FIA to limit ‘hot-blown’ diffusers at Silverstone

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: The use of exhaust-blown diffusers is to be restricted from the British Grand Prix.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

F1 bosses ban exhaust technology from British GP (BBC)

“[Charlie] Whiting’s new restrictions have set a limit of 10% of throttle when the driver has lifted off the accelerator.”

Webber: No rush to sort out contract (Autosport)

“We will just keep talking. We don’t have to rush. There is time to talk so we will keep doing that.”

Williams chief Parr throws down gauntlet to Ecclestone (Daily Mail)

“The problem is our total TV revenues as a sport are less than $500m (308m). By comparison, the NFL is $4.2bn (2.6bn) and Turkish soccer is a little bit more than us. I think it’s time that we challenge him.”

Canadian GP – Conference 3 (FIA)

Sebastian Vettel: “We brought some rain tyres and I brought a coat and an umbrella. To be honest, there’s not much more we can do now. We cannot touch the cars.”

The first time I ran a race strategy (Red Bull)

“Normally on Sunday mornings we look through different safety car scenarios and ‘what if’ situations. It was the first time I’d done it for real and was a bit nervy. Some meetings overran and I ended up with about five minutes to go until the race start and I was still trying to work out what we were going to do.”

Follow F1 news as it breaks using the F1 Fanatic live Twitter app.

Comment of the day

Have Red Bull overcome their Canada weakness? Calum thinks so:

I could only shake my head in disbelief, a huge kick in the teeth for many because this was supposed to be the happy hunting ground for the chasing pack to make up some ground on the leader, but fair play to Red Bull for strengthening their low downforce weakness, and to Seb for making the most of what he has.
Calum

F1 Fanatic Live

The Le Mans 24 Hours is in its 11th hour as I write this. Audi have lost two cars through enormous accidents suffered by Allan McNish and Mike Rockenfeller, both of which thankfully left the drivers largely unharmed:

Join us for the rest of the race here: Le Mans 24 Hours Live

Happy birthday!

No F1 Fanatic birthdays today. If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

The Eagle, entered by Dan Gurney’s Anglo American Racers, made its first start in an F1 race on this day 45 years ago.

Gurney raced to seventh in the Climax-engined T1G at Spa-Francorchamps.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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91 comments on “FIA to limit ‘hot-blown’ diffusers at Silverstone”

  1. Look at the McNish crash video, and you see the car sliding sideways on the run off, notice the car moves a couple of times, as though it’s about to roll over just after it has left the track, I wonder if the mandatory shark fin stopped that car going into multiple rolls before the collision with he barrier?

    1. The Last Pope
      12th June 2011, 1:07

      That is very posible.

      What was McNish doing by the way? did he miss his breaking point or something?

      1. I believe he was trying to pass the sister Audi driven by Timo Bernhard, and in order to do it, he had to lap one of the GT Ferraris. He cut back across the circuit to the racing line too soon, clipped the Ferrari and got thrown across the gravel trap and into the armco.

        1. He didn’t cut back across the circuit, he stayed on one side, he went in at a normal speed when he saw the gap left by the other audi, already being pretty much alongside out of the dunlop chicane, but couldn’t see the ferrari. Both the Ferrari and audi were unsighted so collided. McNish himself said he went down the inside of the other audi and next thing he was flying across the gravel.

          1. The Last Pope
            12th June 2011, 2:30

            Ah ok so McNish didn’t see the Ferrari. Rather suprising because he doesn’t look unsighted there, but ok. I knew something was wrong there because you’d have to be crazy to make a lunge like this to lap a car, especialy in an endurance race.

      2. “The Ferrari closed the door, Allan had no chance whatsoever” Audi racing boss Dr Wolfgang Ullrich

        Many people won’t accept it, but the car in front is not supposed to turn in on cars coming up the inside – monaco anyone? Who was the driver steward?

        1. That’s what I was thinking,

          Ferrari driver turns in on British champion driver….

          Quite similar….this time, Maybe it’s cause he is Scottish? :P

          1. It’s the Andy Murray Effect! :)

          2. How can you expect McNish to successfully pass a car and lap another some metres in front? The other Audi correctly waited, and McNish in order to pass him was too fast and couldn’t wait behind the Ferrari but instead crashed into him.

        2. From the point of view of the Ferrari, there was an Audi just Sitting behind him, so he goes to trun in. Next thing, theres an Audi alongside him, and he cant do a thing apbout it, its too late.

          Basically, McNish was unsigther by the Audi ahead, the ferrarri by the same Audi that
          was behind. An unavoidable racing incident.

          Yes, it still possible to have one of those.

          1. I believe you have it right, let’s ask Lewis Hamilton if he agrees.

        3. Just as McNish never saw the Ferrari, that Ferrari never saw McNish coming through.

          As for Kaufmann in that other Ferrari, he should not have turned in, got DSQ for it.

    2. Woops I didn’t actually mean to post that comment :/

      1. I guess this season Lemans have seen some bad crash,good to see in all of that the drivers & more importantly the spectators are OK.

        1. Good comments. I thought the same thing about the shark fin cover preventing a roll.

          That said, I was struck by the fact that the wall only had a single wall of tires, and the number of people standing behind the wall. Very lucky for everyone in the area to have walked away! The one guy walking towards the camera with his back to the crash is bloody lucky not to have been hit by the airborne tire!

          1. that’s the thing that shocked me. they should all be behind a fence. not just right next to a barrier that is supposed to stop a car crashing. wow, so lucky no one died.

            gravel doesn’t slow cars down that much. i thought we were moving to tarmac these days.

    3. That crash is shocking that it nearly ends up in the photographers and press standing nearby. Makes you realise how much higher F1 circuit safety standards are.

      1. Exactly, It was a very scary accident.

      2. The Ferrari left enough space for him to pass actually. He just couldn’t stay tight into the corner and slight out of the inside line hitting the Ferrari.
        How can you say a guy turn in on you when there’s still enough space for your car to go threw?

    4. Frankly, none of the argument matters as under ACO rules, the Ferrari (a GT-style) should have left the racing line open for the LMP car as they are not actually racing for position. Plus, if you look closely at the flag stations, there appear to be MULTIPLE blue flags being shown to the Ferrari as he should be OUT of the way.

      Same basic thing happens under Rockenfeller’s crash where the Audi was also flashing his lights repeatedly (as regulations require) and the Ferrari basically runs him right off the road.

      Honestly, it sounds to me like the Ferrari teams were either running drivers that don’t understand ACO regs. or they weren’t properly training their drivers for the demands of LeMans.

  2. Have a look at the McNish crash video, notice just after the car leaves the track and is sliding sideways it moves as though it’s about to go into a series of rolls? I think the FIA Spec mandatory sharkfin has just saved McNish from a potentially worse accident by stabalising his Audi and stopping it rolling into the barriers.

    We have our F1 drivers moaning about 107% “chicanes,” I can only imagine how the prototype drivers at Leman are able to put up with what must feel like 1007% “chicanes!”

    1. Part of the reason Prost has always turned down offers to race at Le Mans apparently.

      1. Colin McRae did Le Mans once. Back in 2004; he was driving a Prodrive-entered Ferarri 550. He absolutely hated it. Le Mans is not a driver’s race. It’s not about going out there and setting lightning-quick laptimes. It’s about lapping consistently within a pre-determined window, about making sure that every gear change comes perfectly. It’s the antithesis of Formula 1. It’s little wonder Alain Prost is not interested in racing there.

        1. Yeah, Le Mans drivers are only there because there’s no reliable auto driving system(this is what manufacturers want!) yet.

      2. Also the reason Colin Chapman paid Mansel NOT to race at Le Mans when driving for Lotus.

    2. And spare a thought for the GT drivers beeing blitzed by those prototypes as well.

      Racing on a clear track, all of a sudden there’s headlights blinking at you and storming past.

  3. — “By comparison, the NFL is $4.2bn (£2.6bn) and Turkish soccer is a little bit more than us.” —

    That’s a bit of a silly comparison – the NFL plays 256 games per season, plus 16 playoff games (I believe), plus the Super Bowl, PLUS several dozen preseason games, PLUS the Pro Bowl.
    (And I’m sure Turkish soccer broadcasts more than 20 to 21 matches.)

    I guess if F1 could manage to run almost 300 races per year they might approach NFL-levels of TV revenue.

    They aren’t doing too bad in revenue for only 20 or so races, IMO. F1 could demand more, and then have to face massive fan complaints and protests for all the increased commercial break interruptions during every race.

    1. Here here.

    2. The fact of the matter is that tv revenue for the premier league is reducing because people are tired of wasting their money.

      Parr should focus on what he is meant to be doing – making his embarrassingly slow car a bit faster.

    3. i think it is comparable. pre-season games are pretty worthless and sold separately from the regular season, as is the pro bowl. with 1 team in my tv market, i’m assured of getting only 16 games televised, provided the 8 home games are sold out at the gate.

      http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/06/nfl-espn-reportedly-set-to-extend-monday-night-football-contr/

      Disney, ESPN’s corporate parent, is reportedly prepared to pay between $1.8 and $1.9 billion per year for a package that would not only include the telecast, but broadband and mobile rights. ESPN is already paying $1.1 billion per year for Monday Night rights, which is more than double what the other four carriers, CBS, FOX and NBC, are paying.

      that’s for 16 games

    4. They don’t need to charge more, they need a bigger share of the revenue to go to the teams and less to the middlemen.

    5. Yeah, puts the figueres into perspective a bit. So NFL is about 13-14 times as much races and has 8.4 times the revenue.

      But I would guess the Turkish football is a nice one. It should have some 36 matches, I would think (18 teams x 2). But specially F1 has got only a tiny amount of money from those same Turks for TV rights.

      Parr is right about there being a big potential for additional footage and ways to get them to interested viewers though.

  4. Look at the amount of debris that landed on the otherside of the fence, most notably the wheel that lands at 0:09. Thats just ridiculous that a moderately quick down-hill right hander just has a gravel trap and flimsy armco hugged by a single tyre barrier. There’s so much in relation to Formula 1 safety that should be brought on board by other forms of racing. I’m surprised a marshall or photographer wasn’t seriously injured or killed by that wheel. What if he’d been carrying more speed and completely gone over the armo? No high fences to stop anything and then we’d really have some carnage.

    1. HounslowBusGarage
      12th June 2011, 8:00

      Maybe it’s not so obvious on the clip posted here, but behind the area/access road where the marshalls and photographers are there is a six metre high debris fence. The spectators are behind that.

      1. I can’t actually work out what stopped the car flipping right over the tyre wall? It looks like it’s about to and then seems to snag and pull back into the gravel trap.

        1. Looked like the mandatory fin topping it up on that barrier and then it slided off. That was very fortunate for certain.

  5. Not to try and fuel the conspiracy fires, but it does seem a bit odd that the whole ban on off-throttle exhaust blowing came about only after Red Bull (or half of Red Bull to be more precise) ran away with the championship lead. The FIA has known about teams implementing this since at least a year ago, and had to have been aware that most teams would be designing their 2011 cars around this concept over the winter. Why then was it not addressed last year in the 2011 regs? I’m sure that it will effect all the teams at the front, but it definitely seems likely that it will hurt some teams more than others… It also seems a bit of an ask to first have the Technical Working Group meet to discuss the issue after Valencia, and then expect teams to implement the changes within about a week, in time for Silverstone. In particular it seems like a bummer for Ferrari who appear to have really finally gotten to grips with the engine mapping and showed potential to be challenging for pole today. All that work to use it for two race weekends? Ouch! I can’t say I’m a fan of Todt’s new “green Formula 1” approach if that’s just going to be a pretense for banning innovation. When’s that next Todt approval rating coming up?

    1. If the technical working group are meeting next week then thats 3 weeks before Silverstone for the teams to get it sorted.

      Never mind Ferrari, HRT only got there new blown diffuser on the car this weekend. I’m not sure whether its ‘hot blown’ or not, but if it is then they’ve probably wasted a big chunk of their development budget and time on sorting out the hardware and software they’re going to use for only 2 races.

      1. Hispania’s diffuser is not OTBD. Cosworth haven’t been able to map their engines to produce hot exhaust gasses under braking.

        1. that must make there car a bit hard to drive then if they lose a bit wodge of down force as they come off throttle for a corner.

          1. Why do you think they’re the ones who protested the use of the OTBD?

          2. Yeah, that is exactly the point of the off throttle boost!

            Its why the Cosworth teams seem to be most strongly in favour of getting rid of it. Although McLaren and Mercedes also seem to be rather positive.

    2. It outrageous that the FIA can change rules half way through a the season. The engine mapping maybe change per race, but the physical design of the car has not, therefore this rule change should have only been implemented at the start or end of a season. This throws the whole principal of cost cutting out the window as the teams will now invest big dollars and time to find an alternative. These rule book monkeys are killing the sport that puts money in their pockets, watch for talks of a breakaway series once again.

      1. It has been ever thus, Bernie keeps talking about reducing costs and at the same time he keeps changing the specs and format so the teams are constantly having to develop new parts and strategies. It almost seems as if he wants to keep them broke and dependent on his handouts.

      2. To be honest, I feel its good to have the FIA doing it openly for the reason of cost cutting and getting rid of something they don’t like (not in favour of a mid season change like you though).

        In the days of Mad Max he would have just pushed it through for Spain on safety grounds (risk of hot exhaust gas exploding/causing fire).

    3. OTBD is much like using a fan to create downforce, very much like BT46B. i’m all for EBD when driver is using throttle for acceleration. but off throttle EBD is like using a fan to blow air to get downforce & that is not legal. rules are not been changed but rather existing rules are being implemented.

      TBD is fine, OTBD is not.

      1. The BT46B was deemed legal but subseqently banned (hence it’s winning debut still stood). Likewise if this concept is not illegal then the FIA would have no choice but to have banned it immediately that it knew of the issue.

        It’s like the Mass Damper – they stretch the ban on moveable aero devices to fit whatever suits at the time. The purpose of that rule in the first place was to prevent things like DRS on safety grounds. Fan-car, Mass Damper and EBD are no different to many other innovations which have been perfectly legal.

        An F1 car is a moveable aero device. Should they ban the steering wheel because the drivers use them to get in the slipstream of the car ahead? (It won’t happen because S.V. is the only driver NOT using that to his benefit.)

        1. As I’ve pointed out before… front wheels are also moveable aerodynamic devices. They should be banned.

    4. I agree. They had the chance to ban it at the end of last year, they didn’t. That is THEIR fault, not the teams who have invested money in getting this system on the cars, and now they have to limit it massively.
      Rule changes mid season that don’t have anything to do with safety should not be legal. It is a sport, not a circus!

  6. If the proposals for next years exhausts get carried through that will scupper any continuation of the renault type exhaust or the mclaren ‘octopus’ or the current trend that red bull started, so exhausts will just become another identikit part on the cars leaving very little room for development.

    1. First of all, the teams will no doubt find other loopholes in the rulebook to generate more downforce. After all, aerodynamicists earn more money exploiting loopholes for the teams than they do closing them for the FIA.

      Secondly, restricting the exhausts like that will prevent someone from coming up with a superfantastic idea that will give them a one-second advantage from the start of the season and force everyone to play catch-up for the rest of the year. Not unlike what’s happening now. I don’t mind the teams having their hands tied if it makes the sport more competitive. Formula 1 might be about innovation and technology, but I don’t want to see either of them at the expense of competition.

      1. I think Withmarsh said it nicely on the Fan Forum in Montreal.

        He noted, that these things do little to curb cost as the teams get to acheive the same thing in the end, just they spend great amounts of money to do in a complicated way and within the letter of the rules what they would have acheived easily without some things being banned.

      2. I’d be interested in PM’s definition of “competitive”. I believe any spec part by definition makes the sport less competitive. Since the teams are no longer competing in that area there is less competition.

        It might make it harder for a team to improve their car, make the cars more similar and therefore make the races closer but that isn’t the same as more competitive. (At this point I ought to also trot out the cliche about watching spec series and not F1 if you want the cars to all be the same and have driver skill as the only element of differentiation.)

    2. identikit

      Lol, that’s an appropriate term!

    3. I hope they keep with the 2013 engine change and invent something useful that we can actually have on a road car. some cool energy recovery systems will be good.

      1. I’ve heard they’re looking at expanding on KERS, doubling the current output. The catch is that crossing the line will only ever recharge half the KERS batteries at a time. So you cam have six seconds of extra juice every lap, or twelve seconds every other lap. Should make the on-track strategy a bit more interesting.

      2. Nick there is no such thing as a free lunch in order to recover more energy you have to carry more weight and use more power to accelerate that weight up to speed.

        1. There is such a thing as a lunch you’ve paid for and then leave before you ate it.

          Current KERS technology is capable of harvesting far more energy than the FIA allow the teams to use (perhaps with the exception of Red Bull!) The technology won’t be pushed forward unless the teams are given freedom to set their own parameters for energy harvested and re-used.

  7. A great round-up of interesting stories today.

    I’ve woken up at 4am and can’t sleep. Looking forward to 19:00 CET…

    :O)

  8. Wow. R18 is faster than 908 so I think if there’s no problem Audi will dominate but it didn’t!! Two R18 is out and the last one is leading but two 908 is very closing. Audi in danger!! to win, finish first!

    1. The racing is just fantastic right now. I’m really torn right now. I need to sleep before Montreal, but it’s hard to turn off right now!

  9. That Sebastian Vettel quote made me giggle! He’s not a bad bloke, really. ;)

  10. I agree with the comment of the day. I think Red Bull have silenced their critics well and truly. They’ll probably be fastest in Spa and Monza at this rate!

    1. We will have to see what the rule change/clarification does for their speed first.

      On the other hand, Newey can be counted on to already have some ideas worked out and ready to use for that!

  11. well redbull seem to benefit from the blown diffuser the most,so we’ll see what happens.

    1. And they will tell you it’s all part of a bigger picture.

  12. You might be able to see on the mcnish video, that actually 3-4 people are hit by debris, on the far right of the camera shot, next to the catch fence. All four of them hit the floor pretty hard. And also after the crash, you can see a man pick up a stray tyre and throw it against the barrier, in the bottom right of screen. Any of those people could quite easily have been seriously injured.
    And like a few people have said, that shark fin really worked

    1. A great new idea! first seen on the Jaguar Dtype in the fifties.

  13. So does 2012 spell the end for EBD? I hope not, I think it’s s brilliant idea. I’m sure there will be a way round it however ;)

    Interesting bit about Whiting’s justification, surely that criteria could have been applied to EBD as a whole, not just the off-throttle aspect?

    1. Interesting bit about Whiting’s justification,

      The FIA’s justification for banning innovation is really strange, its banning stuff via the gift of hindsight… finding an excuse to ban them.

      Technically the drivers heads are a movable aerodynamic device, why don’t you ban them Charlie!

      1. You’ll give him ideas, shhh!

  14. Just as the Teams find loopholes to exploit the rules, I guess due to the wording of the rulebook, the FIA also find loopholes in order to stop the teams being clever?

    With regards to the EBD, Charlie Whitting is playing EBD Russian roulette, which team will be crippled most by banning the device?.

    If there is a long standing ban on movable aerodynamic devices then why do the FIA insist on having the FFW on all cars? is it because the FFW is a Drag Reduction System?, devices are banned but systems are not?, is that the loophole?.

    1. Well the FIA just made the DRS be an explicit exception to the non-moveable aero, they can do that.

      I would have much preferred having this off-throttle ban have been put in before the season then, but the 2012 change seems sort of sensible, a bit disappointing, but F1 as usual really; especially seeing how much faster F1 is in Canada this year (of course, that’s likely to be mostly the DRS, but we can’t blame that can we …).

  15. I am seriously fed up with the FIA banning every innovation. I know, I know for safety reasons, because of dangerously high cornering speeds – but come on: cornering speeds seem much bigger than they were in the ground effect era, and still there isn’t any major injury, compared to those years, when there were.

    In my opinion F1 need deregulation in the technical part, and the most strict regulations possible in the field of safety.

    It is a good interim solution however, to restrict the use of the innovations, while still retaining them. Like they did with the wings in 1968: they retained them, did not ban them altogether, but they have been restricted to be built to fixed parts of the car. This ‘10% rule’ is something like that in the case of the blown diffuser. But I don’t like the new regulation about exhaust placement.

    1. BTW, fantastic piece of insight by Will Courtenay.

    2. Exactly. Imagine introducing F1 today with the cars of 1950..

      “You want to do WHAT?!”

      “Yeah.”

      “You want to place a huge piece of metal on the back of the car to increase downforce?”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “That could make cornering speeds DANGEROUS! Let’s place a ban on aerodynamic devices and introduce a thing for saving your little toe if you stub it.”

      1. “Buh..buh..can I have one on the front then? It could stop me from spinning off?”

        “No! That would make overtaking so much harder, it’s not good for the show. Let’s make all the cars have to use only 50kg of fuel each race instead. Then we can improve our TV ratings!”

  16. Another over ambitious move by the Audi driver. I wonder if he would have given himself a penalty for that? At least he’s OK, which is the main thing.

  17. If “banning innovation” creates closer racing, than I’m all for it. Yesterday we had to drag a guy who thinks racing is boring to the Sports Cafe to watch qualifying and he wanted to know why we liked it. He said he thought it was ridiculous that the best driver could be in the third-best car. It is. What goes around coming around may be good enough for us but we’re fanatics; we can wait years for the big picture to emerge. And even as a fanatic, I completely agree with him. I really don’t care if Ferrari can build a better car than Williams – I’m never going to drive one.

    Back in the day the teams could bring in a new, cheap innovation that would propel it to the front and many of those things have translated to the road. Nowadays the speeds are so high we can’t allow that and most innovations have millions thrown at it to no benefit to us whatsoever.

    Bring on turbos and ERS, I say. It’s only a shame that it’s these things that will be subject to the least innovation in the future.

    1. While I see your point, I must disagree. A driver isn’t forced to drive a particular car, he chooses his ride. Name a world champion that started their career in a world championship winning car ( that will come back to bite me, but you get my point). I can only presume in terms of best driver you are referring to Alonso or Hamilton, both who have their times in the fastest car and will sooner have the fastest car again. In terms of cheap innovations in f1, they no longer exist, like most industries that have existed throughout the past generations, most of these ideas have been exhausted. We as consumers have benefited greatly from the technology of F1 on our daily drives and while this gap has now grown, the aerodynamic developments implemented on today’s f1 cars, do not currently suit daily drives. I believe BMW have already used KERS on there mini although we never saw it here in Australia and further development wether it’s aero or mechanical will only benefit everyone in the long run.

      1. Quite right, the less restrictions the more chance of a brilliant innovation coming along to benefit us all, big cars like the MB S class using small forced induction engines would not be possible if we had not found reliable ways to increase rpm without dropping valves, we may not need 20,000 rpm but what’s learnt at 20,000 rpm makes 8,000 rpm available in road cars.

        1. Yes, I agree. Open up the engines. But the OTBD is never going to be relevant to the cars we drive on the road.

      2. A driver isn’t forced to drive a particular car

        They are when they have a contract.

        Name a world champion that started their career in a world championship winning car

        I fail to see how that counters what I was saying. If anything, it proves my point – someone who’s good almost straight away might spend years in rubbish cars.

        I can only presume in terms of best driver you are referring to Alonso or Hamilton, both who have their times in the fastest car and will sooner have the fastest car again.

        I already said that.

        In terms of cheap innovations in f1, they no longer exist, like most industries that have existed throughout the past generations, most of these ideas have been exhausted. We as consumers have benefited greatly from the technology of F1 on our daily drives and while this gap has now grown, the aerodynamic developments implemented on today’s f1 cars, do not currently suit daily drives. I believe BMW have already used KERS on there mini although we never saw it here in Australia and further development wether it’s aero or mechanical will only benefit everyone in the long run.

        And that. And why will aero development will benefit us?

        I don’t want every car exactly the same. I wish they were allowed to innovate a lot more with the mechanical parts, principally in fuel efficiency. But crying out for lost innovation when this particular innovation has zero relevance to the real world and makes the racing even less about the drivers, because “less innovation = always bad” is simply erroneous.

        1. Actually, scratch that. I wouldn’t care if they were exactly the same. Perhaps it would bring in a lot more interest to sportscar racing if they were the innovative ones and F1 was just about pure driving.

        2. Innovation is exactly what the sport brings and has brought to the rest of the world along with entertainment and thrills. Mechanically it has been exploited as mentioned and due to current restrictions ( which don’t impress me ) and these margins are now being made up aerodynamically. Engine technology has benefitted majorly from f1 development of the past and will continue to do so. Aerodynamic improvements lead to better fuel efficientcy and other mechanical benefits, but I can’t deny they have taken the excitement out of racing.
          In regards to your wishes to have an even field, there is other formulas developed for that class of racing. Formula1 is the ultimate in racing and development. Different teams have had different reigns over different
          times, restrictions in mechanical changes have lead to aero development, so no matter what the changes bring, the best always come out on top.

      3. I can’t believe no-one responded on this point:

        Name a world champion that started their career in a world championship winning car

        Surely Lewis Hamilton gets the list started fairly easily, followed by Jacques Villenueve as recent examples.

        There is also another valid point that “best driver” includes the ability to develop and set-up the car. Schumacher helped turn Benneton and Ferrari into winners and Alonso did the same at Renault (but found that half a second per lap wasn’t quite enough at McLaren!)

        that will come back to bite me

        Sorry, if it wasn’t me someone else would have done it sooner or later.

    2. But F1 is not only about the driver. If you want to see racing where only the driver matters, watch some GP2 or NASCAR (which isn’t even the case, but it is pretty close). F1 is about the team, the designers and the drivers. That combination is what wins races, not just a good driver. That is what F1 is about, what it has always been about. If the best driver is in the third best car, then bad luck. No one forces him to sign contract with that team.
      “if “banning innovation” creates closer racing, than I’m all for it” What is next then? Giving a driver a two race ban because he is winning too many races? Maybe force him to drive around in the truck the team delivered his car in, or force the pole sitter to drive around with his bed strapped to the back of the car?
      F1 is a sport, and if someone is “too” successful then it is because they are better at that sport then the others. That is how sport works.

  18. Vettel: “We brought some rain tyres and I brought a coat and an umbrella. To be honest, there’s not much more we can do now. We cannot touch the cars.”

    No surprise that Vettel even does “jokes” better than his rivals. Funny guy.

  19. The Eagle, probably the most beautiful car that F1 has produced… (in my opionion)

  20. He said he thought it was ridiculous that the best driver could be in the third-best car.

    Assuming that he meant Hamilton, which is highly debatable to say the least. He must realise that even during one season a slower car can easily become a faster car, and vice versa. Ferrari now look to be quicker than McLaren, that’s how it works in F1. It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re not going to be able to jump from one fast car to another, as it suits you, during a season.

    With regard to opening up engine regs. Remember that it isn’t just your car that will have that engine. And probably the main thing to remember is that F1 is fundamentally a formula in which it is only necessary to build your own chassis in order to compete in it. 80% of the teams couldn’t care less whose engine was powering their car as long as it was cheap enough to buy and wasn’t any worse than anyone elses.

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