2005/6 regs

[Becker4]

i think that only allowing teams to have one aero setup and spec that the engine is tuned to for the whole year would be nice - would cut speeds for saftey, because the car would never be absolutely optimised for any one track, rather it would be a compromise between all, and would save cash because the amount of personel required to engineer the cars setup at each race would be drastically reduced. a forseeable problem could come with the development speed formula one has - for example, a team could come up with what they would call a new aero package but for every race, which might not be that different from the previous one, except in that it "happens" to be optimised for the upcoming track or two . . . . this could be limited, however, by limiting the number of developments each part can have over the course of the season. for example, each team gets 2 new diffusers, and 1 new front and rear wing per season, or something similar. this is all off the top of my head, but what do you think? not sure how beneficial it would be in increasing passing, maybe you guys have more insight into that than me.

[bernard]

Well, Becker, that is an idea, but unfortunately a very bad one. Your proposal would kill all the technological development from F1. If they just drove with one car the whole year, then it could also become quite amazingly boring. Consider a team makes a car that is so much superior to others as the ferrari was in the beginning of the season. Nobody is going to be able to improve their car. We wouldn't have the situation we have now that Mclaren is starting to close ferrari's gap and very soon(hopefully in Hockenheim) will go over.
Developing the car is a major, major part of F1. Taking that away would just be too Mosley.

[Becker4]

i don't mean to say all develpoment should be stalled - just limited to only a certain number per year, perhaps to be released on the teams own time frame, or maybe at set times during the season. this will still allow for development of the car over the season, it just does so in a way that would stop teams from having a car fine tuned for each event. also, this would go well with a cut in testing that most people seem to want, as with less development of a car, there is lees need for testing. but if a team is allowed 4 major updates of there car a year or so, that wouldn't really stop them from developing as much as they can now - it would jsut force all developments to be grouped together, preventing them from breaking my rule hypothesiced in my previous post by coming out with a new development at each race, which is not really a develpoment at all, just an aero package pre-tuned in the factory to be optimised for the upcoming race. i really don't think this would kill the technological development of F1 at all.

[NDR008]

Is it possible that the FIA decided to rechange these silly 05/06 rules?

[Spencifer_Murphy]

Okay scrap the smaller tyres Idea...make them use the same size tyres but with a smaller footprint. (I.e make the grooves even bigger)

[Spencifer_Murphy]

ooooops, soz bout that. My last post was in reply to a post by Tomba. I dunno how to use the quote thing properly but Tomba was saying that he didn't agree with my idea about using smaller tyres on the grounds that it would decrease drag and therefore increase top speeds.

So mking the grooves larger or making more of them would decrease grip in the same way as using smaller tyres but also keep the drag virtually the same.

[Shoeless23]

I for one believe that some of these rule changes can bring F1 to a whole new level that would bring in more fans and KEEP IT ALIVE. It is no joke that Ferrari has more than three times the amount of money that Jaguar has. We must remember that many teams are failing to keep up with Ferrari's well paid team and invincible car. This includes Toyota, Mclaren and Williams currently, not to mention the usual backmarkers. A few teams have even said they may not be back next year: jordan, jaguar. Supposedly Max Mosley discussed these rules with many of the current F1 team leaders, and these rules are a consencous of these 50 or so informed F1 people.
I would like to add that I shared the general opinion of this board until I read in the Aug issue of F1 Racing the interview with Tony Purnell. He is the replacement for Lauda at Jaguar. He is the creator of Pi Technologies and one of the most business savy Mechanical Engineers I have seen. He calls F1 the "celebration of unfairness." I would suggest reading it.
The reason the engine size is being reduced is because of safety concerns, not money. The one engine per weekend rule is to reduce costs. Another engine cost reducing rule requires that the modulus of elasticity be close to steel and would remove the opportunity for the Ferrari / McLaren boys to use extreme titanium-berylium-whatever engine blocks. I had not heard of the proposed ban on winglets, but I do find from my experience, from what I have seen in the pits at Indianapolis and from visiting the McLaren Facility they are excessive. These pieces require thousands of hours to design and build. Not to mention the full time "mechanic" that is responsible for maintiaining these winglets to within a hundreths of an inch.
Isn't that unfair to teams such as Jaguar, Jordan, Minardi? Those teams, in my opinion, live in the "real world" with budgets that are more excessable to new teams, sponsors and reality. Eventually, if they dont win, BMW or Toyota or Honda will drop out of F1 because they realize that their costs of producing these extreme engines far exceed what is reasonable. What are the benefits of finishing second to a team that has almost twice the budget/resources?
Anyways, i've written enough for now. Please respond!

[Olsson]

I think these changes should fit F1 good:

* Set a budget limit for each team. For exampel 100 million dollars.
* Do as in IRL (i think), all teams can only chose between 2 tire compounds (hard or soft) from 1 manufactor and a limited number of tire sets. This should be more fair for those teams who not have the money for a partnership as Ferrari - Bridgestone has. Thats an important piece in the Ferrari domination!
* Decrease brake preformance quite much, this allows more passings and not so high speeds i think.

[walter]

Things that should NEVER be in Formula one:

- rev limiters
- full auto trans
- air resistors
- ballast additions after wins
- steel brakes
- super-exotic/rare metals
- min height of crankshaft
- min weight of engine


By setting up so much rules and regulations the small teams are just digging their own graves, because all this rules out any room for innovation and radical thinking that has made F1 exciting. it may put everyone in the same ballpark, but ferrari always wins when playing fair.
its only when some genious at an other team thinks of a something that was overlooked before, that teams have their chance at glory.

I would HATE, HATE HATE seeing formula one turn into an open wheel road circuit NASCAR spectacle where cars are nothing more than really fast billboards.

somebody knock some sense into Mosley!!!!

[sharkie17]

Things that should NEVER be in Formula one:

- rev limiters
- full auto trans
- air resistors
- ballast additions after wins
- steel brakes
- super-exotic/rare metals
- min height of crankshaft
- min weight of engine


By setting up so much rules and regulations the small teams are just digging their own graves, because all this rules out any room for innovation and radical thinking that has made F1 exciting. it may put everyone in the same ballpark, but ferrari always wins when playing fair.
its only when some genious at an other team thinks of a something that was overlooked before, that teams have their chance at glory.

I would HATE, HATE HATE seeing formula one turn into an open wheel road circuit NASCAR spectacle where cars are nothing more than really fast billboards.

somebody knock some sense into Mosley!!!!

why shouldnt super rare metals belong in Formula 1? F1 is pinnacle of motor sports technology and if a super rare metal will make future road car work better, let them use it.

[Guest]

It seems to me that the rules limiting diffusers, wing elements and the like only increase costs since the teams will spend $$$$$ to get back that down force using earo pieces. As far as engines are concerned, how many engines are built and destroyed on the dyno compared to the number that actually see the rear of a car. Also how many engines are destroyed during testing. It seems likely to me that the teams spend more money on engines for testing than for racing, therefore, limiting the engines for racing doesn't substantially alter the overall cost picture. Furthermore, constantly changing engine rules forces the manufacturers to scrap current designs and start from scratch - that can't be cost effective.

To make the cars safers drop the carbon brakes and replace them with steel. The diameter should be larger to give good performance and would require larger wheel diameters as well.

Tinkering with elements such as diffusers, wing cofigurations and contact patch make the cars more difficult to handle and lead to spectacular crashes - that can't be safe.

If the FIA keeps making the cars more difficult to drive fast this will end in tragedy.

[walter]

why shouldnt super rare metals belong in Formula 1? F1 is pinnacle of motor sports technology and if a super rare metal will make future road car work better, let them use it.

I think that rare metals are not needed in F1 because of their inaccesability to road cars. Technology can be top of the line, but it needs to be something that can one day be found in road cars.

That's just my opinion

[uzael]

The link between F1 and road cars anymore is bogus. No amount of regulation changing will reduce the amount of money spent. You can reduce the gain per dollar spent, but a team with 200million in sponsorship will still spend it. As for engines, the only way to reduce costs is to make the engines easier to build. That means less RPMs. The difference in life cycle between an engine at 15Krpm and one at 19Krpm is massive. The engine builders will always spend massive amounts of money on R&D, but with a few mods, the cost of producing the engines for non-factory teams would drop drastically. I know a guy who has a Nissan 350z with a twin turbo and a bunch of other mods. He recently dyoned his car at 600whp. Car costs plus all mods is 50K, with a life expectancy of 100,000 miles. As far as real racing goes this is dirt cheap and easy. And the F1 engineers can't seem to figure it out.......

[SKRAT]

I really like the idea of pushing the mfg to develop (and share) technology that has a good chance of making it into production cars. Hey, CF tubs are now in a few high priced production exotics, and by the time I keel over maybe my great grandkids 1st car could be unpinned by CF.

I see longevity as a good way to promote technical hand-me-downs. Make the components last X-number of races/miles, and then the leap from one-off to off-the-shelf is not as far.

Paul C

[Guest]

My point was that the issues of cost and safety are in conflict. If the teams will spend every dollar available to win, and I'm sure they will, the only way to control cost is to limit budgets. That of course is very problematic - just look at US Election Financing. Therefore, you are left with technical regulations to try and control costs. Maybe something as simple as limiting engine RPM would reduce engine failures significantly and reduce costs. As a fan, I don't like seeing a car demoted to the back of the field because of an engine failure, although it does lead to passing.

Furthermore, this constant attack on downforce and contact patch leads to wrecked cars. That can't be good for cost control.

Also, I'm sure the guys at Honda, Jaguar, Fiat, Renault, BMW and Mercedes don't think the link is between F1 and road cars is bogus. Win on Sunday and sell on Monday as they used to say in NASCAR. I don't think the link on the technical side has to be obvious to be real. My new Acura has Traction control, stability assist, antilock brakes and variable valve timing, all of these things appeared on race cars first.