advertisement


The 2023 Formula One Season

tiggers said:
It's not just that though is it? Back in the mid-80s we didn't have all this restricted numbers of engines, gearboxes, tyres etc. I know F1 needs to cut costs but I am sure the cost of completely changing the regs every 5 or so years is massively higher than allowing teams to use a few more engines or tyres in a season... and it would make for better racing. Conserving tyres or engines or gearboxes has always been part of F1, but it's just too much a part of it now for me.
Click to expand...
In the 80s and 90s there could be new engines for free practice, then a new one for quali and then a new one for the race. That made reliability worse, whilst increasing costs to go racing, but of course would give a small performance advantage (engine supplier and team dependent).

Changing the chassis regs every 5 years or so has little to no bearing on cost as all teams, bar Haas, are spending up to the cost cap limit. And so if all teams have to send money on making a car to the new regulations then it is the same for everyone and so is just one of the costs to go racing. There are very few carry over parts, if any, and each new car is designed and developed for that racing season and so that is the same as designing a car for new regulations. The only real difference is that new regs allow a trade off for developing the current car vs developing the car for the new regs to be made. Which of course benefits the team that is winning and any teams who have a comfortable championship position and can afford to stop developing the current car sooner than other teams.

As an aside, most teams have a larger income than the budget cap and so that results in a bigger pot to pay the drivers, the board and the top 3 salaried employees, amongst other non budget capped spend areas.

I am afraid that I don't have the answer for what you are looking for, as if a few more engines were allowed, teams would keep on pushing the boundaries, have engine failures as they would rather have performance, and then get penalties. Maybe the answer (a bit leftfield) could be a penalty that does not affect the weekend's performance, for example, a reduction in wind tunnel time for the following year?
 
RJohan said:
I remember one team using up 98 new and rebuilt Porsche engines during one single season.
Click to expand...

Mad. As well as the financial “levelling” some of the restrictions give, they also promote a slightly higher level of ecological responsibility.

I think.
 
IanW said:
When the pitlane limiter is engaged the revs cannot go above a certain rotational speed in 1st gear, until the limiter is disengaged. Coming off the throttle (once the engine power is below what is required to maintain the pit lane limiter speed) will slow the car down as would hitting the brakes. The rev limiter is carefully tuned during the weekend to get as close as possible to the speed trap penalty speed.
Click to expand...

Ian, can you clarify how DRS is engaged initiated? Does the driver have a master switch and the “track” engages and disengages the mechanism at the required points on the track or does the driver have some input at those points?
 
In the DRS Activation Zone, if the driver is allowed to use DRS (not first 2 laps of race, not a wet race, not within 1 second of car in front etc.), then the driver needs to press the DRS button to engage it. To disengage DRS the driver can press the DRS button again, but it is easier to disengage DRS by coming off the throttle or hitting the brake pedal to enter a corner.
 
IanW said:
In the 80s and 90s there could be new engines for free practice, then a new one for quali and then a new one for the race. That made reliability worse, whilst increasing costs to go racing, but of course would give a small performance advantage (engine supplier and team dependent).

Changing the chassis regs every 5 years or so has little to no bearing on cost as all teams, bar Haas, are spending up to the cost cap limit. And so if all teams have to send money on making a car to the new regulations then it is the same for everyone and so is just one of the costs to go racing. There are very few carry over parts, if any, and each new car is designed and developed for that racing season and so that is the same as designing a car for new regulations. The only real difference is that new regs allow a trade off for developing the current car vs developing the car for the new regs to be made. Which of course benefits the team that is winning and any teams who have a comfortable championship position and can afford to stop developing the current car sooner than other teams.

As an aside, most teams have a larger income than the budget cap and so that results in a bigger pot to pay the drivers, the board and the top 3 salaried employees, amongst other non budget capped spend areas.

I am afraid that I don't have the answer for what you are looking for, as if a few more engines were allowed, teams would keep on pushing the boundaries, have engine failures as they would rather have performance, and then get penalties. Maybe the answer (a bit leftfield) could be a penalty that does not affect the weekend's performance, for example, a reduction in wind tunnel time for the following year?
Click to expand...

I am not advocating the sport goes back to where it was in the 80s (a time I remember all too well), just that it finds a way to let drivers push harder for longer. Some of the races these days see drivers 'cruising' round so as not to wear tyres too much almost from the get go and this along with circuits and a formula combination that makes overtaking very difficult can lead to processional racing at circuits such as Monaco, Barcelona, Hungary etc. I would just like to see drivers being able to push 100% more often, that's all.
 
tiggers said:
I am not advocating the sport goes back to where it was in the 80s (a time I remember all too well), just that it finds a way to let drivers push harder for longer. Some of the races these days see drivers 'cruising' round so as not to wear tyres too much almost from the get go and this along with circuits and a formula combination that makes overtaking very difficult can lead to processional racing at circuits such as Monaco, Barcelona, Hungary etc. I would just like to see drivers being able to push 100% more often, that's all.
Click to expand...
I missed out some comments on tyres, which are the biggest reason for drivers not going flat out in my response.

The tyre manufacturer has been given various targets over the years to try and make racing more interesting and exciting (higher degradation, lower degradation, thermal degradation, slip angle degradation), but it changed little. Over all the years that I have been involved in F1 tyre management has gone on and I am told that it went on before that (we just got better at it*). When it all really started I do not know but I suspect it was somewhat hidden by a wider range in car and driver capability and so if it was going on a long time ago as someone had worked out that that it gave better race positions, then it was not so obvious.

* This has been well optimized so that it should only be 1 or 2 corners where the drivers are backed off to reduce damage to the tyre (occurs through over slipping and over heating) and so this should be less obvious than maybe 10 years ago.

There was far less tyre saving when we had refuelling as that extra degree of freedom for the strategy team meant that they needed drivers to go flat out more often.

I suspect that there are opportunities in material science to make tyre degradation work a bit differently to reduce tyre saving, but I have not come up with a clear way to do this.

As it is race strategy that drives this. What would you suggest changing?
 
I just hope that the powers that be give this as much attention as they do to a driver’s jewellery, or a driver giving another car’s rear wing a good coat of looking at.
 
My wife and I were having a discussion recently about how to make these sprint races more interesting whilst removing the need to protect the F1 car for the actual race; what we concluded was that it would be interesting to see how the driver standings would rack up if a separate much more basic car was used for the sprint race and each team had to produce something of a more or less identical specification - anybody else got any thoughts on this or an alternative idea?
 
Ward said:
My wife and I were having a discussion recently about how to make these sprint races more interesting whilst removing the need to protect the F1 car for the actual race; what we concluded was that it would be interesting to see how the driver standings would rack up if a separate much more basic car was used for the sprint race and each team had to produce something of a more or less identical specification - anybody else got any thoughts on this or an alternative idea?
Click to expand...

It’s probably called GP2.

However… budget caps blah blah blah.
 
Ward said:
My wife and I were having a discussion recently about how to make these sprint races more interesting whilst removing the need to protect the F1 car for the actual race; what we concluded was that it would be interesting to see how the driver standings would rack up if a separate much more basic car was used for the sprint race and each team had to produce something of a more or less identical specification - anybody else got any thoughts on this or an alternative idea?
Click to expand...

The other F1 cars

 
From Twitter:

“Good to see that Miami are struggling to sell tickets for the Grand Prix. With the cheapest grandstand available starting at €798pp, perhaps they’re paying the price for being greedy? Lower the price and attract some proper, loyal race fans. Family of 4 at T18: €4,760!”

And then get shot at on your way back to the hotel! ;)
But wow, that really is taking the wee wee.

Or… I’ve just thought… I’ve seen that most new circuits in new-to-F1 countries attract very few spectators. Is this the way forward perhaps? I’ve seen figures of 30,000 on race day for a few, so the circuit needs fewer bogs and burger vans, leaving more space for “rubbing the peasants noses in it” team trucks and second rate TV presentation teams! Smaller car parks, fewer spectator cars, therefore greener. Omg!
 
PER fancies a crack at the title https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/h...023-f1-title-glory-really-stacks-up/10464287/

What do we think? Does he have a chance? RB in the past have had fav drivers for sure, VET over WEB. If they are neck and neck going into the last couple of races, will they leave them to it or will PER get the call?

I'll admit, I am surprised how well he has done. I used to think he is a decent driver but nothing special (relative to other F1 drivers). A solid number 2 or leading a lower midfield team for sure but the way he converted the chance in Baku was a higher level. Is he riding a wave of fortune and tracks he likes or has he raised his game sufficiently to inject some entertainment into this year?
 
Verstappen is a bit of a tit and couldn't handle being beaten, or run close, by the exceptional Hamilton. Perez isn't exceptional in this company, so there's potential for some entertainment if it doesn't start to go Verstappen's way.

The problem last weekend was that overtaking was practically impossible, so once Perez had fluked the lead it would have required team orders or desperation to get past. And Verstappen has learned a little about the downsides of desperation. I suspect that matters at Red Bull will settle over the next few races and we can only hope that someone finds some performance.

I think we need to separate the format of the race weekend from the configuration of the track. Last weekend was rubbish because there was no over-taking, the Red Bulls were 1s a lap faster when needed and we had 4 sessions where this was blatant. If the races had been dynamic and uncertain then we might have had a different view. But I'd still dump the sprints.
 
Ward said:
My wife and I were having a discussion recently about how to make these sprint races more interesting whilst removing the need to protect the F1 car for the actual race; what we concluded was that it would be interesting to see how the driver standings would rack up if a separate much more basic car was used for the sprint race and each team had to produce something of a more or less identical specification - anybody else got any thoughts on this or an alternative idea?
Click to expand...

A one-make race. Possibly a different vehicle at each venue, a manufacturer from the country being visited...? I don't remember much about it, but there was a season when the F1 drivers drove Jaguars. (XJ15?) There was a race for Team managers in the 60's at Brands Hatch in Escort Mk1's.....on the rev limiter all the time. :)
 
See you there then Tony, Im hoping for it to be dry.
Should be good, but I think the hill record is going to need to be split between Fuel and Electric, as it going to be very hard to beat with petrol.
 
cutting42 said:
PER fancies a crack at the title https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/h...023-f1-title-glory-really-stacks-up/10464287/

What do we think? Does he have a chance? RB in the past have had fav drivers for sure, VET over WEB. If they are neck and neck going into the last couple of races, will they leave them to it or will PER get the call?

I'll admit, I am surprised how well he has done. I used to think he is a decent driver but nothing special (relative to other F1 drivers). A solid number 2 or leading a lower midfield team for sure but the way he converted the chance in Baku was a higher level. Is he riding a wave of fortune and tracks he likes or has he raised his game sufficiently to inject some entertainment into this year?
Click to expand...
No chance. He's the very definition of a journeyman. There are maybe six drivers on the grid who, given the right car, reliability, not sticking it in a ditch etc., could beat their teammate and win a DWC.
 
Sonority said:
See you there then Tony, Im hoping for it to be dry.
Should be good, but I think the hill record is going to need to be split between Fuel and Electric, as it going to be very hard to beat with petrol.
Click to expand...
I’m only there on the Saturday, so fingers crossed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top