F I A Announce New Working Group

[HandyNZL 1]

The Circuit Design Ain't Working Group has been charged by the FIA to look at the race track designs and report back why there is no overtaking (look around the web and you'll find some reports).

I guess this is a good thing. They'll have as much teeth as the Overtaking Ain't Working Group and the Techincal Loophole Working Group. Which means to say, any new tracks will be designed by Tilke, have movable chicanes, and a loop-de-loop.

We wait and see if this new FIA initiative bears any fruit. I have my doubts. But it's a start.

I give em a 3 out of 10 for at least acknowledging the tracks are part to blame....now if only they made a Mechanical Grip Over Aero Grip Working Group to really avail the cars to overtaking.

[Rainmaster 7]

A small step in the right direction.

[Max Mosley 2]

Yep, interesting stuff. The News of the World said at the weekend that there is also a new Bring Back Max Mosley Working Group.

[HandyNZL 1]

The plot thickens...

A "Number Two Drivers and How to Handle Them Working Group", and a "When Someone Is Faster Than You Working Group" has also been announced!! I understand that these were team led initiatives,although the teams behind these working groups were not named by the FIA.

[Quiet One 15]

The plot thickens...

A "Number Two Drivers and How to Handle Them Working Group", and a "When Someone Is Faster Than You Working Group" has also been announced!! I understand that these were team led initiatives,although the teams behind these working groups were not named by the FIA.

You mispelt the word "Woking" twice.

[Argento Reloaded 1]

And Tilke is in charge... isn´t he?

[HandyNZL 1]

You mispelt the word "Woking" twice.

Whats that got to do with McLaren? You're confused...again...

[HandyNZL 1]

And Tilke is in charge... isn´t he?

The Grand Poobah

[Senna's Ghost 0]

It's often strange to watch things come round full circle with the passage of time. Not so long back it was a case of the old circuits were bringing the good name of F1 down with their 60's/70's facilities that were been shown up by the new 21st century facilities that circuits like China, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi etc had to offer. The actual circuit configuration didn't come into the equation as long as the VIP's and the worlds media was catered for and the facility had a piece of striking architecture that encapsulated the country it represented; the track was very much a secondary consideration.

Now we have the drivers and the teams saying that these newer circuits aren't up to much in terms of racing. Well bugger me.

The knock on effect is of course fewer television viewers worldwide, fewer broadcasters purchasing the product from FOM if the product isn't giving the broadcaster the ratings they desire.

The thing with the old circuits and the classic corners that they possess, often nobody sat down and designed them, they simply put a bit of road where it needed to be given the contours of the land. Many of the old circuits were public roads or used for other things before becoming a racing circuit.

There's no getting away from the fact that Tilke's circuits do have that common feel to them, but what do you expect. He nearly always starts off with a clean sheet of paper and a huge expanse of land to play with. Tilke could never of desined a track like Interlargos or Imola or Silverstone or Monza or Montreal or Brands Hatch given each it's own limitations on land usage.

Maybe the circuits will grow old gracefully and develop character. I remember thinking what a disaster the Hungaroring was when that was first used. Powerful turbo charged cars tootalling along around a Mickey Mouse circuit two weeks after blasting around Hockenheim and before going on to Osterreichring; but now the Hungaroring is classed as reasonable venue, certainly not in the bottom third of tracks. Hugary has had a continous contract to run the Grand Prix ever since 1986. I'm not sure many of the newer circuits will be so fortunate or be able to bank roll that expenditure over 20 odd years or more. I reckon Turkey will go when it's contract is up, which is a shame as it is Tilke's best so far.

[Quiet One 15]

It's often strange to watch things come round full circle with the passage of time. Not so long back it was a case of the old circuits were bringing the good name of F1 down with their 60's/70's facilities that were been shown up by the new 21st century facilities that circuits like China, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi etc had to offer. The actual circuit configuration didn't come into the equation as long as the VIP's and the worlds media was catered for and the facility had a piece of striking architecture that encapsulated the country it represented; the track was very much a secondary consideration.

Now we have the drivers and the teams saying that these newer circuits aren't up to much in terms of racing. Well bugger me.

The knock on effect is of course fewer television viewers worldwide, fewer broadcasters purchasing the product from FOM if the product isn't giving the broadcaster the ratings they desire.

The thing with the old circuits and the classic corners that they possess, often nobody sat down and designed them, they simply put a bit of road where it needed to be given the contours of the land. Many of the old circuits were public roads or used for other things before becoming a racing circuit.

There's no getting away from the fact that Tilke's circuits do have that common feel to them, but what do you expect. He nearly always starts off with a clean sheet of paper and a huge expanse of land to play with. Tilke could never of desined a track like Interlargos or Imola or Silverstone or Monza or Montreal or Brands Hatch given each it's own limitations on land usage.

Maybe the circuits will grow old gracefully and develop character. I remember thinking what a disaster the Hungaroring was when that was first used. Powerful turbo charged cars tootalling along around a Mickey Mouse circuit two weeks after blasting around Hockenheim and before going on to Osterreichring; but now the Hungaroring is classed as reasonable venue, certainly not in the bottom third of tracks. Hugary has had a continous contract to run the Grand Prix ever since 1986. I'm not sure many of the newer circuits will be so fortunate or be able to bank roll that expenditure over 20 odd years or more. I reckon Turkey will go when it's contract is up, which is a shame as it is Tilke's best so far.

Yup.

[Kopite Girl 0]

I think a "Some Forum Members Need To Be Committed" group is warranted to. I mean, we got a dude that believes he's a prophet, a baby that talks and types, someone modelling himself on santa claus, a hammerslaying wielding transvestite, Paul and Andres, a West Ham fan, and a guy that thinks there's a conspiracy when he goes to the toilet. Oh and Eric, who has multiple accounts which obviously translates into multiple personalities ( )

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

I think a "Some Forum Members Need To Be Committed" group is warranted to. I mean, we got a dude that believes he's a prophet, a baby that talks and types, someone modelling himself on santa claus, a hammerslaying wielding transvestite, Paul and Andres, a West Ham fan, and a guy that thinks there's a conspiracy when he goes to the toilet. Oh and Eric, who has multiple accounts which obviously translates into multiple personalities ( )

Not forgetting the 26-stone, sex-line operative who recently had a brain swap with a chimp!

[Kopite Girl 0]

Not forgetting the 26-stone, sex-line operative who recently had a brain swap with a chimp!

That's no way to talk about Craig. Yes, he has issues and he is very sensitive about it. (pass the dutchie on me left hand side) :lol:

[BradSpeedMan 6]

I remember thinking what a disaster the Hungaroring was when that was first used. Powerful turbo charged cars tootalling along around a Mickey Mouse circuit two weeks after blasting around Hockenheim and before going on to Osterreichring; but now the Hungaroring is classed as reasonable venue, certainly not in the bottom third of tracks. Hugary has had a continous contract to run the Grand Prix ever since 1986.

It's still very much a disaster. The Hungorian track is a perfect example with what is wrong with the F1 tracks of today. Famous races include Schumie stuck behind Alonso for almost the whole race, recently, like last year, Vettel behind Alonso for 2nd place for half of the race...

Sorry Senna's ghost, an actual waste of an hour and a half or two of F1 watching that turns into another borefest...and it alsolutely has no character to me..

[Autumnpuma 0]

I dunno if the problem is the circuits. I tend to think the problem is two-fold.

The first is the rear of the cars. A standard wing and diffuser is needed. It's been long believed that certain teams design their rears to provide downforce *and* disrupt the air to prevent trailing cars from passing easily.

The second is the driver. Some drivers always seem to find ways to overtake and others don't....on the same track and sometimes in the same car. No clue how to fix this.

That being said, the circuits do play a small role in this but not enough to bother with.

[yurp 0]

I dunno if the problem is the circuits. I tend to think the problem is two-fold.

The first is the rear of the cars. A standard wing and diffuser is needed. It's been long believed that certain teams design their rears to provide downforce *and* disrupt the air to prevent trailing cars from passing easily.

The second is the driver. Some drivers always seem to find ways to overtake and others don't....on the same track and sometimes in the same car. No clue how to fix this.

That being said, the circuits do play a small role in this but not enough to bother with.

Yeppers.

I wonder what percentage people would put on those elements as regards their influence on the lack of overtaking in F1.

I'd hazard a guess at 40% cars, 30% drivers, 30% tracks.

I put drivers and tracks equal because we all know there exist those tracks on which even the worst overtakers can pull a move on someone.

I also reckon that on any track (as you said Mike) the top of the pile can always muscle their way through somewhere.

As a proponent of less rules, I wouldn't like to see standardisation/limitation of the rear end myself. But then I'd also like ground effects etc to be allowed, thus negating the effects of driving in a tricky wake anyway (or at least making it fairly pointless to try to muck up the air flowing of your rear wing/diffuser, since the car behind would be able to shrug it off, unlike todays rule-laden machines).

If the FIA allowed the teams to design what they wanted within certain size limits and with standardised fuel, we'd get real racing and plenty of overtaking. Like athletes on a running track, we'd get those who start fast and those who finish strong. We'd have some teams that benefitted much more from 3 stops and a small fuel tank and those which went for only 1. Less rules not more and the variety would return real racing (and passing) to F1 without the need of extra wing gizmos and other silly artificial attempts to make things 'exciting'.

Optional ramblings...

The art of following for a few laps whilst stalking, then starting the move 4 or 5 corners before the actual overtake happens is something few drivers can master. Most overtakes are oportunistic (unsurprisingly - sit and wait for a mistake to pounce on). This too takes amazing skill and lightning-fast reactions, but sometimes, just sometimes you can watch as a driver faints this way and that influencing the line of the driver ahead and thus sucking him into the inevitable passing checkmate. A glorious thing when done properly.

EDIT - typos galore

[Max Mosley 2]

Interesting thoughts, all. I obviously disagree with Adam (who doesn't?) because I like standardisation. Imho it's probably impractical to have such minimal rules because the FIA would have no idea of the performance of the resulting cars. We could end up with totally unsafe cars in various ways. And even if the cars were safe at the start of the season, with no restrictions, they could be 5-10s/lap faster at the end of the year. And everyone knows I think this so I'm wasting my time I suspect the racing would be worse too because we'd end up with unequal cars that lapped each other.

I tend to agree more with Mike in that the teams are deliberately causing some of the problems by making their car's wake unpleasant for the following car. The way to solve this imho is to introduce more rules to stop them.

No doubt most people will disagree that the drivers could do more to overtake. But I actually do agree with Adam and Mike on that count. The problem here is that it is in fact stupid to even try in most cases. If you have a faster car, eventually you'll likely get ahead anyway in the pitstops. And even if you don't, well, it's hardly worth risking a DNF for a few extra points. This is the difference between Lewis and Alonso imho: one races flat out all the time, and the other scores more points. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen Lewis and (say) Kimi (Monza '08 I think) stuck behind slower cars - Kimi just waits for them to pit, Lewis races like a madman and manages to pass 2 of them before getting stuck behind the 3rd and having Kimi catch right up to him after the other 2 pit. What's the point of taking those risks?

So, my suggestion to fix this problem would be to go back to the points system we had in the 1980s, where your top 11 results were all that mattered: this way, a few retirements here and there are irrelevant and a risk worth taking. Alternatively, we could have Bernie's more extreme solution of a medals system. The problem is so bad today that that might be necessary.

Changing (some) tracks is a good idea in my book - not because it's necessary to have good racing but just because it's an easy thing to do that would help. Why on earth the new ones are often so poor in terms of overtaking I have no idea.

[yurp 0]

Interesting thoughts, all. I obviously disagree with Adam (who doesn't?) because I like standardisation. Imho it's probably impractical to have such minimal rules because the FIA would have no idea of the performance of the resulting cars. We could end up with totally unsafe cars in various ways. And even if the cars were safe at the start of the season, with no restrictions, they could be 5-10s/lap faster at the end of the year. And everyone knows I think this so I'm wasting my time I suspect the racing would be worse too because we'd end up with unequal cars that lapped each other.

The FIA can have two simple devices to slow the cars to their desired pace... Tyres and Fuel.

With those two the pace acheivable can be limited by the laws of physics. In fact, pace can be limited by controlling only the standardised fuel. No one benefits from all the other interferance with innovation/design freedom that the FIA through the current rules imposes on everyone. Totally unneccessary.

As for unequal cars - infact no. Teams would come up with different solutions to acheive the best possible total time for 70(ish) laps. Those solutions would differ (hence more overtaking and way more fun), but the fastest physically possible race time would remain the same no matter what they did or how they approached the design. The universal laws of nature set the limits. The engineers would all come pretty close to that limit (or they shouldn't be in F1) but in different ways.

I tend to agree more with Mike in that the teams are deliberately causing some of the problems by making their car's wake unpleasant for the following car. The way to solve this imho is to introduce more rules to stop them.

I agree with Mike too.

But introducing more rules has never been the answer. It has never worked, it never will. No matter how much you want it to. We've had decades of evidence to the contrary. Ignoring it is blind idiocy. (Not that you're a blind idiot of course. )

More rules = more standardisation = less innovation = less fun. At what point does the FIA (or you) finally understand that banning good ideas is to the detriment of a sport that should reward innovation.

I watch F1 for the cars. Standardise them and I won't be in the least bit interested any more.

No doubt most people will disagree that the drivers could do more to overtake. But I actually do agree with Adam and Mike on that count. The problem here is that it is in fact stupid to even try in most cases. If you have a faster car, eventually you'll likely get ahead anyway in the pitstops. And even if you don't, well, it's hardly worth risking a DNF for a few extra points. This is the difference between Lewis and Alonso imho: one races flat out all the time, and the other scores more points. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen Lewis and (say) Kimi (Monza '08 I think) stuck behind slower cars - Kimi just waits for them to pit, Lewis races like a madman and manages to pass 2 of them before getting stuck behind the 3rd and having Kimi catch right up to him after the other 2 pit. What's the point of taking those risks?

So, my suggestion to fix this problem would be to go back to the points system we had in the 1980s, where your top 11 results were all that mattered: this way, a few retirements here and there are irrelevant and a risk worth taking. Alternatively, we could have Bernie's more extreme solution of a medals system. The problem is so bad today that that might be necessary.

Changing (some) tracks is a good idea in my book - not because it's necessary to have good racing but just because it's an easy thing to do that would help. Why on earth the new ones are often so poor in terms of overtaking I have no idea.

For the rest of your post you have made good and valuable points. Bravo. Just get rid of that dogmatic 'standardisation is utopia' mindset and let simple logic be your guide instead.

[Quiet One 15]

For a little historical perspective: the good old overtaking people seems to miss so hard usually consisted in a guy slowly approaching another, finally getting in the drift zone, and then drifting along with the other guy before pulling out and surpassing him. Nothing too fancy there. The difference with today was mainly that even with a slightly faster car you could pull that move successfully. Outbraking the other car was also easier as mechanical differences were greater and reliability was poorer. Few overtakings were actual battles with plenty of skidding and wheel touching. So I don't think the guys nowadays can't overtake.

Nowadays, you can't do that so unlike in the past, overtaking is a very risky business. You need to outbrake cars that already are braking very late compared with previous years. So you either overtake a seriously slower car than yours in a straight or you are making a banzai move on a corner. If anything drivers now are facing harder choices when deciding to overtake.

The solution lies somewhere in the middle. You need to either let the cars get into the leading cars drift zone without overheating the engine or getting airborne, or rebuild the tracks to allow for more overtakes under braking or a mix of both. I'd rather see the cars modified than tracks (it hurts me everytime I see nowadays Spa and thet dumbed down Eau Rouge...)

Drivers are more than capable. They aren't just stupid enough to commit suicide (in racing terms).

[yurp 0]

indeed bald avenger

[Max Mosley 2]

The FIA can have two simple devices to slow the cars to their desired pace... Tyres and Fuel.

With those two the pace acheivable can be limited by the laws of physics. In fact, pace can be limited by controlling only the standardised fuel. No one benefits from all the other interferance with innovation/design freedom that the FIA through the current rules imposes on everyone. Totally unneccessary.

As for unequal cars - infact no. Teams would come up with different solutions to acheive the best possible total time for 70(ish) laps. Those solutions would differ (hence more overtaking and way more fun), but the fastest physically possible race time would remain the same no matter what they did or how they approached the design. The universal laws of nature set the limits. The engineers would all come pretty close to that limit (or they shouldn't be in F1) but in different ways.

Imho this is unworkable in practice. It seems to me that there will always be safety issues that you can't control simply by changing the tyres and fuel. What if:

• a new super-duper launch control system is invented that results in unacceptable speeds (or differences in speed) at the start?
  
• a new KERS system/F-duct/jet engine/etc has the same effect on the straights? Or a new braking system in the corners?
  
• some team invents active ride/ground effects/blown diffuser/etc technology that is not entirely understood from a safety point of view?
  

And no doubt there will be sporting issues that are hard to address too. What if:

• some technology is invented that makes it impossible to follow another car closely? Technological innovation will lead to faster cars but not necessarily ones that lend themselves to overtaking for the fans. I know it's possible that ground effects would help but it's also possible that teams will spend a lot of money (as they do now) trying to find a new way to make their own car harder to pass. Andres's point about how late cars brake for corners nowadays with fancy carbon-fibre technology is an example of "good ideas" being good for speed but not the fans.
  
• a team designs its car based on making 3 pit stops rather than 1, as you mentioned. Then the FIA is forced to change the fuel/tyres mid-season to prevent speeds getting out of control. This team may well find it impossible to be competitive if it is arbitrarily forced mid-season to make 5 pit stops while everyone else is now making 3! The season could become a lottery.
  
• teams start making their c#ckpits fully enclosed, giving their drivers g-suits and an auto-pilot mode where the car does more and more of the "driving". This might be good for the teams but it's not necessarily what the fans want to see.
  

I also still think that more freedom will mean less equal cars and less exciting championships. One car will roll up at the start of the year with some new revolutionary technology and that will be that for another year. I take your point about the physical limit placing some restriction on that but science will always move forward and new ideas will be found. Computers get better and better and, while there's less scope for improvement in cars, I'm sure that even if lap times don't decrease as fast as Moore's Law in computing, the differences in F1 are magnified so much. If a team finds a 1% improvement, that's about 1s/lap - enough to turn every race into a procession.

I agree with Mike too.

But introducing more rules has never been the answer. It has never worked, it never will. No matter how much you want it to. We've had decades of evidence to the contrary. Ignoring it is blind idiocy. (Not that you're a blind idiot of course. )

More rules = more standardisation = less innovation = less fun. At what point does the FIA (or you) finally understand that banning good ideas is to the detriment of a sport that should reward innovation.

I watch F1 for the cars. Standardise them and I won't be in the least bit interested any more.

Then I think we need a "New F1 Fans" Working Group. Just kidding!

New rules have worked some of the time. For example, safety has massively improved. No doubt that has partly been an inevitable technological thing, and also you would I'm sure keep the FIA crash tests the same. But I suspect part of the safety improvements have arisen from the other rule changes too.

And imho they haven't produced good racing (yet) because we never go far enough. Max tried to form a working group to recommend aero restrictions a couple of years ago but the teams sabotaged it by exaggerating the effect that relatively small restrictions would have. Atm we have an artificial solution where we try to have innovative, free teams and good racing at the same time. I'd get rid of the teams altogether and design some cars that were ideal for racing, giving everyone the same.

Drivers are more than capable. They aren't just stupid enough to commit suicide (in racing terms).

Yes, it's partly the car changes over the years that have lead to this. But I also think the points system they had back in the day probably helped too, where people like Senna would take risks, end up scoring fewer points than Prost and yet still win the title because only the best 11 results counted. All the drivers now say that "consistency is everything". Alonso was saying last season his goal for the final 5 races was to finish on the podium and see what happens from there. It's clearly not "all out" racing where you're going to overtake a lot of people.

[Quiet One 15]

Yes, it's partly the car changes over the years that have lead to this. But I also think the points system they had back in the day probably helped too, where people like Senna would take risks, end up scoring fewer points than Prost and yet still win the title because only the best 11 results counted. All the drivers now say that "consistency is everything". Alonso was saying last season his goal for the final 5 races was to finish on the podium and see what happens from there. It's clearly not "all out" racing where you're going to overtake a lot of people.

Points are just points. Comes very late I think in a driver's mental process when gauging an overtaking move. Last year you had lots of wonderful action in the midfield, where points doen't count. All drivers race to get the best position without totalling their car. That is the basic equation. Give them even a itsy bitsy better chance of overtaking and all drivers will give it a try even with the worst reward in points.

All things point towards conservative driving. No testing, limited engines, limited tires, limited everything. They aren't settling down because they got enough points. They are settling down because they need the engine to last X more races, the gearbox to last Y more races and so on. Most choices are get some points or come back empty handed and ruin your long term chances.

[yurp 0]

Imho this is unworkable in practice. It seems to me that there will always be safety issues that you can't control simply by changing the tyres and fuel. What if:

• a new super-duper launch control system is invented that results in unacceptable speeds (or differences in speed) at the start?
• a new KERS system/F-duct/jet engine/etc has the same effect on the straights? Or a new braking system in the corners?
• some team invents active ride/ground effects/blown diffuser/etc technology that is not entirely understood from a safety point of view?

none of those hypotheticals would be worth developing as they would affect adversely the overall time it takes to complete a race. The best car is one that maintains the best average speed throughout the race. A super duper launch system would use way more fuel and no doubt include components necessary for that system to work which would then just be extra ballast to haul around the track for the rest of the race.

Similar arguments account for the other silly wacky races crap. There's a reason these things don't happen in the real world - they are inefficient.

As for safety - as long as the c#ckpit design complied to minimum safety requirements allowing for speeds beyond those physically possible, then safety is dealt with just as adequately as now.

And no doubt there will be sporting issues that are hard to address too. What if:

• some technology is invented that makes it impossible to follow another car closely? Technological innovation will lead to faster cars but not necessarily ones that lend themselves to overtaking for the fans. I know it's possible that ground effects would help but it's also possible that teams will spend a lot of money (as they do now) trying to find a new way to make their own car harder to pass. Andres's point about how late cars brake for corners nowadays with fancy carbon-fibre technology is an example of "good ideas" being good for speed but not the fans.
• a team designs its car based on making 3 pit stops rather than 1, as you mentioned. Then the FIA is forced to change the fuel/tyres mid-season to prevent speeds getting out of control. This team may well find it impossible to be competitive if it is arbitrarily forced mid-season to make 5 pit stops while everyone else is now making 3! The season could become a lottery.
• teams start making their c#ckpits fully enclosed, giving their drivers g-suits and an auto-pilot mode where the car does more and more of the "driving". This might be good for the teams but it's not necessarily what the fans want to see.

Again - most of your what ifs would be less efficient not more (over race distance) - so they wouldn't happen.

Those that are more efficient would be perfectly sound.

The FIA could not be forced to change the tyres mid-season if they set the fuel and tyre limitations properly. Let me explain...

Look at it this way - the teams are currently limited by the laws of physics plus a whole load of limitations imposed by a convoluted rule book. Why not just let the laws of physics limit them. They can't work their way around the laws of nature so if anything F1 would be safer than it currently is in a world where F-ducts become necessary to get around foolish rules. The physical constants are known well enough to set a limit on speeds which would be covered by minimum safety standards.

As for auto-pilot. How far do you think that technology is away? Be assured, we are decades away from driverless cars that can drive better than humans.

I also still think that more freedom will mean less equal cars and less exciting championships. One car will roll up at the start of the year with some new revolutionary technology and that will be that for another year. I take your point about the physical limit placing some restriction on that but science will always move forward and new ideas will be found. Computers get better and better and, while there's less scope for improvement in cars, I'm sure that even if lap times don't decrease as fast as Moore's Law in computing, the differences in F1 are magnified so much. If a team finds a 1% improvement, that's about 1s/lap - enough to turn every race into a procession.

Ah but again you haven't thought this through. Without changing the goal posts every season teams will be able to constantly improve on what they have, race on race, year on year. That leads to teams getting as close as they can to an unchanging physical limitation of time to complete a race. Thus more equality, not less AND with the added fun of more variety!

If you want to look at it from the standardisation point of view - It's kind of like standardisation as a result of physics rather than laws. But the only thing that becomes standardised is the time taken to cover race distance.

Then I think we need a "New F1 Fans" Working Group. Just kidding!

New rules have worked some of the time. For example, safety has massively improved. No doubt that has partly been an inevitable technological thing, and also you would I'm sure keep the FIA crash tests the same. But I suspect part of the safety improvements have arisen from the other rule changes too.

Quoting safety rules as those 'that have worked' is giving credit to the FIA for tying up their shoelaces. I can't even pretend to be impressed.

And imho they haven't produced good racing (yet) because we never go far enough. Max tried to form a working group to recommend aero restrictions a couple of years ago but the teams sabotaged it by exaggerating the effect that relatively small restrictions would have. Atm we have an artificial solution where we try to have innovative, free teams and good racing at the same time. I'd get rid of the teams altogether and design some cars that were ideal for racing, giving everyone the same.

And I would stop watching. I'm not some adoring fan of any driver. I couldn't care less for their hello magazine spreads and parties with the Beckhams. Standardise the cars and that's pretty much all that will be left. That and a few hundred X is better than Y threads on TF1.

Yes, it's partly the car changes over the years that have lead to this. But I also think the points system they had back in the day probably helped too, where people like Senna would take risks, end up scoring fewer points than Prost and yet still win the title because only the best 11 results counted. All the drivers now say that "consistency is everything". Alonso was saying last season his goal for the final 5 races was to finish on the podium and see what happens from there. It's clearly not "all out" racing where you're going to overtake a lot of people.

Yes - the points system as it stands, doesn't encourage bravery and rather rewards the conservative approach. We can agree on that.

Bed time conclusion....

To me, it seems you've spent so many years swallowing what the FIA tells us (or what Max told us) that you can't see the wood for the trees any more. A very large proportion of Max's actions served little other purpose than to justify his own role and salary. Most of the time he and his cohorts found non-existent problems to fix so they could discuss them over champagne luncheons. Of course they had to justify their ever changing rulebook, so of course we were told 'this should be banned', 'this needs looking into', 'this should be changed' and best of all 'this should be changed back again'. How else could they justify their very existence?

Refueling has been banned and then re-introduced twice for god's sake (by FIA if not under Max). Does that seem like progress or just diddling everyone? And there are plenty of other similar examples.

Any how - see you on the morrow.

[yurp 0]

PS - you don't really want spec either - you just haven't realised it yet.

[dribbler 6]

Can you all stop posting lengthy intelligent posts. It is ruining my scope to just butt in and say stuff like 'knickers, c0ck and jock strap'.