Bananahead
pfm Member
In most similar circumstances I’d agree.
However, the only teams not moaning are the only two that are running well. Every other team is?
It does seem that one team is moaning louder than the others
In most similar circumstances I’d agree.
However, the only teams not moaning are the only two that are running well. Every other team is?
I guess an analogy can be made with the 2009 Brawn double diffuser - it was the key to Jenson Button's world championship. A lot of the other teams thought it illegal, and by the time everyone else caught up, Button had a commanding lead. And of course that Brawn team morphed into the present Mercedes, so one could say that they then enjoyed the benefit of getting it right, the way Red Bull and Ferrari are now enjoying it.In most similar circumstances I’d agree.
However, the only teams not moaning are the only two that are running well. Every other team is?
The trouble is, Tony, that magic word "financial". It actually has been a (relatively) poor man's sport in the past - think of the Coopers in the late 1950s, contemptuously dismissed by Enzo Ferrari as garagistas, designing a world-beater on a chalked-out outline on the garage floor, or Jack Brabham deciding in 1966 that a simple car with a simple, reliable engine based on a small US V8 would be the way to go. Mechanical and, more particularly, electronic and aerodynamic sophistication comes at a cost, and only those who can afford the exotic tools to maximise the benefits of these new technologies have any chance of being consistent winners. So, wealthy benefactors or major automotive manufacturers are a must, and those who do not have that sort of backing end up as track space fillers/mobile chicanes behind the same lot of leaders.
Understood and agreed completely, but I think the scope for such originality is much less now than it was then, simply because of the increased technical sophistication and the tools available to utilise them to their fullest extent. To go further back, Jaguar's 1950s' Le Mans wins came about largely by adopting technologies from the aircraft industry, the disc brake and Malcolm Sayers' more aerodynamic C- and D-Types. And Colin Chapman's "simplify, then add lightness" philosophy came from the same background.That is kind of the point I’m trying to make. There was an opportunity to win by real lateral thinking and originality back then. Someone with a genuinely great idea could beat massive high-prestige companies like Ferrari. These days the rules are so absurdly rigid that no thinking outside the box would get through. The only real advance in recent decades to my eyes is safety, and I’d not reverse that a millimetre, but with that defined I’d love to see a situation where real creativity could thrive. What we have just seems crazy restrictive and authoritarian. X-Factor karaoke limitations whereas I want to see jazz!
Rules which so clearly impede the ability to develop a viable racing car. I’d far prefer to see far less nailed down beyond say safety requirements, engine size and tyres.
Personally I would change the rules to add a significant weight penalty to be added if the driver is a "massive twat". I will make myself available for the FIA to determine to whom this might apply.
It does seem that one team is moaning louder than the others
Maybe but they are also the team that has won the WCC for the last 4.5 million years and Toto, HAM and RUS are always getting asked about how sh*t their car is so it is somewhat self generating. If all we hear is Merc then it surely seems like it is mostly Merc. If you read into the F1 press in more than a cursory manner you will find equally vehement comments by most teams including RB and Ferrari drivers early on before they were possibly shut up by their teams.
As to this year, I would change the rules if it's unsafe or unhealthy for the drivers which has to be the priority. Personally I would change the rules to add a significant weight penalty to be added if the driver is a "massive twat".
Ah the days when Red Bull would whine over innovation and try to get the rule changed..
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula...official-protest-mercedes-revolutionary-dual/
I don't really care what you think.
I remember Jackie Stewart criticising other drivers for their appearance, hinting it wasn’t professional. As much as I admired his driving and racing skills, and of course his dedication to safety on the track and the road, his commercial awareness didn’t sit well with me. Almost every time he spoke you could tell it was with his sponsors in mind. James Hunt must have given him nightmares!
Does anyone else usually switch off right after the flag or prize giving? I can’t stand the post-mortem, the creepy interviews etc. And I usually mute the telly when they play the driver to team radio messages of the winner. I’d rather they chatted to a mechanic from a team that finished just outside the points.