F1 Strategy Group agrees to sweeping changes from 2017

Mark Aalberts · Jul 1, 2015

Qazdar Karim said:
Are you sure ?

If you skip to 2.38 and watch that part,.. what do you make up on that ?

An 14 year old Minardi with the most crappiest engine (Asiatech) ever made shouldn't be faster then recent F1 cars if you ask me. It just gives a nice indication of where recent F1 cars really stand. For sure the RBR has the better Aero, but that's pretty obvious.

Les Aero, more power, more consistent tires longer braking distance no DRS are a few things that I would change.

Qazdar Karim · Jul 1, 2015

Let's not fool ourselves ... less aero won't make cars faster! 1% less aero means 1tenth added to the laptime! F1 is about being good in all departements, aero, braking and mechanical grip ...

On that video, it's not the red bull ... and i wouldn't base any conclusions on a video made for fun ...

Google 2000 GPs and compare laptimes from the best team that year to the RBR 2013 car, and you will get your answer!

Mark Aalberts · Jul 2, 2015

Qazdar Karim said:
Let's not fool ourselves ... less aero won't make cars faster! 1% less aero means 1tenth added to the laptime! F1 is about being good in all departements, aero, braking and mechanical grip ...

On that video, it's not the red bull ... and i wouldn't base any conclusions on a video made for fun ...

Google 2000 GPs and compare laptimes from the best team that year to the RBR 2013 car, and you will get your answer!

You obviously don't get my point but that's ok, it was not even about laptime. And in the original post I made use of this smiley >>

that is with a reason.

And yes its a 2012 RB8 painted in Toro colors, trust me about that.

Less Aero is not about making it faster but making it more challenging to drive that's what they after! More tricky cars means more chance that drivers make mistakes. The current cars rely to much on down force, you can possibly compensate it by giving them more power. And current cars are not that slow indeed, the pole lap of Austria was only 0.6 off from the fastes pole lap that I know was done there a 1.07.9xx by Schumacher.

>> Its the race rules and in particular the crappy tires making the cars slow these days.

Qazdar Karim · Jul 2, 2015

The fastest lap ever was 1.08.337, and Austria is not really a representative circuit as it has only 9 corners, and not fast ones ... During last year's british GP, the fastest race lap was 1.37.1 which is 4 secs slower than the 2013 one! these cars are just few seconds faster than LMP1 cars.

You simply can't compensate the downforce by more engine power ... 1986's cars had loads of it yet they were 6 seconds slower than current cars! and honestly removing donwforce from F1s doesn't make sense to me! F1 is about being the fastest possible around the corner, there are other series with lower downforce, yet the show is not really interesting! what's needed is car's able to be @100% all the time, while lapping within 0.3 from each other! that would make the show better! I want to see drivers going flat in corners side by side without caring about fuel usage or tyres.

Mark Aalberts · Jul 2, 2015

So you prefer to have cars on rails.

I prefer to see drivers fight with their cars trying to keepin it on the black stuff. Going back to the 80's I still prefer those days over today's to be honest. Seeing Piquet going full lock into turn 1 at Hungary in a attempt to overtake and making it stick? That's something impossible with current cars. It is not all about laptime.

But whatever you do, even if you remove the fuel limit and put proper tires under it it is not going to change much on the current situation, they just all drive a few seconds faster in the race. Same with durable tires you are only going to see 1 stoppers.

If you want to see drivers trail each other within 0.3 of a second you need to do something on the dirty air and remove the DRS. Most of the time DRS causes that the fight is gone within a few laps, they either DRS someone or do it within a few laps once timing right. Also the fragile tires prevent them from trailing 0.3 because as soon as a driver gets within 2 seconds he is complaining that his tires will be gone if he goes closer. About the dirty air, that is if you don't have DRS and drivers are forced to make proper overtakes thus being closer to the driver in front then what you would be compared to with DRS. Wings and rear end is designed in such a way that it creates a lot of air disturbance behind the car, infact designers even design it in such a way to purposely create a much dirty air as possible. Im not making that up. When you watch for example F3 which still has relative lot of down force for the lower class open wheelers, I watched all races in 2013 due to Max. And what you could tell was that you had a lot of close racing with drivers trailing each other simply because they are able to do so due to minimum amount of dirty air because of the simplistic rear wing and diffusor design. But of course this would mean that you have to either standardize parts or limit the designers again.

On the other hand maybe drivers are brainwashed to with all this eco crap and lets save the tire talk. Some 17 year old rookie has showed it is actually possible to overtake with proper outbraking >> no DRS freepass and underpowered engine to get pass drivers. Sometimes I have the feeling they take this completely in consideration and are not even willing to give it a shot.

When Nico was complaining about Lewis driving to slow in China I was like, damn if you are faster in a equal car then just go for it some other rookie is showing the complete opposite.

Anyway I think whatever you change it is going to have it's positives and negatives.

Qazdar Karim · Jul 2, 2015

Mark Aalberts said:
Austria was only 0.6 off from the fastes pole lap that I know was done there a 1.07.9xx by Schumacher.

Offtopic : i checked that and you are right. That was the fastest lap ever there

Iain McKenzie · Jul 4, 2015

Loosen restrictions and the sport will save itself.

Philip Heck · Jul 4, 2015

Iain McKenzie said:
Loosen restrictions and the sport will save itself.

Or destroy itself.

Alberto Casado · Jul 5, 2015

Mark Aalberts said:
If you want to see drivers trail each other within 0.3 of a second you need to do something on the dirty air and remove the DRS.

Exactly the dirty air is the issue. You can have crappy tyres, fuel restrictions, whatever, but what kills close racing is aero that both 1) needs undisturbed air to work properly and 2) leaves a horrid mess of vortexes behind.

But many fans are asking for faster racing. Faster racing means more speed in the corners. More speed in the corners means better aero. Better aero means... less close racing. Also other fans are asking for more freedom to the engineers. Well, ate least the aero ones with freedom are going to make the dirtiest air they can behind, get pole and dammed be the rest. And others are now asking for refueling (!), which stats in hand was the worst thing ever for overtaking.

Seems clear to me something has to change, but also that many of the popular changes are absolutely senseless.

On the other hand maybe drivers are brainwashed to with all this eco crap and lets save the tire talk. Some 17 year old rookie has showed it is actually possible to overtake with proper outbraking >> no DRS freepass and underpowered engine to get pass drivers. Sometimes I have the feeling they take this completely in consideration and are not even willing to give it a shot.

When Nico was complaining about Lewis driving to slow in China I was like, damn if you are faster in a equal car then just go for it some other rookie is showing the complete opposite.

Equal car and pretty much equal tyres is definitely not what Max had in his overtakes (unlike Nico/Lewis which all over the season had mirror cars 99% of the time). The difference between the mercs is usually under a second/lap.

Still, I am sure it could possible to hang on to the car in front 5 laps, wait for the slightest error, dive in and pass... only to lose two places later because you took 12+ laps of tire life in those 5 laps.

I can hardly believe that if there was not a big and clear downside to do so it would not be tried often, I mean, I trust a big more the racecraft of HAM/ALO/VET/RAI... that a slightly hotheaded 17 year old that has half a season on him. If they say hanging on close is no good, then is probably no good.