ESPImperium wrote:Fuel - Cars are filled up with 200Kg of fuel for the weekend, that includes Free Practice, Quali and Race, with a standardised fuel pump and fuel feed to engine system, making the teams develop more economical engines.
Engines & Gearboxes - Each driver has 5 engines for each season, 1 for testing. Each driver has 3 gearboxes per season, 1 for testing. NO Rebuilds allowed. Each new gearbox or engine will permit a 10 place grid drop, as current rule is. Each engine should not cost more than $450,000, meaning that a team can buy a supply of engines for $5.4m each year. Gearboxes should not cost more than $150,000, meaning that a supply can be bought for $1.2m a season.
Engine Emissions - All engines to be tested for exhaust emissions twice each race weekend. Emissions should fall within UK standards for the £35 a year road tax band. Also monitored by SECU.
Would it be possible to build cars that are capable of maintaining current lap times with those rules - especially with the limit that would put F1 cars in the same tax band as Chris Martin's favourite milk float? No-one would want to
With the 200KG of fuel limit people won't need to turn up for Fridays, as each FP session would be like the first 15 minutes of the old qualifying session but six times the length. A Group B style limit of (say) 125KG per race and calculate that out as a per lap average for quali and practice would be more effective if a fuel limit is needed rather than working that policy in reverse (power limit with fuel economy bonuses).
However, 94 grand is a more sensible cap for an engine than a gearbox.
KERS/Energy Recovery - Allow up to 5 times as much juice as we currently have, but teams have to choose from either 20% of lap-time at maximum power or a "always on" but much lower power output style. Standardised KERS Systems, but have 2 types; Battery and Flywheel. A standardised KERS system can be bought for $900,000 for a season. 4 Wheel drive permitted, but front wheel motors should be restricted to no more than 20% of the power available overall.
Doesn't a standard KERS system defeat the object of it - not reducing the stuff coming out of the tailpipe of an F1 car (which in the grand scheme of things is minimal), but having competition to develop the technology? I'm looking forward to the Williams flywheel system (hopefully) materializing.
Engines Other - No Rev Limits, but cooling systems must be reduced by 30% on current systems. All engines must have a standardised engine mounting system, making it easier for teams to change engine supplier without major surgery or any surgery to shoe-horn an engine in the back of their car.
More standardization in engine moutings would be a good idea but would be difficult to do.
Aero - Reduce front wing size to 2008 size, but with 2009 spec regs. Basically, the width and height, but the look of the 2009 wings. Rear Wings to be made wider, but lower, somewhere in-between 2008 and 2009 wing sizes. Flexible front and rear wings allowed for each team. Current rules for the rest of the car are applicable in a bid for continuity and stability in the rules. Free up some areas, like the centre line.
Surely it would be better to reduce non road-relevant technologies from the aero whilst maintiaining the current things - rather than freedom, what about a specific ban of downforce generating items aside from the front and rear wings, as well as a ban on those sodding dustbin lids by a control wheel? Flexible wings would basically be a full legalization of movable aerodynamic devices which would make the cars faster around corners (however, I estimate that no more than 400hp could be generated by your proposed rules, but that's an unscientific guesstimate).
Tyres - Front and rear tyres to be made 10% smaller in size in the rear, but 20% smaller width wise on the front. Make them look like a 1991-1994 slick tyre. Tyre allocations should be 7 Sets of slicks (5 sets of Primes, 2 sets of options) 4 sets of inters and 4 sets of wets per race. Teams must still use both sets of tyres, but each car must use a set of each in Quali and the race. Making tyre choices more crucial
Good to see that I'm not the only person that feels an extra set of full wets is needed for safety reasons, however I don't think making the tyres small would make them look better - maybe widen them to make them look a little 70s/80s.
Suspension - 251% of all suspension components must be made of non-carbon materials on the front, and 60% of all suspension components in the rear must be made of non-carbon materials.
Why not go the whole hog and totally ban carbon from the suspension, like F3 and Le Mans? Carbon fibre suspension is not road relevant at all, as for the forseeable future it will not be viable to fit non-performance cars with CF suspension due to the cost.
General Others - Car weights to increase to 625KG to makes sure larger drivers aren’t pushed away from the sport. Non budget capped cars will have a 20kg weight placed above their gearbox in a aid to make them less driveable to give the budget capped teams a driveability advantage.
Nice to see that someone agrees with me that larger drivers need to be retained, the FIA have raised the minimum weight to 625kg. However, one issue is that it will be used as movable ballast by the lighter drivers, so if you were to stick a jockey in the car you would have a lot of scope for that. I propose a minimum weight for the driver in clothing, so that drivers who are under the minimum weight will have to carry ballast in the form of a weighted vest or under the seat if it courses fatigue issues - weighted vests are used in training for various sports, but I think wearing one whilst driving an F1 car might not be as pleasant an experience.
Telemetry - All teams must use a standardised telemetry system, all relayed in real time -1 lap to every team can see where each car is. Telemetry is made wholly available 90 minutes after a session to everyone. Limited live Telemetry is available to fans via F1 Live timing, but wholly 90 minutes after the session.
Sounds good that more should be publicised, but surely if everything was live it would be better for TV, like showing a driver's brake temperatures as they are forming up, or comparing cornering Gs at one corner - or for that matter showing a driver's heart rate rise during a pit stop. OK, F1 drivers don't always wear heart rate monitors but that's one thing that could be interesting.
Sporting Rules - Pre Season scruteneering, lets avoid the debacle we had this year with the DDD. If the scruteneers deem it legal at a certain date, its legal for the rest of the season. Same goes for advantages found mid season as well, if its deemed legal, its legal for the season.
Sounds sensible, unless anything grossly unsporting is found.
Teams - No team should have no more than 100 people at each race weekend, that includes engineers, press officers, team management. Hospitality staffing is also included. Drivers and Named driver assistants are also excluded, but each driver must only have no more than one assistant. Hospitality areas in the paddock are limited to the size of the size of the current Brawn GP/Williams/Renault models, no massive pieces of architecture like the McLaren one.
The manufacturers want to have their corporate hospitality to keep and gain sponsors as well as brownie points from Tokyo/Stuttgart/Maranello/Paris/Delete as Appropriate. Unless things have changed, dishing out food to people from sponsors won't make your cars faster. No prawn sandwich to a bloke from Vodafone gives you 25hp. However, a significantly lower cap on the actual people that do deal with the cars is clearly a sensible idea, Brawn probably have less guys there but it's not skeleton staff, and they work well.
BUDGET CAP - Budget capped teams will all have to used Standardised engines, gearboxes, KERS and suspension components. Budget cap will be set at an initial £75million, increasing or decreasing each year by world rate of inflation.
What about fixing it to the amount Bernie (under)pays the teams to put on a show for him to flog (or after the glorious revolution FOTA should be buying it, the revenue shares as BE would be out the way).
Some nice ideas that are practical, some nice ideas that aren't.
