2024 Season Bickering and Moaning

[Tvetovnato]

I was also extemely sceptical about BoP at first, but after a season of following WEC and IMSA as closely as F1 last year, I have a different opinion now. It’s not about penalizing teams who are doing better than others, it’s about bringing everyone into a window of performance where you hopefully don’t see a team run away with things and make it completely boring. No one can sit back and do nothing and wait for a helping hand, you still have to work hard to make a difference and be able to win.

I strongly disagree. How are Acura supposed to win the Daytona 24 hour with 20 kg more than anyone else?

Nobody knows if it is Acura's fault for doing a bad job or the fault of the extra 20kg. It is absolutely horrible.

An average of 3 tenths per lap slower than the 2023 race would put the blame squarely on the extra 20kg for taking Acura out of contention. Grossly unfair IMO.

The smugness of arrogant German manufacturers gaming the system with giant V8 twin-turbos is the icing on the cake. It goes against all principles of good racing car design, it is utterly horrible -- a superior design with a sleek, compact, well-packaged 2.4L engine with tidy F1-like installation should be rewarded.

It becomes a parameter you have to take into account when designing the car to make it work in as many conditions as possible and make sure you operate perfectly to execute a flawless race. Hence, the best team and best drivers will still make the difference.

The BMW has a mess of wires and hoses, it is horrendous. It is inelegant in the extreme. To think they (being very arrogant) think they can get a BOP advantage with a huge twin-turbo engine, disgusting.

How are you supposed to win the race with 20kg more than any other car? It's ridiculous and unacceptable.

Repeat after me: Make it a competition like MotoGP! That is the way motor racing should be! If HRC does a rubbish job, it is 100% on HRC.

I think everyone realizes it was a mistake (and a really strange one) to slap 20 kgs onto the Acura when there was quite nice parity all the way through 2023. But that is an exception to the rule, it worked overall in 2023 I would say, and you could see teams like Porsche really improving without any major BoP help, they simply refined what they had, learned, applied and got results. The final hour of the Rolex 24 this year was anyway way more entertaining than anything F1 produced last year.

But there is no perfect system to achieve a balance, that’s for sure, and I totally get that some are against BoP. As a neutral fan, it’s just frustrating that F1 can’t it right, and that we are stuck with this for two more years at least, and another team dominating with the new regulations for a couple of years again after that. It is what will happen with 100 % certainty. Some will have a lot of fun celebrating the incredible achievements in a CFD program and a windtunnel while others will feel sorry for the lack of competition for wins in a drivers championship, but that’s the way it is I guess.

[Baulz]

Does F1 simply need to adjust the wind tunnel time restrictions? Haas getting most time is not helping them catch up if they even use it all, and Mercedes having slightly more than Red Bull is not enough to bridge the gap.

[AR3-GP]

Does F1 simply need to adjust the wind tunnel time restrictions? Haas getting most time is not helping them catch up if they even use it all, and Mercedes having slightly more than Red Bull is not enough to bridge the gap.

It encourages Merc to tank a few months of results as Aston did in 2022 and Mclaren in end of 2022/start of 2023.

[AMG.Tzan]

Did you go out and campaign for BoP from 2014-2020?

Given we are getting all this anger after two years of dominance from a team, surely after 6 years of Merc winning you must have been absolutely livid! No?

I don’t remember there being a budget cap and development rules in place during 2014-2020 so that the field is closer together…

Had there been such rules Mercedes plus engine freezing Mercedes would have won 99% of the races…

It's all above board and fair when your favourite team is doing the winning, credit where credit is due. But when they drop off due to their own ineptitude, then "it's the rules" and "We need BoP!". Two seasons of not being world beaters and you want to change the fundamental nature of the sport. I call that entitled moaning. Enjoy the season!

Yeah blah blah “when your team was winning” blah blah

The point you don’t seem to be able to understand is that I don’t care if Mercedes wins! And to be clear I too got bored of Mercedes’s domination! All I want is close racing and multiple winners! And these rules wer designed just for that! I don’t care if Max ends up winning the championship again and again as long as it is a battle throughout the season just as it was until mid-2022!

I can’t really understand what you found exciting in 2023! Probably nothing! Just the joy of “oh yes now we’re at last bleaching Mercedes”! At least Mercedes offered an intra team battle when it was dominating! Red Bull doesn’t even want a strong second driver! Same as Ferrari back in the Schumacher glory days…

Yes Newey did wonders and I’m applauding him but after a certain point it just gets boring! We’re here for the racing part too not only the technical stuff! And these rules were supposed to give us just that at last…

[Sieper]

You had me at blah blah.

[Cs98]

I don’t remember there being a budget cap and development rules in place during 2014-2020 so that the field is closer together…

Had there been such rules Mercedes plus engine freezing Mercedes would have won 99% of the races…

It's all above board and fair when your favourite team is doing the winning, credit where credit is due. But when they drop off due to their own ineptitude, then "it's the rules" and "We need BoP!". Two seasons of not being world beaters and you want to change the fundamental nature of the sport. I call that entitled moaning. Enjoy the season!

Yeah blah blah “when your team was winning” blah blah

The point you don’t seem to be able to understand is that I don’t care if Mercedes wins! And to be clear I too got bored of Mercedes’s domination! All I want is close racing and multiple winners! And these rules wer designed just for that! I don’t care if Max ends up winning the championship again and again as long as it is a battle throughout the season just as it was until mid-2022!

I can’t really understand what you found exciting in 2023! Probably nothing! Just the joy of “oh yes now we’re at last bleaching Mercedes”! At least Mercedes offered an intra team battle when it was dominating! Red Bull doesn’t even want a strong second driver! Same as Ferrari back in the Schumacher glory days…

Yes Newey did wonders and I’m applauding him but after a certain point it just gets boring! We’re here for the racing part too not only the technical stuff! And these rules were supposed to give us just that at last…

Two whole years without competing for a championship? My god! How can this be allowed? Time to throw in the towel, time to start watching snooker.

[JordanMugen]

Yes Newey did wonders and I’m applauding him but after a certain point it just gets boring!

Ferrari and Mercedes GP did particularly bad with their 2023 cars!!!

If they had improved at the normal rate, like Red Bull or better still Aston Martin and Mclaren, they would have regularly been winning races without issue and potentially the championships.

To blame the rules for Mercedes and Ferrari not making the normal improvement with their 2023 car designs is totally absurd.

[aran.vtec]

in 2025 we will have a tight title fight and then in 2026 we will have a new dominate team and start all over again. Welcome to F1

[PapayaFan481]

Yes Newey did wonders and I’m applauding him but after a certain point it just gets boring!

Ferrari and Mercedes GP did particularly bad with their 2023 cars!!!

If they had improved at the normal rate, like Red Bull or better still Aston Martin and Mclaren, they would have regularly been winning races without issue and potentially the championships.

To blame the rules for Mercedes and Ferrari not making the normal improvement with their 2023 car designs is totally absurd.

But Aston and McLaren had a lot more wind tunnel time in order to be able to develop as much as they did.

The rules are partly to blame. I think all that is needed is a tweak to the resource restriction though.

I mean, personally I would prefer and approach of "Here's your budget cap, you choose how and when to spend it" and open up development more.

[PapayaFan481]

in 2025 we will have a tight title fight and then in 2026 we will have a new dominate team and start all over again. Welcome to F1

Hopefully it's McLaren's turn again

[AMG.Tzan]

Yes Newey did wonders and I’m applauding him but after a certain point it just gets boring!

Ferrari and Mercedes GP did particularly bad with their 2023 cars!!!

If they had improved at the normal rate, like Red Bull or better still Aston Martin and Mclaren, they would have regularly been winning races without issue and potentially the championships.

To blame the rules for Mercedes and Ferrari not making the normal improvement with their 2023 car designs is totally absurd.

Then why was your team blaming the rules when they couldn’t get or better build a proper engine?

[AMG.Tzan]

It's all above board and fair when your favourite team is doing the winning, credit where credit is due. But when they drop off due to their own ineptitude, then "it's the rules" and "We need BoP!". Two seasons of not being world beaters and you want to change the fundamental nature of the sport. I call that entitled moaning. Enjoy the season!

Yeah blah blah “when your team was winning” blah blah

The point you don’t seem to be able to understand is that I don’t care if Mercedes wins! And to be clear I too got bored of Mercedes’s domination! All I want is close racing and multiple winners! And these rules wer designed just for that! I don’t care if Max ends up winning the championship again and again as long as it is a battle throughout the season just as it was until mid-2022!

I can’t really understand what you found exciting in 2023! Probably nothing! Just the joy of “oh yes now we’re at last bleaching Mercedes”! At least Mercedes offered an intra team battle when it was dominating! Red Bull doesn’t even want a strong second driver! Same as Ferrari back in the Schumacher glory days…

Yes Newey did wonders and I’m applauding him but after a certain point it just gets boring! We’re here for the racing part too not only the technical stuff! And these rules were supposed to give us just that at last…

Two whole years without competing for a championship? My god! How can this be allowed? Time to throw in the towel, time to start watching snooker.

*three

2024 isn’t going to be any better

[Vanja #66]

Ferrari and Mercedes GP did particularly bad with their 2023 cars!!!

If they had improved at the normal rate, like Red Bull or better still Aston Martin and Mclaren, they would have regularly been winning races without issue and potentially the championships.

To blame the rules for Mercedes and Ferrari not making the normal improvement with their 2023 car designs is totally absurd.

The irony of 2023 season for Mercedes cannot be emphasised enough though. After whining the whole 2022 season and successfully applying political equivalent of arm-twisting (because hand-twisting is an understatement) in order to force raising the floor edges and introducing TD39 because "driver safety must be top priority" they have done everything to keep pursuing their low-floor concept and suspension setup. And then they ignore all that (on engineering level) and raise their car by design and keep wondering why it's not working so good - again...

The added salt in their wounds is hampering Ferrari, who were the only team to have any chance of fighting RB both in 2022 and looking ahead to 2023 at the time, thus ensuring the most dominant season by one team and one driver ever - their bitter rivals. You can't even write a film script with that story, no one would believe it!

[SharkY]

And just to remind you during 2014-2021 we had 6 championships going down to at least the last 3 races of the season! 3 of them (2014, 2016, 2021) all went down to the last race of the year!

The 2022 and 2023 championships ended by the end of September…

These "close championships" of 2014-2016 were Mercedes drivers infighting - it was pure Mercedes dominance.
During 2017-2018 Ferrari picked up a fight for a bit, but 2018 ended in September and only in 2017 there was a real title fight (if not for some bad luck at the end, VET had a real shot at WDC, although I'm pretty sure HAM would have won that even without VET's Singapore crash and Japan retirement).
During 2019-2020 there was no real contest whatsoever.
So I'd say that during Mercedes era only 2017 and 2021 were really interesting.

And as for current regulations, it's Ferrari's own fault that they were out of contest in 2022 even before TD039. LEC's bad luck, Binotto's bad team management and mid season rule changes are what sealed a deal.
You can't blame regulations or a budget cap, that RB doesn't have 2 strong drivers at the moment.

[f1jcw]

It's all above board and fair

erm, Budget cap, AD21, 2 teams, valkyrie..

I guess AD was just so traumatising they forgot how to build a car Enjoy the season!

You statement was "it’s all above board and fair" when clearly it is not.

During the Merc years FIA was modifying the rules to reign in Merc, for some reason they are not doing this with Redbull, they even go out the way to look the otherway on track transactions.