, or go the whole hog and ban wings. Yes, all wings, like Formula Ford. Any awkward in-between compromise hasn't worked.

[Mymnnarry]

With regards to aero we are not just talking about F1 here! If we remove the wings from the cars completely we'll have F1 cars slower than current spec GP2's (or worse) so then GP2 rules would need a rethink. But wait then an F3 car would woop a GP2! And so it would go on and on.

[leyliana]

Admit that Max was right (once again)!

Mosley admits that he was against the teams' decision to ban refuelling from 2010, but thinks there will still be plenty of excitement without them.

"I was against banning them because in my opinion they were part of the show," he said. "However tyre changes will stay, so it will be exciting to see who will be the quickest at it.

"Also, I trust technology to avoid, like what happened in the eighties, of drivers avoiding fighting in the first part of the race to save their brakes and tyres."

[Mymnnarry]

Another thought enters my noodle.

When last we had no refueling there was no pit lane speed limit, so total time lost was maybe 15 secs. No one will be willing to do 3 stops when total time lost amounts to 1m30s or so.

Now I don't propose removing the limit but perhaps if the pit lane re-entered the track later in the lap - say turn 2 at Bahrain for example - the time loss would be reduced.

[quorceopporce]

With regards to aero we are not just talking about F1 here! If we remove the wings from the cars completely we'll have F1 cars slower than current spec GP2's (or worse) so then GP2 rules would need a rethink. But wait then an F3 car would woop a GP2! And so it would go on and on.

You need the wings to carry adverts. You want to go faster, increase engine size, and better slicks. The idea is to enable slipstreaming to some extent without a severe decrease in downforce. If you can achieve that some other way - fine. You can have a pure wing running horizontal and still have "some" downforce, and little turbulence; but nowhere like the downforce and turbulence like the raked wings.

The whole issue here is downforce and how little downforce F1 cars can live and race with. This is the supreme apex of engineering excellence that F1 teams strives for: max downforce, and zillions are spent developing this each year. The rest is window dressing. You can have the most powerful and reliable engines but without downforce: go to the back of the class.

[9wQlZkIj]

With regards to aero we are not just talking about F1 here! If we remove the wings from the cars completely we'll have F1 cars slower than current spec GP2's (or worse) so then GP2 rules would need a rethink. But wait then an F3 car would woop a GP2! And so it would go on and on.

You are right - there would need to be a complete overhaul of the formula car racing world from top to bottom. I'm just saying if people want loads of overtaking, sliding cars, close racing and so on, then that's what needs to happen. I personally am happy with the status quo thank you very much, but endless minor aero tweaks in an open formula (where engineers quite rightly will strive to negate the effects of any rule changes) will never have the desired effect.

[9wQlZkIj]

You want to go faster, increase engine size,

I'm going to pick up on this comment because there's something most people (me included) has overlooked in this thread.

In the past non-refuelling era, you had big unrestricted 3.5 litre engines with 12, 10 or 8 cylinders. And before that, unrestricted (1987/88 aside) turbos that could churn out 1000bhp in qualifying trim and were only turned down in the race so that they'd last the distance. So regardless of downforce levels you had cars that were harder to control. Now you have near-standardised, frozen, rev-limited, 2.4 litre V8s, which while giving astonishing bhp-per-litre figures, are much more reigned in than their predecessors.

The FIA has strived pretty much since 2006 to make things more and more closer, but when you narrow the performance gap between cars, then overtaking is naturally going to be harder isn't it?

Like in football, the great exciting high-scoring matches come from either two disparate or at least one poorly organised (relatively speaking) team. What happens when you get two superbly managed teams with well drilled and marshalled defences with game plans perfectly executed? Well a 0-0 draw usually. And speaking of football, you don't get pundits and managers moaning that the rules need to be changed whenever there is a 0-0 draw, football's equivalent of an F1 race with no overtaking. The race wasn't that bad.

[quorceopporce]

Bring back V12!!

[Ilaubuas]

I'm going to pick up on this comment because there's something most people (me included) has overlooked in this thread.

In the past non-refuelling era, you had big unrestricted 3.5 litre engines with 12, 10 or 8 cylinders. And before that, unrestricted (1987/88 aside) turbos that could churn out 1000bhp in qualifying trim and were only turned down in the race so that they'd last the distance. So regardless of downforce levels you had cars that were harder to control. Now you have near-standardised, frozen, rev-limited, 2.4 litre V8s, which while giving astonishing bhp-per-litre figures, are much more reigned in than their predecessors.

Hmm good point. I guess it goes back to the old truism that if you want spectacular racing then you need to have more power than grip.

[Precturge]

Engines won't get bigger...they'll get smaller and turbo charged.

[Nurfzerne]

Just refresh my memory; why and when did F1 go from 2,0 to 1,8 meter ?

They look like F3 cars, and even more so with the new narrow wings and tyres !

[grubnismarl]

Just refresh my memory; why and when did F1 go from 2,0 to 1,8 meter ?

Wasn't it in 1997 that the cars were made narrower? IIRC grooved tyres were introduced at the same time.

Watching a clip of Damon Hill driving his title winning Williams at Bahrain I was reminded of just how wide those cars are in comparison with what we see racing today.

[dasneycomrov]

Just refresh my memory; why and when did F1 go from 2,0 to 1,8 meter ?

They were 3.0 litres and went down to 2.4 litres.

At 3.0 litres you have 0.3 litres per cylinder. 2 cylinders is 0.6 litres

3.0 - 0.6 = 2.4. So that's what you get when you go from V10 to V8.

[dasneycomrov]

Wasn't it in 1997 that the cars were made narrower? IIRC grooved tyres were introduced at the same time.

Watching a clip of Damon Hill driving his title winning Williams at Bahrain I was reminded of just how wide those cars are in comparison with what we see racing today.

As I recall the narrow cars were introduced in 1997 and the grooved tyres the year after.

[Theariwinna]

You are right - there would need to be a complete overhaul of the formula car racing world from top to bottom. I'm just saying if people want loads of overtaking, sliding cars, close racing and so on, then that's what needs to happen. I personally am happy with the status quo thank you very much, but endless minor aero tweaks in an open formula (where engineers quite rightly will strive to negate the effects of any rule changes) will never have the desired effect.

Simply ban wings but mandatory sized shark fin for sponsorship purposes and let the engineers do what they want.

[Hlennisal]

...
I'd like to see KERS back - it didn't get a fair shot.

I thought that KERS is still permitted this season?