How to make F1 interesting?

Originally Posted by Crispy

regererative braking and hybrid systems are again allowed in F1, then the technical development can again contribute meaningfully to road car developement.

Good point though the proposed* (or was it journo's imagination) electric power boost button to help overtake seems a little too gimmicky.


*Not sure where I read about it though...

EDIT: Double post

EDIT: Triple post

Electric assistance is indeed part of the FIA's new rules program to make F1 greener. About time too!

It's unlikely though that the electric power would be used just as a push top pass button (which, by the way, all of the teams still have with naturally aspirated engines now). Instead you would use the torque from the electric system to boost acceleration from a corner.
That's the real strength of electric power anyway, acceleration.

But it looks like the intermediate stage is going to be regereative braking that stores braking energy in a flywheel and then relases it upon acceleration.

Originally Posted by andrew.deackes

so from the inside of formula 1 what area's would you change?

Picking up after a couple of weeks....

To me F1 is the pinacle of motorsport, so it may as well be usefull while it's at it. Motorsport always used to push road car technology, so why stop. So far, engine technology, brakes, suspension, aerodynamics, reliability testing, computer strategies have all helped road cars.

Even today, the computer design processes and rapid prototyping that was developed for or with aerospace has been used to increase the quality of road car production. But that's not readily tangible. You can't go down the pub and say "my clio was designed on Catia, a system perfected through it's use on the Renualt F1 Championship winning car. That's just stupid.

The sort of productive and relevant to the real world things I'd like to see from F1 are:
*Biofuels mandated, as this is the future for the IC engine. Let's have the technology developed and held up at the pinacle.
*Regenerative braking/energy conservation/hybrid technology

To make the racing better:
*bring back open tyre rules OR if you're going o stick to control tyres, make sure they work BETTER at high slip angles to encourage the cars to be sideways.
*Reduce the size and effectiveness of front and rear wings
*Open up the diffuser, or re-instate ground effects. This will reduce the susceptability to turbulence and increase overtaking
*Limit or ban refulling. This will mean the cars charicteristics change between full and empty tanks, as will car performance, making more of a challenge for drivers, and the variation in car performance might help the racing over race distance
*Points for Pole and esp for fastest lap. This means that if you're fast but midfield, you can through caustion to the wind trying to at least get a point or be spectacular.

There are some other things, but that will do for now.

Originally Posted by Chrispy

*Limit or ban refulling

Not sure about that as refuelling adds an element of strategy to the races

Originally Posted by Chrispy

*Points for Pole and esp for fastest lap.

With you on this 100%

yeah, i do prefer to watch superbike, rally or touring cars over F1, just too damn boring!

Originally Posted by EA

rally

Somehow don't feel Rallies (though awesome to see live) come out well on TV.

BF, yeah, refueling does add strategy, but:
a) punters don't seem to like it because it makes the brains on the pit wall important
b) You might see drivers who have used up thier tyres under heavy fuel stoping for a new set to attack a car infront that has done a longer, more gentle stint. In the same way it'll give the midfielders an attack attitude- nothing to loose- maybe?

I like rally, and while it's exciting to be there, hear the cars and see the action, I prefer it on TV. You get to see more than one section of the stage, there's no waiting, no treks into the bush = easy action. Unfortunatly it doesn't have the appeal of years gone by. Hopefully Subaru sort out the new car and Ford get a bit more consistant, and it could be a good year. But I think Rally had a golden age, and it's suffering a bit now. Hopefully it will pick up soon.

Back to F1:
Should also make the cars lighter. Down to 550kg with driver I think. This will reduce the ballast teams play with, and make the cars more of a handfull in slow corners.

Originally Posted by Chrispy

punters don't seem to like it because it makes the brains on the pit wall important

Fair point

I think every circuit should have a water sprinkler system,that could be computer controlled to switch on completely randomly during a race.

Spiderman, I hear what you're saying. It sounds fun and it's a popular theory. Probably because wet races tend to be a bit more random and exciting than dry ones. This was in the past helped by the tyre war, so bridgestones and Michelins gave different performance in phases of the race.

On the down side, it's expensive, and near impossible at circuits like Melbourne, Bahrain, Turkey. (Even though Albert Park has a lake, large most of Aus is in drought at the moment, and there's an effective hose pipe ban). Plus, what a waste of water in these green times.

Not a great thing, but you need to have some boring dry races to make the wet ones exciting. It's like if you only drink champange with breakfast lunch and dinner, what do you celebrate with?

But mostly, I think that track conditions/weather are up to the deity of your choice. If you start artifically hobbling races, it damages the sport, and, where do you stop? Random punctures? Hadicapping cars/drivers? Texting Big brother and voting for a drive though penalty? Ridiculous, yes. But what difines F1 as the top league of motorsport? I wouldn't like it F1 became too stage managed. And I know when I type it out I come down hard on things, but I guess I want to keep things semi realistic. If I spend too much time entertaining ideas that are not workable or positive for the sport, well, I don't think it's good.

More ice racing. And way more race horses.

Bridgestone's F1 snow tyre
03 February 2007

Bridgestone Motorsport has produced a special Limited Edition F1 Potenza
Snow Tyre at the request of the BMW Sauber F1 Team which will be conducting a demonstration run of their F1.06 car this Sunday [4 February] at the prestigious White Turf horse racing event in St.Moritz, Switzerland.

The BMW Sauber F1 Team is running the car at the request of team sponsor
Credit Suisse, who are main sponsors and partners of the event which is this
year celebrating 100 years of international horse racing in St.Moritz.

Due to the extreme conditions in which the BMW Sauber F1.06 will run, the
special F1 snow tyres, produced by Bridgestone Motorsport's Technical Centre
in Tokyo, feature 420 studs on each of the front tyres and 588 studs on each
of the rear tyres. It took two Bridgestone technicians over 16 hours to
manually insert all 2,016 studs into the double layer of tread compound on
one set of tyres alone. Similarly, the horses racing on the frozen lake at
St. Moritz will also have four studs and a rubber plate attached to each of
their front and rear shoes.

Made from tungsten and embedded in aluminium casings, Bridgestone's tyre
studs have been designed to specifically provide reliable grip on ice and
hard-packed snow, exactly the conditions which can be expected at the event
where night time temperatures have recently been dropping to
approximately -15°Celsius.

Wow, that's pretty radical.

By the way, I read that Bernie's thinking about having night-races perhaps.

That can't be surely good for safety

I like the idea of night races. Champcar started doing it years ago, at Portland if I recall, and it worked quite well. Instead of fitting headlights to the cars with cable ties, they floodlight the track. From a driving perspective it's not much worse than daytime racing racing, and certainly better than running in the wet, or afternoon running in winter testing.

And the cars would look great with flames from the exhaust and glowing brakes in the twighlight. That one of the reasons I love sportscars and LeMans so much!

Hmmm, still not convinced. I guess though it may ease problems of excessive heat for certain races.