bas550 wrote: ↑12 May 2022, 13:53
Lets start with the positives first:
I love that cars are able to follow each other closer for a long time now, without the tyres overheating or indeed performance suffering as much. For me, close following is what makes racing great. Mistakes are punished, instead of the 2+ second gap we got used to seeing before...where a mistake is rarely punished. Also with drivers following each other closer the chances of making a mistake due to pressure is higher. Excellent to see this!
Now for the downsides, and sadly that's longer but it's not just an annoyance with the 2022 regs but long term regs.
1) DRS. This was the perfect opportunity to get rid of DRS, yet they kept it. In all their years of talking about the 2022 regs they could've easily bought a couple of old F2 chassis, extended to suit F1 wheelbase, add the type of floor and change wings to what we have now. I'm sure they could dig up a few out of work drivers and start doing some real world testing and get a good baseline. DRS overtakes are lazy and we see drivers play games to get the DRS for an overtake rather than take an overtake when the opportunity arrives...because they'll know if they take one outside the DRS zone it's likely they'll get passed on the DRS zone. Stupid and unnecessary.
Agreed - I also think they design the cars to the regs and if there is no reason to design a car that can properly follow and overtake without a drag reduction then they'll never do it. If they have to keep DRS - then lets leapfrog that load of crap and have full aero automation and efficiency gains from a slippery car on the straights and a high DF in the corners...
2) Car weight. 800kg?! Come on. Ridiculous! The cars look slow in the slow stuff, downright clumsy.
Agreed (for 2, 3 and 4)- reduce the overall size and thus the weight. If they had smaller plan and were more fuel efficient due to active wings (and a mandated fuel load) - it'd be interesting
3) Car width. Too wide that makes overtaking harder and kinda goes against F1's own ''eco'' banner, doesn't it? More weight more drag...more fuel used
4) Front wing too wide. Narrowing the wing to within the inside of front tyres would make the risk of wing damage lower therefore provide even closer racing. Also I think the front wing is too high but that's just an aesthetic moot point to me.
5) Engines. The big one. The engines are hugely complex, way too expensive and because of that, the management of engine components leads to worse racing AND specifically makes the sport much harder to follow. Drivers take on new components all the time but we never actually know which component they are using, because they keep being in rotation. We all sit here and analyze driver performances but fact is 99% of us haven't a clue what we're saying is truly accurate because of this enormous spanner thrown into the works. Ive never liked the V6 era but it is what it is. But the limited engines makes it so damn hard to follow.
Of course I'd love an NA V10/12, rev capped to 16K rpm and cost capped, regs much like the V8 era in regards to limitations on weight, materials used etc. Add in some synthetic fuel and the eco lot will be kept happy (or as happy as they can be, which isn't that happy I guess).
Sticking with turbo engines, lets compare costs and posibilities. An indycar engine is around $125K. They rev to 12K rpm and use off the shelf turbos. A full rebuild is around 100K. The Mecachrome V6 in an F2 car is only €80K, needs to be rebuild every 8000km.
A complete F1 engine costs around 13 Million Euros today (a frankly insane amount), and they use 3 a season + any extra components.
I'm simplifying it a little here but lets take that Mecachrome. Make it rev a bit higher to 12K (shorter stroke), add a couple of turbos and hey presto, 1200hp engine. Sell it for 125k. Even if F1 teams used a brand new engine for every day of an F1 weekend, a full season engine supply per car would be less than a single F1 engine used for what, 7 races?
Limit the engines to 2 engines per car per weekend and you can supply your entire team for an entire season for less than a single F1 engine.
Sounds like a no-brainer to me. We get a simplified sport that's easier to follow, can see fire breathing F1 engines, and teams are happy because costs are down by an incredible margin.
Engines wise - well - it has to be a differentiator for some of the manufacturers, but I would support an FOM/FIA supply to ensure that there was always a viable engine on the grid.
The efficiency question is not going away so I'd be enforcing a fuel limit and let them go mad on harvesting to supplement that energy store that the fuel can provide. Smaller, lighter cars and with reduced fuel use = what we need to see for good racing.
