Hoffman900 wrote: ↑23 Mar 2022, 15:26
I challenge any of you to race around Spa (in real life) in anything faster than a MX-5 and let me know how that goes.
I'd still be frightened about an MX5, especially an NA model road car without a roll cage on a track day. Those things (and most 80's/90's cars you might take to a track day) have little to no crashworthiness by modern standards.
Integrated roll-over-protection systems are certainly a big bonus of modern vehicles. Obviously, if Sir Frank Williams' Ford Sierra rental car had the reinforced A/B/C pillars of a modern Ford Mondeo, that would have saved him from injury when he rolled it over.
vorticism wrote: ↑23 Mar 2022, 01:36
Every driver jumped into a car pre-halo era. And pre roll hoop era. And pre crash structure era. And pre seat belts era. Etc.
Safety improves over time. That's how things work.
As you get older, don't you appreciate that things change?
I'm still salty that rock music (drums/bass/guitar of any kind) does not chart in the top 50 popular hits anymore, but it is what it is, for whatever reason (most) young people who (presumably) decide the popular hits don't like jangly guitars and drums anymore -- things change. We can just stick to our Artic Monkeys and Zutons pop rock tunes from 15 years ago (itself played on (mostly reissue) Fender guitars and amps dating from the 1950's, showing for how long rock 'n' roll was a relevant musical style -- just on 60 years, remaining relatively popular from the 1950's until long after the initial introduction of synthesisers in the 1970's and electronic dance music & hip-hop in the 1980's), as Abe Simpson says "I used to be with it, but then they changed what it means, now what I'm with isn't it and what is it is strange and weird" -- after all, there are plenty of 90-year-olds still dancing away to their favourite big-band swing tunes from the 40's 
, whilst the enthusiasts of ragtime which swing replaced as the predominant popular music style are even fewer and further between (and of course before ragtime there was no prerecorded pop music at all -- no Edison cylinders, no 78s -- actual classical Western music and classical folk music does endure however).
Similarly, historic racing events are still there for you to see your favourite Cosworth DFVs, Benetton-BMWs, various pre-Grand Prix cars with the engine in the front for the older demographic etc...
I guess one can simply not listen to the commericial pop music stations that (now) play vastly more songs that I don't like than songs I do like, but that's not really possible with the Formula One world championship. But as much as one might want them to revert to 2005 cars -- no halos, 60 kg tubs instead of 120kg tubs (a
significant regression in safety!), wailing V10 engines, 605kg etc -- it's obviously not going to happen.
Especially the safety changes, zero chance of safety changes to the cars (and for the most part circuits too) being undone. The FIA are already taking risks with now granting Grade 1 status to quite fast and dangerous street circuits, that perhaps would not have been approved 10 years ago -- it is
most unusual that changes were made to the Melbourne circuit to make it more dangerous rather than less.
) but probably still witnessed cars sat in gravel traps back in the day following a slight mistake)