Fia Announces Standard Engine Tender

[DOF_power 0]

HAVE THEY LOST THEIR MIND?!?! (obvious answer) for God's shake, i dont want to see a common series with Fiat Seicentos or Leon...

F1 is the king of motorsports and thats what attracts big manufacters...ok, lets have one car for everyone which is exactly the same, excuse me but i want to see what's the best every manufacter has to offer, the highest end technology in the world! and besides...less engine manufacters= less money for the sport...(oh, that hurt,did it Bernie?)

...and so we reach the conclusion...(i am sure that will cause a huge explosion) -just guess which engine they are going to choose- lets have definetely the sport they want and love: Ferrari-1

BRING PORSCHE, BRING LAMBORGHINI BACK INSTEAD (why not Buggatti too ) and allow them a maximum budget to design and built an engine with no restrictions, just the cost! wouldnt be that nice?

Amen brother, amen.

[The Rumble Strip 0]

F1 should not be a spec series.

End of.

[Rainmaster 7]

I'll believe it when I see it happen, I'm fairly sure it won't. Let's see.

[mikathegreat2 2]

Cutting down costs! It's all about cutting down costs these days! At this rate, Le Mans will surely be the dominant motorpsort over F1!

[The Burro 0]

Because we saw how well this worked for CART/Champ Car...

Funny, isn't it, that CART's hey-day was when there was the most diversity among cars, engines, drivers, and circuits. Then Champ Car died under a spec car, spec engine, cookie-cutter format. Not a coincidence at all.

[DOF_power 0]

Because we saw how well this worked for CART/Champ Car...

Funny, isn't it, that CART's hey-day was when there was the most diversity among cars, engines, drivers, and circuits. Then Champ Car died under a spec car, spec engine, cookie-cutter format. Not a coincidence at all.

True and the same is happening to NASCAR.

ALMS and sportcar/endurance racing in general is enjoying a renaissance meanwhile.

[pabloh20 1]

I am sure the tender will be rigged so that Ferrari win the contract.

This is so hilarious, I can't stop laughing imagining all the people on this forum when they would have read this thread. Doh!_No_More_Renault_BMW spilling his drink all over his computer

Ron having to field Mclaren-Ferraris

Seriously, who cares? Everyone complained about the engine freeze and noone even notices any more - people have been celebrating all the different winners this year - That would not have happened without the engine freeze

Innovation in F1 is overrated.

Best solution:

Bring Cosworth back in. Neutral and they already have an existing V8 which they can improve and sell to all the teams

Yeah, just like thos Ferrari ECUs they use!

No, wait................

[Oli 1]

Dumb idea as usual. It wouldn't be the death of racing but it's certainly a step in the right direction. *I anticipate the threat of another breakaway series, then probably Max will have the sense to abandon the plans or at least replace them with something a little more conducive to good racing.

Why are they so obsessed with pandering to the STRs of this world? Nobody gives a f*ck about them. Tell them to p1ss off and let the grown ups play.

Grrrrrrr.......

[The Burro 0]

True and the same is happening to NASCAR.

ALMS and sportcar/endurance racing in general is enjoying a renaissance meanwhile.

Agreed. The National Association for Spec Car Arranged Races sucks now. Whatever happened to Ron Bouchard from MA pulling the ol' slingshot on Texas Terry and Jaws to take an upset at Dega in a boxy ol' Buick with the aerodynamics of a big box department store?

ALMS is ace, I can't wait for Laguna; every race at Laguna has been great this year, and I imagine ALMS will be no exception.

The F1 engine tender should reflect sports car racing in the sense that any number of cylinders and any form of power should be allowed. The only involvement the FIA need to take in the regulations are things like keeping the winglets at a minimum, the rear wings at a maximum, and tires that make Americans look fit.

[Max Mosley 2]

As to what I do and do not know, well that's something I'm pretty confident that you don't know.

Sorry if I sounded like I was picking on you before. All I meant was that none of us, me included, know how the Ferrari engine is better than the Renault equivalent, or what the thinking behind each design was.

F1 is, primarily, a constructors championship. The drivers championship is an adjunct. Paul, like most of us, views the competition as a combination of both. Take one away and the series is diminished. If I want to see a contest that concentrates solely on driver skill then I'll look elsewhere (and do). If I want to see a contest that is driven purely by the need to overcome technical obstacles then I'll look elsewhere (and do).

Yeah, each to their own then. I just think the technical obstacles are so mundane and boring, and the confidentiality of the research means we can't even appreciate what limited ingenuity does go on behind closed doors. F1 is basically science for them what know nowt about science. It's the Liebfraumilch of technology, the doggerel of innovation - I'm just doing my job by showing you where to find true technical genius.

no matter how much you don't want to admit it but if Ferrari leaves F1 dies because Ferrari "fans" make up over half the people who attend races. Half of those "fans" only go to races anyway because they want to see a Ferrari in general and if there isn't one they would not show up and the other half are real Ferrari fans that would leave just the same.

Ferrari does have quite a few fans, but I think you're exaggerating a fair bit there, my friend.

Well that and customer cars - which people seem to hate as well. Yet I didn't see anyone complain about Fettel kid's win :S

Yup. Spot on. Your point about customer cars and the engine freeze being forgotten is a great one too.

Because we saw how well this worked for CART/Champ Car...

Funny, isn't it, that CART's hey-day was when there was the most diversity among cars, engines, drivers, and circuits. Then Champ Car died under a spec car, spec engine, cookie-cutter format. Not a coincidence at all.

I'm definitely all for diversity in drivers and circuits - the new tracks have done pretty well this year and last, all things considered. It's the same with racing series around the world: diversity rules. CCWS/CART, IRL, NASCAR etc are/were all very different to F1, and to each other to some extent. What works for one series isn't necessarily right for the rest. F1 can easily offer better racing with spec cars than it does atm, whereas I remember watching CART way back when just for the sheer excitement of it. Imho CART's USP was its entertaining racing whereas F1 clearly doesn't rely on that so much! It's a real shame CART went awry because I always thought it complemented F1 pretty well.

[The Burro 0]

Graham, consider what you said in response to me. You want the series to all have their own identity, but with everything going spec, what's the point? F1's identity should be all about the fastest cars, the biggest egos, and the technology. It may not produce the best on-track product, but then again, wasn't the racing the best at the end of the 80s and the early 90s when it was like that? IRL's identity should be a bunch of suppliers with a bunch of different tracks and different drivers. NASCAR's identity should be more like what touring cars are now; cheaper, look stock, can run side-by-side, average guys you can relate to driving them. And yet all three are spec, and you're fine with that.

Also, you said CART was a good compliment for F1 as it was entertaining. There's a lot of entertaining racing out there: ALMS, BTCC, Aussie V8s, etc, etc. So why does F1 have to be the action-packed one? You said F1 doesn't rely on entertainment so much, so why does it need it? Clearly you still are interested in it without it.

And if you think for a damn second spec cars will make the racing better, you're wrong. Equal cars can't exactly pass eachother, and the drivers are more evenly matched then you'd think. With the tracks not being the best for overtaking, all you have to do is block. Instead of a spread-out parade, you'd simply get a parade where everyone was nose-to-tail, but not actually doing something. It'd be a big single-file freight train. Don't believe me? NASCAR tried it with their spec car in 2007 and succeeded at a few pass-free races.

The only way to do real passing on a road course is to have fearless drivers, and today's society doesn't create that. The big-balls drivers of the days of old reflect that time period in general, and I imagine it's more related than you'd think. The other part is fenders: if you don't have to worry about making contact, it's okay to make a big-balls attempt, which is why I find sports cars and touring cars a lot of fun. If you increase the rigidity of the cars with metal suspension bits, as Mike has suggested, which they used way back when, you'd be able to make a little more contact, and maybe you'd see some passing, but spec cars still won't be the answer.

If teams are willing to and able to spend the obscene money they do on F1 programs, why do we need to cut the costs? If you want a feel-good story, which I love to see, watch other racing, as I do. I get my fill on that good old mushy gushy stuff in other series, and then F1 is just a big old war. It's its identity, which seems to be something you care about. Why ruin that?

[Max Mosley 2]

El Burro, you make some good points and I agree with a lot of what you say. Out of all the racing series there are in the world, I actually don't want F1 to be the action-packed one - like you say, it's never been that way round and I think F1 fans are fine with that, interestingly. I'd rather see F1 be the ultimate test of driver skill (at least for its class of racing etc), and like you say there are other series that are much better suited to being unpredictable and exciting. CART was good how it was, for example, and Rockingham 2001 was one of the best endings I remember to a race. So, I'd like spec cars in F1 to promote driver skill, not to improve overtaking. We could get more overtaking with spec cars than we currently do, but I'm not saying spec cars are the best way to get overtaking, nor that F1 should ever be the racing series most full of overtaking manoeuvres.

You're quite right that the drivers are exceptionally evenly matched on pace. Most people think there are bigger differences than there are. Nevertheless driver performance does fluctuate during a race: Hamilton is fitter than most, but he uses his tyres up very quickly, not to mention he makes plenty of mistakes! All these factors could be made more important in spec cars than they are now: we can make the cars more physically demanding, easier to spin, and tyres harder to conserve etc. The cars could be made more suited for overtaking than they currently are, and we could introduce more variables for the drivers to play with, like opting for more qualifying pace as opposed to race pace. All in all there's plenty of scope for more overtaking than we get atm.

[goferrarigo 0]

I'll believe it when I see it happen, I'm fairly sure it won't. Let's see.

Likewise

[The Burro 0]

Graham, spec cars to promote driver skill aren't a good idea, though. You may get an idea of who is best suited for the spec car itself, but that doesn't mean it will be the pinnacle of driving. Having to adjust to a new car each year really challenges the drivers, and innovation will lead to faster racecars that will therefore be harder to drive. If F1 allowed the teams to create cars that were absolute beasts, you'd really see what driver skill is. And overtaking is still a part of driving skill; it's one of the toughest aspects of racing, in my limited experience, so you can't really have your driver-skill sport if you don't have good regulations for overtaking, which I don't see spec cars being. Even though my regs would add a lot of grip, which would facilitate overtaking, but not make it so easy it got to the point of dull, mindless predictability, they'd also make the cars hard to drive. While grip sounds easy, the faster the car is, the more fit you have to be to drive it, and the more sharp your skills have to be to overtake. The cars of the Senna and Prost era certainly separated the men from the boys, hence those two rose to the top.

[aussief1 4]

It's just politics and it's not gonna happen.

I'll believe it when I see it happen, I'm fairly sure it won't. Let's see.

I agree, and say a pray in the hope that we are right.

No way can I see the manufactures allowing this to happen. They have invested far too much time and money into these engines. The freeze and the parity is a kick in the guts enough, but to have to run some other companies engine in the masterpiece of engineering (their F1 car) of their brand is nothing short of a complete joke of mammoth proportions.

Who are the FIA to dictate to the multi billion dollar manufactures that they are spending too much. No one is holding a gun to their head when they allocate the annual budget to their respective F1 program. They make their own decisions and all manufactures involved run an organisation a hell of allot better than the FIA.

I really wonder why I bother with this sport sometimes, and that's a sad thing to say.

[Max Mosley 2]

El Burro, good job, good job, as John McCain would say, once he's done telling us about his mate Joe the plumber. If we want, we can have new cars each year, each race, each minute of every race. You can have all the adaptation and variety you want with spec cars. Overtaking is definitely a skill but I think we could bring more of that into play than we currently have. I'd love to see beasts of cars in F1 but you don't need innovation to do that. Back in the '80s the capability was there to make cars faster than ours. The rules in F1 have to be so restrictive because it's so damn hard to build a race car that isn't faster than a current F1 car. With spec cars we wouldn't need any of that and the cars could be as fast as humanly drivable at a fraction of the current cost. And best of all, the driver who did the best job would actually win.

[mikathegreat2 2]

True and the same is happening to NASCAR.

ALMS and sportcar/endurance racing in general is enjoying a renaissance meanwhile.

ALMS is beast! There was 1 point in the Petit Le Mans where there was a few LMP's battling for 4th or whatever while lapping about 5 slower GT2 cars! Now that's racing!

[maure 1]

The ability of a team to bring together a relevant budget is part of the competition.

Restrictions is what makes the sport expensive since the search for alternatives is persecuted.

The 'knowledge' of fans regarding technical aspects of the sports is irrelevant. If democracy were to be evaluated based on the 'knowledge' voters have of government and of the politicians running for office, elections would be eliminated.

F1 will crumble if the big teams (manufacturers) pull out.

To cheer on regulations that force all of us to dress and eat equally poorly simply means that we are a sorry looking bunch... of idiots.

[Oli 1]

Absolutely.

[goferrarigo 0]

Nice to see you back Nathan, i was wondering where you were...

[The Burro 0]

ALMS is beast! There was 1 point in the Petit Le Mans where there was a few LMP's battling for 4th or whatever while lapping about 5 slower GT2 cars! Now that's racing!

Gotta agree with my boy Danny here, ALMS is just the best thing there really is out there that isn't local. Those boys no how to race and those cars are just awful nice, but you know, I've said it before if they're all like that, ALMS isn't as special, so it's nice to get the 11 race treat and I can't wait for Monterrey this weekend, even with tape-delayed coverages those races wehre the P2 cars can really run with the Audi and beat it are always good, you know the best races all year were like that. We need shorter circuits in ALMS, those big wide fast ones aren't as good, though they have some appeal, but I like the street courses for 'em.

And yeah, nice to see Nathan around these parts. We need more Aussies.

I think we all gotta be smart and start a rival series before anyone else. Let's get planning. My idea, so I get to lead. DOF can write the regs. Graham can be the pit lizard*, Jay can hire grid girls, maure can walk, Jez can send me some Aussie adult beverages in exchange for power, and elgo can organize our support series: Formula Donkey.

*If F1 doesn't call them pit lizards, I mean those generic blonde slut-like women who aren't dating any driver or anyone, they're just kind of there, and conveniently placed in front of all the TV cameras. Their one purpose in life is to make sure every driver gets the clap.

[aussief1 4]

And best of all, the driver who did the best job would actually win.

Formula One has always been about the best driver / engineering combination. Why change what the sport has been built on now???

The ability of a team to bring together a relevant budget is part of the competition.

Restrictions is what makes the sport expensive since the search for alternatives is persecuted.

The 'knowledge' of fans regarding technical aspects of the sports is irrelevant. If democracy were to be evaluated based on the 'knowledge' voters have of government and of the politicians running for office, elections would be eliminated.

F1 will crumble if the big teams (manufacturers) pull out.

To cheer on regulations that force all of us to dress and eat equally poorly simply means that we are a sorry looking bunch... of idiots.

Good post.

Nice to see you back Nathan, i was wondering where you were...

Hey AJ, good to be back mate. I was down in Bathurst for the race again this year, and wasn't able to catch the Japanese GP until last night, hence the reason not being on the boards!!

And yeah, nice to see Nathan around these parts. We need more Aussies.

We sure do, it's only really Jez and I being the regular Australian contingent

[The Burro 0]

El Burro, good job, good job, as John McCain would say, once he's done telling us about his mate Joe the plumber. If we want, we can have new cars each year, each race, each minute of every race. You can have all the adaptation and variety you want with spec cars. Overtaking is definitely a skill but I think we could bring more of that into play than we currently have. I'd love to see beasts of cars in F1 but you don't need innovation to do that. Back in the '80s the capability was there to make cars faster than ours. The rules in F1 have to be so restrictive because it's so damn hard to build a race car that isn't faster than a current F1 car. With spec cars we wouldn't need any of that and the cars could be as fast as humanly drivable at a fraction of the current cost. And best of all, the driver who did the best job would actually win.

Graham, change we can believe in, as Obama would say, once he's done saying change we can believe in. First you talk of new cars each minute, now you say a fraction of the cost. Which will it be? Variety in spec cars? Isn't that a contradictary statement? Hey, let's play spot the difference. Look at all that variety! The cars don't become beastlier without innovation and progress, though, and if you don't make 'em faster and faster, the drivers will just get used to them and they won't be fun anymore. The rules in F1 are restrictive for the opposite reason; it'd be so easy to make a car go faster with moveable aero and turobdiesels and KERS and slicks, and Max is scared of that. Sorry, you ain't developing and mass producing a car like that for a "fraction of the cost," and as I said, if they're willing to pay that much money, you're not going to say no. If someone offered me $2,000,000/year to be a janitor, I wouldn't say "Isn't that a bit much for the job?" And no, the driver who the car was best designed for would win. You'll never get the best driver to win, and that's just auto racing for you. If you want the man to win, watch track and field. If you want the combination to win, watch auto racing. Having that combination adds so many other elements that can keep you interested when the racing is flat. I don't think the best rises to the top in spec cars, either. Look at NASCAR; Jimmie Johnson is leading the points. He's a good driver, but he certainly isn't the best or the most naturally talented in the sport; his rich team and genuis crew chief (think engineer) help set him up to do the easy job of maintaining position.

We sure do, it's only really Jez and I being the regular Australian contingent

And a damn fine contingent that is. Aussies are, in my opinion, just about the friendliest people there are in the world. I gotta visit there sometime.

[goferrarigo 0]

Hey AJ, good to be back mate. I was down in Bathurst for the race again this year, and wasn't able to catch the Japanese GP until last night, hence the reason not being on the boards!!

That explains it... So onwards to China in approx 3 hours...

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Another cracking idea by "Mad" Max.

Jeez, why didn't they get rid of him when they had the chance???

Well final nail in the coffin for F1. I should imagine Bernie is quietly behind the scenes re-opening discussions about an alternate series....

And no, I don't think it is political posturing, as all of the other technical announcements, like single tyres, single ECUs have gone through.