Why the need for stringent regulations?

[SeijaKessen]

Agreed Seija,

And therein lies the problem. People can argue that F1 doesn't need to be relevant.
But it's not so much about relevance as pushing the envelope for new technologies to flourish.
Technologies that can be allowed for reasonable sums if the rules made aerodynamics less important.

It's almost like the leadership is paralysed to do anything about it.

I still believe the lack of creativity allowed in F1 has a lot to do the pending IPO.

As said elsewhere...I don't think it is a mistake per se that this season has had the cars so restricted, that we have had no repeat race winners to date. It generates false interest with the end goal being to push that valuation ever higher.

[bhall]

I think some of the teams have become intoxicated by the relatively easy road to competitiveness that's inherent to having narrow windows for interpretation within the regulations, which is why they're starting to push back on the 1.6L engine for 2014. Why spend money to develop that when you can win with a 2006 model engine?

[myurr]

You can understand it, though, from a competition point of view. If a team, let's say Mercedes, manages to come up with some crazy new technology that gives them a two second a lap advantage over the competition. The other big teams have no alternative but to drop everything and throw mega bucks at that technology as well as facing a season of being unable to win anything.

All the best seasons in recent years, IMHO, have been after periods of relative rule stability so that the differences between the teams are minimised. This is when we can have a proper competition between the drivers with humans making the difference rather than a year long snore fest of one car dominating.

I'd have no issues at all with F1 having more influence on cars performance if not for one immutable fact. Ground breaking performance differentiating technologies have a long lead time so we see a relatively slow pace of change in terms of relative performance - sometimes requiring a complete car redesign in the off season making the pace of change an annual thing. If we were able to drool over some new innovation for a couple of races before everything equalised again then it would be great - but this isn't possible and leads to very dull racing.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

A good point myurr.

But I don't think anybody is saying have limitless regulations.
There has to be regulation or there is no formula.

The problem is that there is currently no innovation on the oily bits side of things.
Think about it, EBDs DDDs, FDuct DRS, F ducts, flexing wings, clever floors etc.
All aerodynamic.

Where's the real innovation?

Teams are boxed into finding these magic bullets by the regs. It's not their fault, nature of the beast.
Why can engine makers not be allowed to redress the balance?

[strad]

Guess you need to explain which regulations.
Ya gotta have rules, so I am hard pressed to understand what you're talking about.
There have always been rules/regulations, long before Bernie or Max or Jean-Marie .
Are you saying you want no rules and run what ya brung? For all the romantic notion that Can-Am had an open book, there were rules.
If you're talking about "Why the need for stringent regulations?" that we have seen in more recent times, I think it has been in large part to improve the show from the dependability stand point.
You used to have much more variation in the cars and construction which incorporated some goofy and not well tried and thought out experimentation which also involved a lot of DNFs and uncompetitive cars.
I have complained for ages that they way it has been for some time now the FIA and the rules, design the cars and the that teams just massage why they have been dictated to run.
It's all about the show and not the racing and has been for some time.

[SeijaKessen]

A good point myurr.

But I don't think anybody is saying have limitless regulations.
There has to be regulation or there is no formula.

The problem is that there is currently no innovation on the oily bits side of things.
Think about it, EBDs DDDs, FDuct DRS, F ducts, flexing wings, clever floors etc.
All aerodynamic.

Where's the real innovation?

Teams are boxed into finding these magic bullets by the regs. It's not their fault, nature of the beast.
Why can engine makers not be allowed to redress the balance?

I would have liked to have seen the engines allowed to push up towards the 900HP or greater range.

[beelsebob]

This is very simple – it's for safety.

The quality of the tracks put an lower bound on the fastest lap time – any faster, and the gravel traps/run offs aren't big enough, and the tyre walls not energy absorbant enough.

Because of that, the lap time of an F1 car needs to be constrained to be above that lower bound. The FIA have done that by steadily tightening rules to keep lap times at a set speed. Simple.

[SeijaKessen]

This is very simple – it's for safety.

The quality of the tracks put an lower bound on the fastest lap time – any faster, and the gravel traps/run offs aren't big enough, and the tyre walls not energy absorbant enough.

Because of that, the lap time of an F1 car needs to be constrained to be above that lower bound. The FIA have done that by steadily tightening rules to keep lap times at a set speed. Simple.

Was anyone killed in 2004?

[beelsebob]

This is very simple – it's for safety.

The quality of the tracks put an lower bound on the fastest lap time – any faster, and the gravel traps/run offs aren't big enough, and the tyre walls not energy absorbant enough.

Because of that, the lap time of an F1 car needs to be constrained to be above that lower bound. The FIA have done that by steadily tightening rules to keep lap times at a set speed. Simple.

Was anyone killed in 2004?

What bearing does that have on the discussion?

[SeijaKessen]

Well you're saying this has to do with safety, but no one was killed when the cars reached their absolute fastest peak.

F1 keeps spewing the safety line as a way to turn the entire thing into a spec race.

A lot of the issues of the past had more to do with car designs that were not safe, than anything to do with the tracks.

Cars are safer than ever and we have this FUD thing continuing.

[beelsebob]

Well you're saying this has to do with safety, but no one was killed when the cars reached their absolute fastest peak.

1) Your sample size is too small, you have no idea what the average number of deaths at that speed would be.
2) Who says the FIA are trying to keep exactly on the fastest possible, rather than leaving a little bit of space.

[strad]

F1 keeps spewing the safety line as a way to turn the entire thing into a spec race.

Very true...very true... this holy grail of safety is part of our downfall.

[SeijaKessen]

Well you're saying this has to do with safety, but no one was killed when the cars reached their absolute fastest peak.

1) Your sample size is too small, you have no idea what the average number of deaths at that speed would be.
2) Who says the FIA are trying to keep exactly on the fastest possible, rather than leaving a little bit of space.

Well, let me ask you, would you not agree that the bulk of driver deaths or severe injuries in F1 from 1950 to 1994 could have been prevented with better car design? Not that the technology or rules were set to ensure the cars were developed in such a manner, but when I think about many of the drivers killed in the "unsafe era", I feel a lot of it was due to poor designs as it pertained to safety. Now I don't think that even now a driver cannot be killed, but the things like fuel spilling out in a crash, or lack of protection in the front have been addressed significantly. I can't imagine seeing something like Roger Williamson burning to death at Zandvoort ever again, nor a driver suffering the types of injuries that Ronnie Peterson suffered. Medical training on circuit, as well is medical training in hospitals has improved drastically. Same with car safety design.

Would you mind just clarifying statement two? I don't understand the wording.

[beelsebob]

Well you're saying this has to do with safety, but no one was killed when the cars reached their absolute fastest peak.

1) Your sample size is too small, you have no idea what the average number of deaths at that speed would be.
2) Who says the FIA are trying to keep exactly on the fastest possible, rather than leaving a little bit of space.

Well, let me ask you, would you not agree that the bulk of driver deaths or severe injuries in F1 from 1950 to 1994 could have been prevented with better car design?

Actually, the big drop in deaths was associated primarily with the push for safer tracks not cars. Senna's death for example would likely have happened in a modern car, and could only have been prevented by keeping the speed of the car at that point below the maximum safe speed for the track.

The fact that we no longer watch races through forests on narrow, bumpy, 20km long tracks with poor marshal support, and 0 run off is what has improved safety.

[myurr]

This is very simple – it's for safety.

The quality of the tracks put an lower bound on the fastest lap time – any faster, and the gravel traps/run offs aren't big enough, and the tyre walls not energy absorbant enough.

Because of that, the lap time of an F1 car needs to be constrained to be above that lower bound. The FIA have done that by steadily tightening rules to keep lap times at a set speed. Simple.

Was anyone killed in 2004?

The time difference between pole laps in 2004 and 2012 in Canada was around 2% at one and half seconds. That difference is pretty negligible to both the show and safety. So by all means make the cars 2% faster, but going by some posts in other threads that's not what some are talking about. I'm not singling anyone out but we had posts calling for drivers to be on the verge of blacking out, for example.

So in your dream series just how much faster should the cars be able to go? 2%? 5%? 10%? More? For me, as long as the cars are within 2 - 3% of the 2004 time then I'll be happy and no one can, IMHO, justifiably complain about safety.

With faster cars do you also know how that would affect the racing itself? Afterall this is supposed to be a racing series where drivers are able to battle it out. Increase the speed and you increase the difficulty to overtake. Braking distances are shorter from more grip, better brakes and higher cornering speeds. Straights are covered faster as the cars run faster in a straight line. Cornering is likely to be improved mainly through aerodynamic advances which are likely to lead to cars being harder to follow through the corners. All these things count against good wheel to wheel racing. That has nothing to do with 'the show' and everything to do with why humans are still piloting these cars in the first place. It is a human competition as well as a battle between the best engineers.