FOTA Announcement 05 March 2009

[xpensive]

Now we are getting somewhere Chap, a flow-limiting device, and only that, should possibly bring back the likes of Marmorini?
Where is WB where you need him anyway?

[Chaparral]

He'll turn up last I heard he had been banned from Atlas F1 under the non de plume of Ocelot - he's running out of forum's

Seriously though the bollocks this series goes through with rules and regs is just b/s - and all to bring some parity and cost savings so 'the show' is better - well 'the show' has been crap for over a decade. I havent cared for a decade or more - the audience they have now are navel gazers thinking within this manufactured parity square trying to come up with some way of garnering some interest out of a dead series. Common sense says - OK have some standard parts drive train brakes etc but let engineers engineer and designers design and engine guys do their business otherwise why bother. I dont actually care if one or two teams run away in races and I can tell you fans up and down the grid will still follow hoping their team can build a better mouse trap along the way and beat the other team......................thats life.

[jddh1]

So, basically, I am agreeing completely with Ciro's idea of a cap in spending. He is absolutely right when he says that the most innovation will come this way.

Yes and the innovation will primarily include some simple and innovative ways of getting around the budget cap rule. (like charitable wind tunnel time etc )

Somebody also mentioned getting a point or two for most passes in the race. That is a splendid idea as well.

I remember very long time ago Jeremy Clarkson came up with this idea in an episode of TopGear, but a minute later he mocked it saying something like this: oh wait... then Schumacher will start from the back, overtake the whole field and win again. And then everyone will try to be as slow as possible in the quali to have better overtaking chances...

Obviously that was an exaggeration, but like with various success-penalty rules this one may encourage competitors to underperform in certain sutuations for strategic reasons. IIRC, Ford did that in WRC last year.

I see F1 as a sport where one should always push to the limit.

Instead of overtaking points they should merely bring back the free fuel quali. Then the fuel strategies will be harder to predict and lighter cars will try to overtake the heavier cars in order to succeed with their strategy of more pitstops.

We're just throwing out ideas here and not everyone will turn out to be a rule. With that said, would you rather win 12 pts for a win, or 1 pts for most overtaking maneuvers. So that settles it there I think.

[Conceptual]

Why limit CFD when we are on the verge of quantum computing?

I agree with that.

We aren't on the verge of quantum computing guys!!!




Not before 2020 in any kind of industrial capacity.

I beg to disagree... Quantum spintronics is already a proven concept, and there was a very good article that I read in a Popular Mechanics magazine (I believe it was PM) that was very indepth, and it had a 2012 timeframe for release.

ALSO: Even before the true quantum computers hit the market, AMD will release its Magny Cours(!) chip in 2011 that will have 12 total cores... Four 64bit chips that vector to 8 ATI 775 GPU's that are on board. Thus, a single chip will have 4 64bit processors vectoring to 6,400 128bit stream processors....

All on a single chip!

Since the Magny Cours chip is almost tailor made for CFD, and is said to be on the AM2+/AM3 platform, most teams that currently run AMD farms can immediately upgrade their systems to exponentially increase their CFD power/speed.

Limiting CFD also has the downside of making computers less important in F1, and may lead the chip manufacturers away from sponsorship of the teams. Again, not a good thing.

[Spencifer_Murphy]

Reducing GP length will only be a good thing for the sport...

...I'd HATE it, but for the good of the sport it will help. What sort of fan wants shorter races?!...New fans thats who. People who are trying to get interested in F1 struggle to pay attention for the whole duration, dosing off somewhere between the last pitstop and the last 5-10 laps.

Reducing the length of the races will encourage more people to watch, thus more people to see track side adverts, possibly enough to offset the shorter race duration and thus shorter time these adverts are on screen for. Besides after the first few laps most people have already seen all the ads. This in turn will encourange more sponsors, and this in turn will benifit a sport which is scared to death of the current finacial situation.

F1 won't ever become a spec series, but will any of us REALLY turn off if there are only 2 or 3 engine suppliers? No, well I'd be suprised anyway, as long as the teams build their own chassis its all good, and no matter how restrictive the rules get the likes of Newey, Champman, Barnard et al will find SOMETHING new, something the rules don't regulate against. (like ground effects) and then the FIA will legislate that and they'll find something new (like active suspension). That's the beauty of F1.

The fact that the cars LOOK less technologically advanced than '08 cars is irrelevant, you can't uninvent something, the same amount of genius goes into making each and every aero package, even with '09 regs we've seen some radically different designs already.

All in al I WONT like all the changes that are proposed. BUT I don't think any of them will do F1 any real harm.

[donskar]

I DO hope you're right. I do have some quibbles . . . [see below]

Reducing GP length will only be a good thing for the sport... [I'm not so certain. I can't think of another sport that has reduced the length of its matches/meets/sets/whatever and become more popular. We equate more with better, whether it's a movie, a novel, or a sporting event]

...I'd HATE it, but for the good of the sport it will help. What sort of fan wants shorter races?!...New fans thats who. People who are trying to get interested in F1 struggle to pay attention for the whole duration, dosing off somewhere between the last pitstop and the last 5-10 laps. [I think you might be missing the point: less boredom is better than more boredom? The key issue is not length -- it's the boredom!]

Reducing the length of the races will encourage more people to watch, [An interesting position, but one without any support. I get up at 0600 to watch the races. If I MUST lose sleep on a Sunday morning, I want more racing, not less. Will spectators enjoy the same price, the same traffic jams, the same expensive food, long lines, etc, etc because they are getting less spectacle, less racing in return?] thus more people to see track side adverts, possibly enough to offset the shorter race duration and thus shorter time these adverts are on screen for. Besides after the first few laps most people have already seen all the ads. [No. Advertisers pay for repetition. It's called branding. They want their signs seen for 100 laps, not for 75.] This in turn will encourange more sponsors, and this in turn will benifit a sport which is scared to death of the current finacial situation. [Sponsors want eyeballs. I'm not convinced that shorter races will bring more eyeballs. I hope you are right.]

F1 won't ever become a spec series, [Not in the short term. But it IS moving in that direction. And is that movement going to reduce attendance and viewers? It might.] but will any of us REALLY turn off if there are only 2 or 3 engine suppliers? No, well I'd be suprised anyway, as long as the teams build their own chassis its all good, and no matter how restrictive the rules get the likes of Newey, Champman, Barnard et al will find SOMETHING new, something the rules don't regulate against. (like ground effects) and then the FIA will legislate that and they'll find something new (like active suspension). That's the beauty of F1. [Look at the names you listed: Newey has been talking about moving on to other challenges, and Barnard left F1 years ago.]

The fact that the cars LOOK less technologically advanced than '08 cars is irrelevant, you can't uninvent something, the same amount of genius goes into making each and every aero package, even with '09 regs we've seen some radically different designs already. [Agree]

All in al I WONT like all the changes that are proposed. BUT I don't think any of them will do F1 any real harm.

[I do hope you are right.]