What would senna think?

[Just_a_fan]

I mostly used Senna as an example of what real racing is to me, where you push the car very hard for most/all of the time

You have that view but the reality is that they didn't push the car hard for the entire race. It didn't happen. The drivers may have pushed themselves to the limit - and we have examples of Senna and Mansell being helped from the car after a difficult race but that is a human failing, not a technological failing.

The past was not better than the present, it was just different.

I'd happily lose a little of the alleged "purity of the racing" if it means I don't have to watch a man die in a racing car accident whilst I eat my Sunday lunch. The past was not better; it was different. And it was a whole lot more dangerous.

[FoxHound]

What if you could have it both ways? Man and machine to the limit.

Beats this tyre formula we presently have. "Purity" needn't mean dangerous.... we already have a very safe racing series.
What is wrong with the best cars going flat out for 60 laps to win a race? It hasn't happened for sometime.
From memory, the last of this was the Hakkinen/Schumi battles.

Not saying it hasn't happened since. Just very intermittently.

The current Formula of looking out for tyres has gone too far, we need to put something back in for the driver...and the guys that make the ponies(Renault/Ferrari/Mercedes).

[flmkane]

I mostly used Senna as an example of what real racing is to me, where you push the car very hard for most/all of the time

You have that view but the reality is that they didn't push the car hard for the entire race. It didn't happen. The drivers may have pushed themselves to the limit - and we have examples of Senna and Mansell being helped from the car after a difficult race but that is a human failing, not a technological failing.

The past was not better than the present, it was just different.

I'd happily lose a little of the alleged "purity of the racing" if it means I don't have to watch a man die in a racing car accident whilst I eat my Sunday lunch. The past was not better; it was different. And it was a whole lot more dangerous.

I agree with you %100. However the current tyres dont exactly make thing safer. I'm no expert but the fact that there is so much debris on parts of the track, plus the fact that the tyres are just plain bad, makes it more likely for someone to have an accident

[bhall]

"Leave me alone. I'm dead."

[NathanOlder]

it's not like F1 drivers did qualifying laps on every race lap pre-2011 anyway. F1 drivers have never pushed 100% on every lap.

Asking what Senna would think of the current regulations is just another way to phrase a question on a topic that has been debated over for two years.

hungary 1998 disagrees with you

Nurburg 1998 also disagrees. Hakkinen was qualifying every lap.

[NowyszRacing6]

I would have to say there were plenty of races in the past where drivers pushed harder than they do now. There's always the element of not destroying your equipment if it means you can't finish, but generally any tires that aren't pirellis will allow drivers to race harder because they weren't made specifically to wear out. But... I don't want to claim I know more about tires than I do...so were the tires in past years (approx. before 2000) actually as bad? I've never heard anything to indicate that.

[Websta]

Nurburg 1998 also disagrees. Hakkinen was qualifying every lap.

^^No it doesn't, because only Hakkinen was pushing for more or less every lap at the Nur in 1998.

it's not like F1 drivers did qualifying laps on every race lap pre-2011 anyway. F1 drivers have never pushed 100% on every lap.

Asking what Senna would think of the current regulations is just another way to phrase a question on a topic that has been debated over for two years.

hungary 1998 disagrees with you

Did every single driver do 77 qualifying laps in that race? Of course some drivers will occasionally push for the entire race distance (e.g. Alonso in the 2001 Japanese GP), but they are very rare exceptions. I meant that it has never been commonplace for drivers to push 100% for most/all of every race of a season in the modern F1 eras of Senna's and our time.

edit: quote added

[NathanOlder]

So basically, Hakkin won the race because he pushed every lap. Someone needed to tell Schumacher to push every lap, he would then have been atleast 10 time world champion.

More seriously, If your saying only a few drivers were pushing, the same can be said about every race since F1 began.

All drivers try to complete the race distance in the fastest possible time. Nothing has changed for over 60 years. Drivers pushed harder at different times. It was the same in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's , 00's and nowerdays.

[Websta]

I'm saying that in the vast majority of F1 races (past and more recently), a driver has had to manage fuel and preserve their tyre life in order to maintain the fastest overall race pace. To push 100% on every lap (aka qualifying laps) can only be managed if the tyre and fuel parameters are accounted for (by having extra pitstops or having low tyre wear), which is very rarely seen in any era of F1, but of course there are numerous examples of it happening over the years.

What did you think I meant? That the drivers doze off occasionally? One of the main points of the thread is that drivers cannot push 100% on the Pirelli tyres, and I am just saying that drivers have never (not literally never, jeez guys) been able to do so regularly in any era as they have still had to manage tyres and fuel. Of course, the high wear/degradation of the Pirellis is more restrictive to overall pace than anything we have seen before, but it's not like it's anything radically different to the restrictive parameters of the past.