Opinion on 2022 regulations

[adrianjordan]

Just saw the chat with Christian Horner and the presenters about the rules, he is not a very gracious chap.

I can't think of the polite words for what I think of him, but I realised a while ago that the reason I disliked Vettel when he drove there and why I disliked Max for a while is not the driver themselves, but Horner and Marko.

[JordanMugen]

Some parties wanted the cars slowed down (fail)
Some cheaper (Suspect fail)
Some wanted closer racing ( well, different racing )

All in all I prefer the old flavour

I like the new flavour!

Did you see the onboard of Russell following Latifi in Canada FP2? Russell followed for nearly the whole lap at only 3-5 car lengths behind. The new cars can almost certainly follow much closer without downforce loss.

More so when it happened in conjunction with a change of wheel size and tyre construction.

The F2 class used those wheels and tyres for two seasons beforehand without issue. That's really a minor point. The change from 13" to 18" tyres in F2 in 2020 made very little difference, so it almost certainly has also made very little difference in F1 also.

If teams wanted the same compliance as before, teams could have made their springs softer to compensate for lower profile tyres with a higher effective spring rate. In fact this provides more control to engineers, as the actual spring has a damper on it unlike the tyre. But that didn't want that, so that's up to them.

[politburo]

Sorry, but in my opinion, this formula is a failure.
History will write it as such.
Red Bull are the closest to an argument against this but is it right that only one team has sort of achieved.

Making judgements after 8 races is a weird way to go as based on this logic every iteration of the last formula was terrible apart from 2021 - 1 team winning +80% of races in a 7 year span is crazy.

Furthermore, can’t blame the “formula” for teams not having fast enough cars to compete with RB. they all had ample time to maximise their designs and didn’t.

[Ryar]

Sorry, but in my opinion, this formula is a failure.
History will write it as such.
Red Bull are the closest to an argument against this but is it right that only one team has sort of achieved.

Making judgements after 8 races is a weird way to go as based on this logic every iteration of the last formula was terrible apart from 2021 - 1 team winning +80% of races in a 7 year span is crazy.

Furthermore, can’t blame the “formula” for teams not having fast enough cars to compete with RB. they all had ample time to maximise their designs and didn’t.

A new formula is never a bad thing. You have to ignore hard-core driver/team fans when assessing the formula. The key objectives in any formula change for a governing body are, to keep moving forward, enhance technology, make racing closer and safer and try being sustainable. A formula appears bad when only one team gets it right and other teams fail, leaving a single team being dominant and the championship becomes a walk in the park. It's also impossible to expect that all teams would get it right either. If there are 2 or 3 teams that got it right and be competitive, it satisfies atleast a few critical objectives, making the formula a success, even if it doesn't meet all the objectives. Just because a team that was at the front, didn't get the new regulations right, the formula isn't a bad one if there are other teams that have got it right. This has been a natural cycle in F1. There will always be groups of fans that are happy and the sad ones. It's not the responsibility of governing body or regulations to make everyone happy.

[henry]

I think a major issue with these regulations is the performance starting point that the regulation team used when developing the regs. They wanted to cars to be close to the performance of the outgoing formula. This has set the overall level of downforce too high in relation to the car mass.

I often see people quoting, well X formula is OK, they don’t suffer from this level of porpoising. But these formulae are much slower in terms of lap time. Lap times for F2, for instance, are much slower and performance even lower. In my opinion the linear difference in lap times don’t reflect the difference in performance of cars. The performance varies by a power law, perhaps square. So F2 is around 40% lower performance even though the lap times are only 20% slower.

But the genie is out of the bottle, it’s unlikely they will reset the starting point, so they’ll have to find a way to deal with the issue.

[Dr. Acula]

I think a major issue with these regulations is the performance starting point that the regulation team used when developing the regs. They wanted to cars to be close to the performance of the outgoing formula. This has set the overall level of downforce too high in relation to the car mass.

I often see people quoting, well X formula is OK, they don’t suffer from this level of porpoising. But these formulae are much slower in terms of lap time. Lap times for F2, for instance, are much slower and performance even lower. In my opinion the linear difference in lap times don’t reflect the difference in performance of cars. The performance varies by a power law, perhaps square. So F2 is around 40% lower performance even though the lap times are only 20% slower.

But the genie is out of the bottle, it’s unlikely they will reset the starting point, so they’ll have to find a way to deal with the issue.

You may be right with this, but on the other hand, remember what happend 2014. Back then a lot of people thought that the cars were to slow. So the 2017 rule change came and the cars got faster, but overtaking got a lot worse, to the point were you could count none-DRS overtakes for position with your fingers over a season, btw. something some F1 Ingeneers had predicted.
Its maybe cynical to look at it like this, but you could say the cry for more speed eventually lead to the 2022 changes.

[Dr. Acula]

I think a major issue with these regulations is the performance starting point that the regulation team used when developing the regs. They wanted to cars to be close to the performance of the outgoing formula. This has set the overall level of downforce too high in relation to the car mass.

I often see people quoting, well X formula is OK, they don’t suffer from this level of porpoising. But these formulae are much slower in terms of lap time. Lap times for F2, for instance, are much slower and performance even lower. In my opinion the linear difference in lap times don’t reflect the difference in performance of cars. The performance varies by a power law, perhaps square. So F2 is around 40% lower performance even though the lap times are only 20% slower.

But the genie is out of the bottle, it’s unlikely they will reset the starting point, so they’ll have to find a way to deal with the issue.

You may be right with this, but on the other hand, remember what happend 2014. Back then a lot of people thought that the cars were to slow. So the 2017 rule change came and the cars got faster, but overtaking got a lot worse, to the point were you could count none-DRS overtakes for position with your fingers over a season, btw. something some F1 Ingeneers had predicted.
It's maybe cynical to look at it like this, but you could say the cry for more speed eventually lead to the 2022 changes.

[JordanMugen]

I think a major issue with these regulations is the performance starting point that the regulation team used when developing the regs. They wanted to cars to be close to the performance of the outgoing formula. This has set the overall level of downforce too high in relation to the car mass.

So they should instead be as slow as 2014 or even slower (F2, Indycar type pace)? A lot of fans, myself included, do not want that.

F1 cars are supposed to be a spectacle after all.

[henry]

I think a major issue with these regulations is the performance starting point that the regulation team used when developing the regs. They wanted to cars to be close to the performance of the outgoing formula. This has set the overall level of downforce too high in relation to the car mass.

So they should instead be as slow as 2014 or even slower (F2, Indycar type pace)? A lot of fans, myself included, do not want that.

F1 cars are supposed to be a spectacle after all.

I’m not saying as slow as F2. I am saying that setting the performance level 30 or 40% above a ground effect formula known to work, F2, was a risk given the known propensity of ground effect cars to bounce and porpoise.

I think the objective of closer following and parity of performance improves the spectacle much more than super stable monsters treating corners like Eau Rouge as a flat out irrelevance.

I’d have made the cars shorter and narrower with lower downforce and less stability.

Each to their own I guess.

[JordanMugen]

I’d have made the cars shorter and narrower with lower downforce and less stability.

The former does not guarantee the latter though. Remember the 2014-2015 cars? They were "shorter and narrower with lower downforce." But they weren't less stable, they were just slow (in the corners) compared to other categories. The drivers had no choice but to just wait & wait in the corners, due to lack of grip, while the lower category (Super Formula) cornered much quicker despite far lower power on the straights.



FOM provided a comparison at Catalunya. The narrower, low downforce 2016 car isn't "less stable" than the 2017 car, it's just slow, it's lethargic. I don't see how a slower, more lethargic vehicle is a better spectacle?



The newer cars since 2017 are "as if in fast forward" compared to the 2014 examples (and not lagging beyond a national level series in cornering speed!), which is a far better spectacle IMO. The F1 car is something amazing again, something truly impressive.



When the cars are finally as impressive again as 2004, if rather more cumbersome, do rulemakers really want to return to vehicles which are, to quote Mark Webber, "not stimulating for the drivers"?

[Zynerji]

If they would have done the 2022 regulations at 1.8m, with a spec hydraulic decoupled suspension, this year would have been better. Also, they should have allowed 5 engines per car (most will take anyway), or let them rebuild units with identical parts.

[Shrieker]

I mean following sorta works a lot better, innit ? But still do need DRS for the vast majority of the time.

With that said, a whopping 6 out of the first 9 races have been on street circuits, which are not good for overtaking anyway, dirty air or not. And of the 3 permanent tracks, Imola again isn't very overtaking friendly.

Personally, am very optimistic for the remainder of the season where we'll be getting a lot of purpose built tracks. At least 10 tracks imo, where we'll see a lot of battles outside the DRS zones.

[Schuttelberg]

I think the bigger problems with most regs is that they're changed way too often. I'm sure 2025 will be great and then once again there will be a change when it all looks ok.

I think the racing is better this year but it is still way too much a three team series. Mercedes will be there soon. The teams after the top 3 are nowhere.

[piast9]

I think the bigger problems with most regs is that they're changed way too often. I'm sure 2025 will be great and then once again there will be a change when it all looks ok.

I think the racing is better this year but it is still way too much a three team series. Mercedes will be there soon. The teams after the top 3 are nowhere.

If there is a budget cap there is no such thing as a "too frequent rules change". I'd be fine even if they changed each year. Let the engineers solve real problems instead of finding the marginal gains.

[Zynerji]

I think the bigger problems with most regs is that they're changed way too often. I'm sure 2025 will be great and then once again there will be a change when it all looks ok.

I think the racing is better this year but it is still way too much a three team series. Mercedes will be there soon. The teams after the top 3 are nowhere.

If there is a budget cap there is no such thing as a "too frequent rules change". I'd be fine even if they changed each year. Let the engineers solve real problems instead of finding the marginal gains.

Like porpoising?