F1 will burst like subprime bubble

[WhiteBlue]

What does racing have to do with road car relevancy - very little....

Road relevancy has an impact on the amount of money and brand image effort spend by automotive companies with F1. The money is good for F1 business and the brand presence helps a lot with the fan base as does driver presence from different countries. Fans identify with drivers and via the drivers with brands who support F1.

.. you want racing - open up the rules to all configurations engine wise give them ground effects and back off on the aero ..

Nothing of this is in conflict with the above proposal to regulate power and downforce.

[WhiteBlue]

"It is certainly a fact that BMW, along with other manufacturers, had little enthusiasm for the 'frozen' engine rules for how in do you demonstrate any quantifiable superiority over your rivals? And if you don't have that possibility, how do you justify the expense of being in F1?"

would you agree??

Effectively there is no such thing as a frozen engine. There is intense politicking as to what modifications are being allowed each year. But effectively the power train is being changed each year. This time we go without KERS and refueling which justifies the next round of modifications. Before they were called reliability mods. Each year it is a new excuse.

I agree with Xpensive that fuel efficiency would be a very good marketing point. Merc have made a terrific kill this year with their frozen engine. So it shows that it is not a matter of the absolute freedom of design. It is a combination of many factors that makes an automotive participation in F1 successfull.

[Chaparral]

And so you advocate what - if your saying it needs to parallel marketing by the participating manufacturer thats fine am I reading you correctly - and if so I agree V8 V10 V12 rotary whatever - so a open configuration would suit manufacturers which is basically what Roebuck is saying and I agree - road relevancy has NOTHING to do with F1 ALMS LMP NASCAR it never has - talk to the designers/engineers/team owners whatever - Mosely and the FIA may work under that banner but F1 has nothing to do with it at all nor do the other formulas around the globe and why should it - racing should be racing on all levels - this should not be a proving ground for the FIA road tactics - for gods sake have you forgotten what real racing is about building a better mouse trap than your competition and winning - take a life check ace.

[xpensive]

I believe that a certain amount of road relevance is marketwise essential for racing in general and F1 in particular, definetely for sponsors like Bridgestone, Michelin, Shell, Mobil or Elf, not to mention the remaining manufacturers.

To what extent could be debatable though, but I for one am certain that a majority of the Nascar audience actually believe that the car that won at Daytona was just a souped-up version of their own Chevy or Dodge.
You take that away and Nascar is dead.

[Pup]

It makes sense when one considers that 2009 lap times are approaching 2004 lap times which prompted the move to smaller engines in the first place. Anyone of sane mind understands that speeds must be kept under control to some degree to help maintain spectator & driver safety.

Your second point has merit, though I suspect we would disagree on what constitutes "some degree"; but as for the lap times, the cars were 2-4 seconds off the pace this season from '04. There's no immediate need to neuter the cars more than they already are.

[WhiteBlue]

Suzuka demonstrated that people do get hurt when the performance of the cars exceed the safety of tracks.

Most tracks have been upgraded at stellar costs in the last decade to allow for some useless performance increases. An example is turn one and several others at Silverstone where crash zones had to be extended and spectators were removed back from the track. The money could have been better used to upgrade the facilities which is one of the reasons why Silverstone is in trouble.

Why do we need to go through this vicious circle of exhausting the safety margins all the time? It would be better to have a flexible power control.

[Pup]

Effectively there is no such thing as a frozen engine. There is intense politicking as to what modifications are being allowed each year. But effectively the power train is being changed each year. This time we go without KERS and refueling which justifies the next round of modifications. Before they were called reliability mods. Each year it is a new excuse.

Not to say I told you so, but several of us did. I point it out not as a put down, but because that lesson needs to be applied to the budget issue as well. Caps are great to talk about, but just like the engine frieze, they would mean nothing in real life.

The budget issue needs to be addressed through organic solutions, not through brute force.

You and X have mentioned rev limits. Now, I have to admit that I have an emotional attachment to the V10's of a few years back. The moment F1 became a passion for me, rather than just something to waste a few hours of a Sunday morning, was the moment I stepped out of my car in the Indy parking lot for a Friday practice. The scream of those engines could capture anyone's heart.

But they are useless in the real world, aren't they? But instead of imposing numbing rev limits, which still leaves us with irrelevant engine tech, why not just eliminate pneumatic valves? Then any advances in revs would indeed be applicable to the real world, while at the same time providing limited advantage to the teams who chose to put money into heading down that path. That's what I mean by organic solutions. Don't put up road blocks that take value away from the manufacturers; rather guide development into areas that add value for them.

[Pup]

Suzuka demonstrated that people do get hurt when the performance of the cars exceed the safety of tracks.

Most tracks have been upgraded at stellar costs in the last decade to allow for some useless performance increases. An example is turn one and several others at Silverstone where crash zones had to be extended and spectators were removed back from the track. The money could have been better used to upgrade the facilities which is one of the reasons why Silverstone is in trouble.

Why do we need to go through this vicious circle of exhausting the safety margins all the time? It would be better to have a flexible power control.

We agree in large part on the problems, WB. What I don't understand is why your solutions always involve strangling competition in some way? Your answer is always to make the engines the same, or the aero the same, or the budgets the same, etc. You want a spec series, but to me that just isn't in the genes of F1.

[WhiteBlue]

Engineers and physicists will always look at fundamental solutions instead of tampering with symptoms. The formula for power is rather simple and both determining variables (rpm and torque) are easily controlled by modern sensory equipment. Why waste the time to make a particular solution like pneumatic valve springs illegal if you can eradicate the source of the problem. All you have to do is set performance curbs which trigger adjustments of the power limiting curve. Dead easy to do. The engineering challenge will automatically aim at getting the allowed power with less fuel weight which gives the competitive advantage. It is just the opposite of a spec series. You can allow all kinds of solutions that are blocked today.

[Pup]

Engineers and physicists will always look at fundamental solutions instead of tampering with symptoms. The formula for power is rather simple and both determining variables (rpm and torque) are easily controlled by modern sensory equipment. Why waste the time to make a particular solution like pneumatic valve springs illegal if you can eradicate the source of the problem. All you have to do is set performance curbs which trigger adjustments of the power limiting curve. Dead easy to do. The engineering challenge will automatically aim at getting the allowed power with less fuel weight which gives the competitive advantage. It is just the opposite of a spec series. You can allow all kinds of solutions that are blocked today.

Instead of just adding a competitive element to the sport - in this case a race for efficiency - you've entirely replaced one element for another. This may be fine for you, but hardly for me. I have no problem introducing ways to guide development toward efficiency, but to eliminate the battle for performance is contrary to everything that is F1, and racing in general.

I know you'll say that the teams will still be fighting to get from point A to B the quickest, but it will become an exercise in fuel weights and aero efficiency to do so, which is exactly the opposite of what I want to see.

[WhiteBlue]

I'm not advocating to stop the battle for performance. That needs to be a constant part of the sport. I just want to make the necessary curbing more flexible and adjust the power curve more frequently.

Plus I want the stupid aero box game to stop. More design freedom for power limitation should be attractive.

[Pup]

And so you advocate what - if your saying it needs to parallel marketing by the participating manufacturer thats fine am I reading you correctly - and if so I agree V8 V10 V12 rotary whatever - so a open configuration would suit manufacturers which is basically what Roebuck is saying and I agree - road relevancy has NOTHING to do with F1 ALMS LMP NASCAR it never has - talk to the designers/engineers/team owners whatever - Mosely and the FIA may work under that banner but F1 has nothing to do with it at all nor do the other formulas around the globe and why should it - racing should be racing on all levels - this should not be a proving ground for the FIA road tactics - for gods sake have you forgotten what real racing is about building a better mouse trap than your competition and winning - take a life check ace.

Chap, I think it's just in how you approach the issue. We all know that the specific bits and pieces that go into an F1 car have little if anything to do with the family sedan, particularly if you're driving a Holden. But we also know that some broad ideas do eventually filter down; and because of that, it isn't irrational to think that we could gently guide the sport into a position where more of that might happen.

But more importantly, we also have to recognize the suspension of belief that leads us to think, for example, that the V10 that BMW advertised a few years back as being based on their F1 engine actually was in some way. It isn't nearly so important that there is actual road relevance, as it is that there is an honest enough of a veneer that it becomes marketable.

Back to tires as the example - I have a hard time thinking anything Bridgestone does with a racing slick relates in any way to something they sell at Sears. And of course, it doesn't. But what if the tires were treaded*, like they were in the old days? Rationally, I would still know that the compounds and tread patterns and construction they use have nothing to do with everyday tires. Nonetheless, I would irrationally draw more of a connection between the two - enough that perhaps I wouldn't roll my eyes if I saw them advertising some performance tire that had been "developed in F1".


*just an example folks - let's not get into a discussion on treaded tires in F1, which of course would be awesome.

[xpensive]

I don't think the influence from racing developments to roadcars is negligible, there has been quite a few things over the years which has found itself into cars of suburbia. I never thought that my wife's Citroen diesel would have a paddle-shift gearbox.

Pneumatic valves is a poor xample to use the banning-tool if you ask me Pup, when this is an ingenious development to get rid of the hysteresis in the spring-action, which is energy-saving in itself. Surprised not to see it on road-cars yet though.

Anyway, what I would like to see is F1's brains and money shifting it's focus from squeezing out kW to fuel-efficiency.
With today's technology, it would be very simple to cap not only Rpm, but Torque, Power of both. Question is of course how much to open the window, perhaps keeping regulations on size, shape and weight, cap power and leave everything else open?

Other than that, I wish to see active aerodynamics in F1, spending 700 Hp to propel a car at 300 km/h is outright stupid.

[Pup]

I'm not advocating to stop the battle for performance. That needs to be a constant part of the sport. I just want to make the necessary curbing more flexible and adjust the power curve more frequently.

Plus I want the stupid aero box game to stop. More design freedom for power limitation should be attractive.

I get where you're coming from, but I think you're putting restrictions in the very place you need to remove them.

In racing, an improvement in efficiency is only of value if you can spend that efficiency on greater performance. In your proposal, if I make a more efficient engine, I'm not allowed the option of cranking things up to get greater porformance for the same amount of fuel. I can only use less fuel, which means my only performance advantage would come through weight savings. So I ask, why limit the range of solutions? Why not let the teams decide for themselves where to find the best advantage, and add a layer of interest where some teams choose different strategies than others? And if you find that the speeds are approaching whatever you decide the limit should be, then just restrict fuel a bit more. It just seems to be a far simpler solution that doesn't require enforcement, is more interesting to the fans, adds more value for the engine manufacturer, and preserves the DNA of the sport.

[Pup]

Pneumatic valves is a poor xample to use the banning-tool if you ask me Pup, when this is an ingenious development to get rid of the hysteresis in the spring-action, which is energy-saving in itself. Surprised not to see it on road-cars yet though.

It is ingenious, but it's also a dead-end in the sense that, as you point out, it will never be of use outside of racing or some specialized application. The system is too complicated, and there's just no practical advantage to screaming around in your mini-van at 20k rpm. Fun, perhaps.

Sure, if you're not looking for road-relevance or concerned about rev limits, then I'm all for it. Bring on electromagnetic valves, too.

But even leaving road relevance aside, if you wanted to reduce revs, wouldn't it make sense to just eliminate the one bit of kit that created the problem in the first place? The problem, of course, is that these engines have been around long enough to have become a part of the sport, so there's a bit of a reluctance to change it, which I understand.

The art of regulation I think is a lot like bonzai. No, really. If you're doing bonzai, you can't just take a plant and tell it what you want it to do. You can't tell it to grow a leaf here, and a limb there, and to get it all done by next week. It's a partnership, where you guide it's development by encouraging growth in some places, and nipping off growth in others. It's organic and iterative and requires patience and a focus on long term results.

So, think of pneumatic valves as a limb that looked cool at first, but then began to get in the way of other things. The rev-limit solution is akin to just constantly nipping off the end of the limb. It gets the job done, but you're left with a stubby twig that just keeps getting fatter and uglier and more useless. Better to just saw it off at the base, imo, even if it leaves an unsightly gap for a while. Eventually it will get filled in.

And yes, feel free to call me BuddhaPup.