F1 cars are 8 seconds slower than 10 years ago.

[Miguel]

Funny that there is always an excuse why the current cars being pretty damn quick "doesn't count"

Yes, let's discount places that actually help 2014 cars, and let's forget that current cars are almost 90 kg (almost enough fuel for the feckin' race distance!), that switching back to 2010 tyres would give these cars about 2s a lap instant improvement, and that 2004/2006 tyres were even faster!

Can you imagine a refuelable RB6, with 2006 grade tires, and weighing 35 Kg less? I don't even need a bloody V10 to smash track records, but a 20k rpm engine may be desirable.

[bhall II]

Funnier still is the odd cavalcade of excuses used to justify the cars' relative lack of pace this year:

"Well, they're heavier, and there's no refueling, and the tires aren't as good, and there's a fuel-flow limit, and my dog ate it..."

No, ---. That's the whole point. It's the very existence of those limitations that's the problem.

I don't think anyone is under the illusion that teams have somehow forgotten how to engineer incredibly quick cars. They simply aren't allowed to do so these days, and the reason for it has nothing to do with racing. We've had slower cars foisted upon us because the marketing bigwigs at a couple of prominent automakers decided to hard sell dubious claims of road relevance.

It's a bold new world, and apparently we have to act like logic and reason no longer apply. (Or else the terrorists win!)

[Moose]

The MGU-H typically recovers energy that would ordinarily be lost through a wastegate. So, I don't see a big loss here; certainly not 85bhp. The low laptime also puts a greater emphasis on energy harvested to the ES under braking, because the allowed 33.3s of full ERS use amounts to nearly half the lap.

The big loss is that less energy goes through the waste gate when the turbo has to work harder to make sure the engine is at its operating pressure.

surely not so ?
the pressure difference across the turbine (for a given massflow) is greater and so tends to increase power at the turbine
for this reason compounded aircraft engines actually gave more turbine power and so more efficiency with altitude
eg the Wright TC gave in its later 7.25 CR version 0.37 lb/hp-hr (36% efficiency) at sea level and 0.34 lb (38.5%) at 30000'
(though at these low boosts recovery is small and the uncompounded engine version would be about 34% efficient at sea level)

I don't think that's true. Turbo Jets are typically more efficient at altitude simply because they've been designed to hit peak efficiency at a certain pressure (the one they'll be used most at). I would be amazed if the various engine teams had designed their current machines to be most efficient at anything but ground level.

[hollus]

This 2014 brazilian grand prix was only 2 minutes slower than the 2004 one. So, in the race, the difference was less than 1 second per lap. The last race at Interlagos faster than today's was in 2007. Of course much of it is due to the new tarmac, there is no denying that. They did get a comparative advantage in Brazil that they did not get anywhere else.
As for the turbo, I'd not say that it flatters the 2014 cars, which have about the same power as in every other race. I'd say that altitude was crippling the 2004 cars by reducing their power. And nobody complained of how Brazil sucks because cars are sooo low in power...

[Kingshark]

This 2014 brazilian grand prix was only 2 minutes slower than the 2004 one.

It's worth noting that the 2014 race was with full tanks (as opposed to refueling) and a very aggressive tyre choice by Pirelli. A refuelable 2014 Mercedes WO5 with 2006 tyres would have smashed the 2004 cars across a race distance. Then again, the 2004 race was damp in the opening laps, so you need also to take that into account.

I'm actually very curious how fast the WO6 Mercedes car will be, rumors suggest that the 2014 Merc engine will be 1 second/lap faster than the 2014 spec (source below), and obviously, the WO6 will be a better chassis than the WO5. I wouldn't be surprised to see it regularly match the cars from 2004-2010 over one lap.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/30060635

[xwz]

This 2014 brazilian grand prix was only 2 minutes slower than the 2004 one. So, in the race, the difference was less than 1 second per lap.

Small miscalculation here - or was it more than 120 laps in Brazil?

[hollus]

Oops, right, less than 2 seconds per lap.

[Just_a_fan]

I'm actually very curious how fast the WO6 Mercedes car will be, rumors suggest that the 2014 Merc engine will be 1 second/lap faster than the 2014 spec (source below), and obviously, the WO6 will be a better chassis than the WO5. I wouldn't be surprised to see it regularly match the cars from 2004-2010 over one lap.

That's what some people seem to be forgetting (deliberately?). This is the first season with a whole new engine regime so we can expect the cars to get quicker for the next year or two. At some point the FIA will step in and peg them back again because they will be "quick enough" (or whatever bizarre metric they use for these decisions)

[Richard]

We're also forgetting that the formula is designed with the overall car performance in mind. It's no coincidence that cars with higher downforce had grooved tyres, and the return to slicks coincided with reduced downforce, and the current cars with high toque engines have even less downforce. We can't mix and match bits from different eras like this.