How to make F1 interesting?

last few years I've hardly ever seen a race from start to finish, watch the build up and start, go and mow the lawn or something equally entertaining then come back for the finish!

....I reckon if anyone did come up with four or five points that would guarantee F1 became much more exciting Bernie and Max would make you a millionaire.
2006 was a great season compared to some of the earlier recent years.

I'd say give the drivers a clutch pedal and a gear lever, a return to true slicks and a wider track (the distance between o/side and n/side wheels, not a wider circuit) take away PAS, Traction and Launch Control and only one stipulation on engine size. Open everything else up, brakes, tyres, aerodynamics/downforce etc etc.

The safety aspect has played a big part in stifling the excitement out of F1 with the drivers complaining about safety, they have a right to as it's their neck on the block, I read today a drivers boycott of Monza this year because of "safety issues" may happen. It's a very complex issue with lots of variable permutations you could consider but keeping everyone happy would be virtually impossible.

Very good points Ascari. But aren't some of other motorsports as "safe" as F1 yet much more entertaining?

Something has got to give in F1 if fans are to be brought back.

Originally Posted by VeloceMitch

FIA are attempting to control the costs by various methods, not always succesfully. But in truth the best teams will always win, thats why they are the best. They will wax and wain a bit and new ones will come along, but thats racing and IMO thats how it should be.

What F1 does not need is dumbing down.

Again, I have to respectfully disagree. If the FIA would cap budgets and not enforce so many design patterns on F1 engineers, you'd see more engineering competition, and cars that would be technically more daring.

We could talk at length about the 1976 six-wheeler Tyrrell P34; the 1977 1.5L turbocharged Renault; Colin Chapman's 1978 'ground effect' Lotus; Colin Chapman's 1981 'double chassis' Lotus; the 1991 'high nose' Tyrrell. That sort of creative thinking didn't necessarily come from teams that had always won. They had to show daring innovation and in doing so, they made the show more competitive, thus more attractive.

Now tell me that the FIA is not dumbing down F1 when they ban mass dampers because 'the principle purpose of these devices is to improve the aerodynamic performance of the car'... Come on.

Originally Posted by BigFoot

But aren't some of other motorsports as "safe" as F1 yet much more entertaining?

Something has got to give in F1 if fans are to be brought back.

I agree with you 100%, although I'm always terrified looking at the in-car footage in the WRC.

Something has to be done to draw back the lost fans that have deserted the sport.
Lets see what every team can do with a Rover Mini 1.3L engine in the cars, very tunable but also very fragile. You can gain just as much racing excitement if you level off the playing field and slow everyone down equally. Can you imagine how long that would increase the straights at Silverstone, Spa, Sepang etc etc.
I honestly believe that the glory years of the 60's 70's and 80's were the start of the rot for want of a better word and we had no idea what lay ahead in the 90's and 00's.
I agree that what Pierre points out was a fantastic and exciting time in F1 with all of the development from those great teams and cars but the great quest for more speed slowly started to "dull" the excitement and now although it's great to see a car reaching 225 at the old Hockenheim there is not enough wheel to wheel racing, it's even better to see 2 cars with one going for a move on the other before they reach the corner.

Put it this way, many racing fans think NASCAR is boring because they go round and round and round and follow each other and then the lead changes for another couple of laps and they still go round and round etc etc., but when you consider that most of the time the drivers have the pedal to the floor and maybe gently ease off for turns 1 and 3 then it does become more interesting because you know the slightest error or misjudgement of the "Draft" or the "Line" and you're down 2 or 3 places, there's nothing more frustrating than wanting to pass the car in front but how do you do it when you already have the pedal on the floor. So when you see a car pass another on an Oval and the wife says to me Wow !!! sarcastically, she doesn't get the fact that that move probably started 5 or 6 laps back when the car behind started to use the draft and the line to gain a few more inches and bring him closer and up to a point where a bit of daring is also needed to come out and make the move work.

It's plain and simple that we need more wheel to wheel racing but how we get it, I wish I knew.

Great post Ascari

...remove one of the wheels, that'd make it interesting.............better still remove 2 and call it Motorcycle GP....now that is exciting...

Landmines

I like the three-wheeler idea. Should we have them swap engines for pedals too ??

....how about a cross-roads section like in your old Scalextric Track instead of the bridge. Suzuka in Japan.

So, we want pedal tricycles, zooming around landmines with sporadic cross-roads on the track.

Now, where is Mosley's address...

Nah stick 'em all in factory prepared, slick shod Tuscans with a minimum ground clearance of 150mm and play-doh filled shocks !!!

Hey guys,

at the start, I'll admit I have a bias, as I work for Renault F1 as an Engineer. But I'd also say that gives me a unique perspective.

I find that alot of people have an unreasonable expectation of F1. There wasn't as much overtaking in the good old days as everyone remembers. Highlight reels make things look very different. Back in the day (50-60-70's), you could predict the winner of the next race weeks in advance, and races were won by a lap or more. Nailbiting finishes were very few and far between.

Especially in the last two years there have been a dozen races with unbelievable close finishes, wheel to wheel action and ballsy overtaking. More so than any other time in the last two decades.

Formula 1 is a meritocracy. The best win. Simple. Now when you organise the cars on the grid, in order from fastest to slowest, it's a wonder there is any action at all in a race. theoretically, they should stay in the same order and just spread out over an hour and a half. But instead there is the human element. Budget caps will never work in F1. From what I can see they barely work in football.

But if you look at the current rules, two teams shouldn't be able to share cars. But fours team are doing just that next year. there are always loopholes. If there is a budget cap, teams with money will just setup satelite companies to develop bits, and then buy the development at a cost far below market rates, and subvert the cap.

Rules stability is the only thing that ever gives the smaller teams the chance to catch up with the bigger teams, but because Max and the FIA keep trying to change the rules to "reduce costs" or whatever, it just makes things worse. It takes alot of money to adapt to new rules and the worse off teams just continue to fall back. It cost us a fortune to develope new V8's, when we could of just carried on with V10's. Who did that help?

Unfortunatly the Fia doesn't know what they're doing and are out of control (not to mention corrupt). Although I've got to admit, the medeling and cheating did make 2006 and exciting year.

Aerodynamics are really compicated. you can't make it simple, and you can't unlearn what's been learnt over the last 50 years. F1 has progressed, and that is that. Manual gearboxes wouldn't change the racing at all. The days of unreliable 'boxes and missed shifts are gone, whether it's done by a hydraulic actuator or by a persons hand. The design, engineering and manufacture of the parts is just so good these days.

The tyre war was the best thing for F1. Now that eveyone is on the same tyres, I fear we a set for one of the more boring years of recen times.

I would hate to see F1 with artifically doctered cars to make races exciting. That has never been in the ethos of Formula 1. It's the pinicle of motorsport for a reason. there are plenty of other categories that cater to that sort of artificial racing.
You wouldn' make better footballers play with less studs in thier boots, shoe laces tied together or with some physical handicap to even out the field, would you?

Thanks to everyone whose posted to this thread, it's been very interesting, especialy the last post by Chrispy.

I'll always watch formual 1, it's always been entertaining (for different reasons in different years).


Andy

Chrispy,


Sorry mate, but does working in F1 shield you from the delights of CART, Indycar, LeMans, etc......

Toyota are proof that money does not buy you success, equally Renault has proved that well thought engineering can pay dividends on a proportionately lower budget.

1 make series are exciting - the driver can make the difference in budget.

Manual sequential gearboxes SHOULD be reintroduced - the argument put forward is that the auto shift saves costs on blown engines/gearboxes, so someone is telling porkies Of course, some drivers can drive better 1-handed than others, some can control the car better when cornering and changing gears at the same time - surely these are the elements lacking currently.

Rule stability has tended to lead to reliability rather than allowing innovation. Turbo cars were faster, less reliable, took different corner lines, were harder to drive in the stages when turbos were still all-or-nothing.


You "would hate to see artificially doctored cars" - we have that now anyway...
v8/v10, who cares - let anything be run & let's see engineering solutions - just set a rev limiter at 15000 to reduce the use of exotic materials which cost enormous monies.


Just a few thoughts