Forking my grousing out of the F1 2024 thread; worth ignoring!

I'm starting a thread for this, which I hope/expect to die. It's in response to a subtopic in the F1 2024 thread which I half regret stirring up, and I'm sticking this here because that thread was getting back to folks enjoying discussion of F1 and it didn't need more of my grousing about that series. I don't recommend bothering, but the context is here: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/formula-1-2024-season/260268/page1/

In reply to alfadriver :

The Pinnacle. It is because we say it is. But it's a chicken and egg problem. I really think that if a new series had F1's issues with the ability to race, prescriptive design, contrived rules for both construction and competition, it would never even survive to its second season. F1 gets to keep trundling along because it's F1™, and retains the luminaries. That's not nothing; they are the very best, and would be if they were racing Formula Vee. My point, such as it is, is that the FIA no longer really deserves these people, but unless and until everyone agrees on a different pinnacle, that's where the funding will be and where the best drivers and engineers will remain. If something has enough problems, it makes sense to question whether it should be the pinnacle regardless of whether the heir is obvious, or even extant yet.

I think we agree that BOP and DRS are band-aids because the racing would otherwise not be compelling. Which tools are acceptable is a matter of opinion. I don't love BOP, but I feel that it makes sense to try to make changes that simply reduce the gaps in capability. DRS, to me, feels too much like the Mario Kart algorithm of "you're behind right now in this race, here's a boost." It's not addressing the question of whether car A lacks capability compared to car B, it's just making it possible for the car behind to make a pass that the current cars are incapable of doing for too much of the time without that intervention. Maybe it was a necessary step, but for it to be in its fourteenth year with no sunset in sight feels like they've failed at what should have been a (the?) top priority, if a really hard one. The lack of a better solution suggests to me that the people running F1 are not of the same caliber as the people racing F1 (it feels like a management issue, as F1s technical department has usually been staffed by former team technical heads, right? I was just sanity checking myself and read about Tim Goss' departure as technical director, with an observation about the FIA being unwilling to make changes...)

They've tried smaller wings, but have they tried no wings? I'm not an aerodynamicist, but it seems to me that splitters, dive planes, etc should be much less affected by dirty air than wings. Wings are really efficient, so small ones have a relatively large contribution. But if they lose all that efficiency in dirty air, we can't without intervention.

All credit to Keith for the idea, sign me up for closed chassis. They're only notionally open anything right now with the pods, tire covers, and halos, and this aligns with my curiosity about losing the wings. Tradition? Fangio didn't have wings. At some level, we have what we have through the power of marketing and perception. At some point it's going to be time to celebrate a new direction rather than a tenuous link to historical cars. And that will be up to the FIA (or up to someone disrupting the whole thing with a new series, but I can't imagine funding that) because there isn't room in the rules for a team to show up with a different answer that solves the problem for them and changes the way cars are built like the moves to mid engine, the adoption of wings, or the introduction of ground effect. Fan cars? What if we brought that back and basically made wings and tunnels redundant? I don't love it, but perhaps it's a way to have downforce relatively unaffected by surrounding traffic and with enough control and capacity to avoid issues like porpoising and losing all downforce with small changes in ride height? Maybe it's a terrible idea, but at least I've contributed something to provide scale for the sort of change I think F1 needs to consider.

Thanks for reading, apologies for the tangent.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Pinnacle can be pinnacle until some other series comes along and displaces it.  No other series combines this level of racing with this level of engineering.  Not really even close to it.

And going back to one other thing you called F1- WWE, given that you like BOP, then you also like racing as entertainment.  BOP is to keep the eyes on the racing so to keep the manufacturers money in the series.  And I'm not really sure how to integrate BOP into F1.  DRS at least means that a driver has the ability in a faster car to pass someone else.  Without it, faster cars get stuck behind slower ones- and we still see that with DRS train.  It's not perfect, and the goal of the new rules was to make it irrelevant- but that's not working.

No wings?  I can't see that possibility- they have been on F1 cars for longer than F1 has been F1.  It's why people who build winged cars "F1 style cars" afterall.  Given the hate of the recent turbo V6 given one of the great drivers drove an identical sounding turbo V6, I don't think traditions dating back to Fangio would go over very well.

As I see it, the FIA and F1 should enforce their rule to strictly enforce the wake sizes.  The Race covered recently that that have bailed on doing that until '26, but they were supposed to regulate *in season* wing updates to keep the wake small enough to follow in corners.  That was actually stated in the original rules for these new cars, and it's a real shame that they got off of it so quickly.  But at the same time, they may want to increase the minimum sizes for cooling- as it seems that car cooling is as much a problem as tire wear when following close behind.

F1 put a lot of effort to get the cars close to eliminate DRS- they need to not throw all of that effort away.  But even that probably wont fix dominant teams.  All series have them.  Just a reality of racing.

FWIW. I think it is great that you have started this discussion on high level motorsports. Separating it from the 2024 F1 thread is a good idea too. 

I have my opinions on F1, endurance car racing, Indycar etc. However, it is based on my observations of those series' starting from the mid 60s. It is not as technically based as some here have in their memory. Do I recall some of the technical specs - yes some, but I cannot pull them out of my arce and argue them in a way I would like to.

I will say that IMO sports (all types) are entertainment. But the entertainment aspect should never, at least in an ideal world, override / dictate the "fair" competitive nature of sports.

L5wolvesf said:

 

I will say that IMO sports (all types) are entertainment. But the entertainment aspect should never, at least in an ideal world, override / dictate the "fair" competitive nature of sports.

How is it "fair" that a Mustang, a Corvette, and a Ferrari are all totally equal?  To the point that you have to force them to be equal.  As you say, it's the nature of the beast now.

alfadriver said:

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Pinnacle can be pinnacle until some other series comes along and displaces it.  No other series combines this level of racing with this level of engineering.  Not really even close to it.

I'll meet you part way; F1 is currently the pinnacle, but I don't think it deserves to hoover up all the talent and money that makes that so. We can do better. Too much is too contrived. I agree that the engineering and driving is at the highest level of any series on earth thanks to the eyeballs and dollars having that title draws, but I think DRS, the "passing button" implementation of KERS, the tire usage rules that appear to exist as a third leg of the "dear Bob, let there be passing somehow" concern... It leaves me cold. There are are too many interventions to feel like the core capabilities of the cars and drivers are the biggest part of what's going on.

And going back to one other thing you called F1- WWE, given that you like BOP, then you also like racing as entertainment.  BOP is to keep the eyes on the racing so to keep the manufacturers money in the series.  And I'm not really sure how to integrate BOP into F1.  DRS at least means that a driver has the ability in a faster car to pass someone else.  Without it, faster cars get stuck behind slower ones- and we still see that with DRS train.  It's not perfect, and the goal of the new rules was to make it irrelevant- but that's not working.

I do not like BOP, I regard it as a necessary evil. I think the "add ten kilos to this car" version is infinitely preferable to DRS, but not nearly as good as the "let the teams well down the ladder have some more resources to catch up." Of course all three of these operate on different time scales. DRS, in addition to striking me as incredibly gimmicky, has been around so long that several teams at the FIA should have lost their jobs for failing to make it irrelevant. It's okay that it's okay with some people, and it continues to exist and do its thing. But it remains a big blocker for my interest in the series. I cannot take racing with DRS seriously. I see what you mean about things being even worse if we had the status quo minus DRS, but that's the failure for the better part of two decades to find a real solution. Lots of people got paid unimaginable sums of money to work on that problem, but here we are. I don't have to have a better idea to have the right say that this one doesn't put my butt in a seat.

No wings?  I can't see that possibility- they have been on F1 cars for longer than F1 has been F1.  It's why people who build winged cars "F1 style cars" afterall.  Given the hate of the recent turbo V6 given one of the great drivers drove an identical sounding turbo V6, I don't think traditions dating back to Fangio would go over very well.

The marketing tail wags the dog of F1. All pro racing is entertainment, and there has to be a show. But at some point the intractability of creating racing with wings may force the issue. I'm not convinced the current viewing success of F1 is about the quality of the product so much as the same sort of thing NASCAR had a while back, with a flurry of coverage in popular culture about the drivers, followed by a marketing push (and LV and Miami have even made people who live in F1 uncomfortable with the unhinged glitz unconnected to the actual racing). I can't say folks will walk away as the hype dies down, or that they'll be disinterested for the same reasons I am. But I know why I'm disinterested, and we've seen this sort of attention bump before.

F1 seems to own the prestige of being the top tier; at some point they may need to spend some of that capital along with marketing budget to convince the world that the Next Generation Car (whatever it is) IS what the top tier looks like.

As I see it, the FIA and F1 should enforce their rule to strictly enforce the wake sizes.  The Race covered recently that that have bailed on doing that until '26, but they were supposed to regulate *in season* wing updates to keep the wake small enough to follow in corners.  That was actually stated in the original rules for these new cars, and it's a real shame that they got off of it so quickly.  But at the same time, they may want to increase the minimum sizes for cooling- as it seems that car cooling is as much a problem as tire wear when following close behind.

TIL; I almost said something in my wild stab at "what could they do?" about quantifying wake; I didn't know there was that much framework for it. I like both of these ideas very much.

F1 put a lot of effort to get the cars close to eliminate DRS- they need to not throw all of that effort away.  But even that probably wont fix dominant teams.  All series have them.  Just a reality of racing.

While dominant teams can detract, they don't bother me a fraction as much as the contrived interventions.

alfadriver said:

L5wolvesf said:

I will say that IMO sports (all types) are entertainment. But the entertainment aspect should never, at least in an ideal world, override / dictate the "fair" competitive nature of sports.

How is it "fair" that a Mustang, a Corvette, and a Ferrari are all totally equal?  To the point that you have to force them to be equal.  As you say, it's the nature of the beast now.

I don’t know how it is "totally fair" since I don’t know the class you are referring to. However, on the face of it is not.

I imagine it could be somewhat close to "fair" with a Mustang, Corvette, and Ferrari in one class. The rules set addresses differences with a combination of weight (minimums and/or hp/weight), restrictions to displacement and/or intake to get things closer to equally competitive. And I am sure there are other ways to address the situation too.

In reply to Jesse Ransom :

Here's the thing, F1 viewship is up.  Up enough to put on a night race in Las Vegas.  I don't think they see that they have an issue.  Which is probably why they are not enforcing their own priorities.  Whatever you think about what is happening, I honestly think they don't care.

They don't seem to care much about me, either, I didn't bother to watch the LV race because it was at 1am.  And am not really interested in seeing another night street race, no matter how good it was.  Can't afford the race, nor can we afford to go to Miami.  It is cheaper to go to Spa or Monza for us than those two races.  

In reply to alfadriver :

We're agreed!

I mean, I think that's short-term thinking on their part if they think the great numbers are a reward for a job well done and not riding the aftermath of Drive to Survive and the buzz and marketing pumped in on its heels. But I agree wholeheartedly that they do not give the ghost of a rat's backside what I think.

I'd rather go to Spa or Monza than Las Vegas or Miami anyhow, not that being the less expensive half of that set makes it easy.

I think DRS is fine.  It's not enough to allow a slow car past a fast one, but it will allow a fast one to complete a pass.  Do you want a string of 19 cars behind Lance Stroll for 2 hours because he made a smart pit stop before the SC?

The cars are too good now.  A guy has to be a bit careful as a series promoter, because otherwise you get a 917 with a flat 12, win pretty much every race from 1969 to 1975, and kill a once thriving series.

Too much money, too much talent.  Everything is so very good these days.  In all sports.  I stand by my idea, with stick and ball sports, that every decade or so, the field of play has its size increased by the same percentage the players grew, or the equipment improved, or the training developed.

Can't do that with racing.  Too much chance of a Mercedes taking off and killing 83 people.  Or Kyle Larson landing in the top row at Daytona after getting sideways at 310mph...  Until we can defeat some laws of aerodynamics, we are stuck.