WEC has the right ruleset to help with balance

[JordanMugen]

The Ducati bike is the best and wins all the time, and that is just fine.

It's fine, there just shouldn't be 8 of them. In Sachsenring 8 out of top 9 were ducatis. Imagine 8 RBs in 2022/2023 or 8 mercs in 2014-16,2019,2020 (or even just 4). Guaranteed complete downfall of sport.

That's on Honda and Yamaha for losing most of their customer teams I guess.

Customers cars in F1 is certainly another interesting topic. Are Tsunoda and De Vries sufficiently good drivers they would be on the podium even if they had a AlphaTauri-liveried Red Bull RB19?

[vorticism]

Customer cars might be interesting--they of course already have customer powertrains. Merc & Ferrari and others OEM should prefer the option to make both engine and chassis--this has worked well for both in the past. However customer cars could provide something similar to banning fielding both a chassis and an engine by the same team. This should help the garage teams.

There have been 3-4 engine suppliers in the past decade, yet ten chassis manufacturers. If teams could sell their chassis you might have a similar 3-4 chassis suppliers. This could be interesting IF the teams are free to choose both the engine and the chassis supplier.

Chassis, [customer chassis] - Engine
Red Bull - Mercedes (f.e. Aston Martin F1 or RB main)
[Red Bull] - Ferrari (Alfa Romeo)
[Red Bull ] - Honda (AT)
[Red Bull] - Renault (Alpine)
Ferrari - Ferrari
[Ferrari] - Ferrari (Haas)
[Ferrari] - Honda
[Ferrari] - Renault
[Ferrari] - Mercedes
Mercedes - Mercedes
[Mercedes] - Renault (Williams)
[Mercedes ] - Honda (Mclaren)
Etc.

If something like this had happened 2014-onward would the whole grid have been customer Red Bull-Mercedes'es except for Merc main and Ferrari main? How would you prevent everyone combining the best chassis and engine? Or would you even want to? Many seem to want a spec series, and this would be a free market approach to getting there.

[outer_bongolia]

What if the leading teams in the rankings get less free practice time?

In the weekends with sprint races, we have seen how crucial free practice is to setup and aero testing. The regulations can set the top 4 teams to get less practice time. Say, the leading team gets only 20, second, 30, third and fourth 40 and 50 minutes per session. And this starts after the third race.

[aleks_ader]

The Ducati bike is the best and wins all the time, and that is just fine.

It's fine, there just shouldn't be 8 of them. In Sachsenring 8 out of top 9 were ducatis. Imagine 8 RBs in 2022/2023 or 8 mercs in 2014-16,2019,2020 (or even just 4). Guaranteed complete downfall of sport.

Disagree. They made 500iq move with total transparent sharing of data between all teams AND very high factory support even on 1 year old equipment. Pure genius. All riders believe or not, now can win. YEARS back it was unthinkable that anyone except ROS, MM, JL, DP could won WC. And DEMAND for some of that chance for wins is very HIGH. Its free market.

[Spoutnik]

There I said it.

I don't think BoP did particularly much at Lemans, but they can run unlimited tests, have budget caps, have strict rulesets for cars and ultimately have BoP, this allows cars to develop and ultimately be leveled by the BoP if they are close enough and willing to catch up. The current state of affairs where teams like Mercedes need to spend a season with sensors in the car to figure it out makes no sense.

People pay hefty prices to go to races and they shouldn't pay to watch tests.

F1 needs to be really worried by next year's WEC field because they have all the parts to create an incredible show and there will be nothing FOM could do then.

They should already be worried. Even if there was a lot of polemic regarding the BoP change just before Le Mans, we had an amazing 24 hours race. The BoP was right imo, we had all majors brand (constructors *) leading the race.
We had, until 4 am, 3 cars in 15 seconds for the lead (Peugeot, Toyota, Ferrari).
I just think there's an issue for LMDh as they seems unable to win even if they can finish top 3, they're a bit like Mercedes in F1 apparently, they can just be much much closer with their setup.

Alos, it's not really about BoP, but imo we have almost more wheel to wheel action in WEC this year than anything I can remember this year in F1, for top spots at least. And they are racing fairer, there's not divebomb, elbows out and race director weird decision, just a few examples :









Was already the case with LMP1





On another note, the content is way more accesible : i) cheaper tickets (75 euros for sunday at the 6 hours of Monza, friday was free ; 91 euros for the GA ticket for the 24h of Le Mans) ii) full races on Youtube

[boiler]

Something I have been thinking about

Going back to 1999

In the last 24 years three teams have dominated the sport like we have never seen, prior to 99 McLaren won 4 constructor titles in a row, since 99 that has been beaten/equaled by three teams. The longest streak for drivers titles was 4 by Fangio in the 50s which has been beaten/equaled three times in 24 years.

Sure three teams dominated the 70s, 80s, and 90s but at least it cycled from year to year/every other. The FIA made attempts to stop Ferrari finally getting it right in 05 only for them to come back in 06 and almost win it again. The only thing that stopped Redbull were the power regs in 14 and you can make a strong argument little to nothing was done to stop Merc until last years new cars. Only TWO teams have won the constructors championship since 2009.....

I am not a fan of BoP but the FIA needs to start getting more proactive because this new class of DTS fans wont be around long with their laser focus on their guy winning..... in the long run maybe that's not a bad thing......

[boiler]

Someone must have gotten inspiration from my post above.....

https://racer.com/2023/08/15/why-do-tit ... onger-now/

[JordanMugen]

Someone must have gotten inspiration from my post above.....

https://racer.com/2023/08/15/why-do-tit ... onger-now/

The very article rules out balance-of-performance:

You can do so with aggressive balance of performance, but that’s extremely unfulfilling, as well as being ill-suited to the ethos and appeal of grand prix racing.

https://racer.com/2023/08/15/why-do-tit ... onger-now/

There is no question that a continually adjusted balance-of-performance to balance all ten vehicles would work as the best approach to give Bottas in an Alfa Romeo and Ocon in an Alpine the same chance to win races as Verstappen in a Red Bull, but for whatever reason there does not seem to be an appetite for it.

Even the simple suggestion of increasing fuel flow of the Renault engine to equalise power seems refuted by rivals , let alone wide ranging adjustments of compensation weights, ride heights, power levels etc to balance overall lap times over all ten vehicles (with circuit specific adjustments to negate car strengths and weakness, as per WEC's ledger of adjustments which are different for every circuit) .

[Zynerji]

Someone must have gotten inspiration from my post above.....

https://racer.com/2023/08/15/why-do-tit ... onger-now/

The very article rules out balance-of-performance:

You can do so with aggressive balance of performance, but that’s extremely unfulfilling, as well as being ill-suited to the ethos and appeal of grand prix racing.

https://racer.com/2023/08/15/why-do-tit ... onger-now/

There is no question that a continually adjusted balance-of-performance to balance all ten vehicles would work as the best approach to give Bottas in an Alfa Romeo and Ocon in an Alpine the same chance to win races as Verstappen in a Red Bull, but for whatever reason there does not seem to be an appetite for it.

Even the simple suggestion of increasing fuel flow of the Renault engine to equalise power seems refuted by rivals , let alone wide ranging adjustments of compensation weights, ride heights, power levels etc to balance overall lap times over all ten vehicles (with circuit specific adjustments to negate car strengths and weakness, as per WEC's ledger of adjustments which are different for every circuit) .

Best way to BoP F1 is to force teams to share design/sim/test data.

If they all know all the tricks, no one will miss a critical foundational concept that would keep them behind for years.

Equalize the "know" and reward the "do".

[dialtone]

Someone must have gotten inspiration from my post above.....

https://racer.com/2023/08/15/why-do-tit ... onger-now/

The very article rules out balance-of-performance:

You can do so with aggressive balance of performance, but that’s extremely unfulfilling, as well as being ill-suited to the ethos and appeal of grand prix racing.

https://racer.com/2023/08/15/why-do-tit ... onger-now/

There is no question that a continually adjusted balance-of-performance to balance all ten vehicles would work as the best approach to give Bottas in an Alfa Romeo and Ocon in an Alpine the same chance to win races as Verstappen in a Red Bull, but for whatever reason there does not seem to be an appetite for it.

Even the simple suggestion of increasing fuel flow of the Renault engine to equalise power seems refuted by rivals , let alone wide ranging adjustments of compensation weights, ride heights, power levels etc to balance overall lap times over all ten vehicles (with circuit specific adjustments to negate car strengths and weakness, as per WEC's ledger of adjustments which are different for every circuit) .

Best way to BoP F1 is to force teams to share design/sim/test data.

If they all know all the tricks, no one will miss a critical foundational concept that would keep them behind for years.

Equalize the "know" and reward the "do".

I would agree with that. Give one season of secrecy and then all plans are open next season. That should result in 2 seasons of domination tops.

[AR3-GP]

The very article rules out balance-of-performance:

https://racer.com/2023/08/15/why-do-tit ... onger-now/

There is no question that a continually adjusted balance-of-performance to balance all ten vehicles would work as the best approach to give Bottas in an Alfa Romeo and Ocon in an Alpine the same chance to win races as Verstappen in a Red Bull, but for whatever reason there does not seem to be an appetite for it.

Even the simple suggestion of increasing fuel flow of the Renault engine to equalise power seems refuted by rivals , let alone wide ranging adjustments of compensation weights, ride heights, power levels etc to balance overall lap times over all ten vehicles (with circuit specific adjustments to negate car strengths and weakness, as per WEC's ledger of adjustments which are different for every circuit) .

Best way to BoP F1 is to force teams to share design/sim/test data.

If they all know all the tricks, no one will miss a critical foundational concept that would keep them behind for years.

Equalize the "know" and reward the "do".

I would agree with that. Give one season of secrecy and then all plans are open next season. That should result in 2 seasons of domination tops.

This already happens when employees move between teams.

[Zynerji]

Best way to BoP F1 is to force teams to share design/sim/test data.

If they all know all the tricks, no one will miss a critical foundational concept that would keep them behind for years.

Equalize the "know" and reward the "do".

I would agree with that. Give one season of secrecy and then all plans are open next season. That should result in 2 seasons of domination tops.

This already happens when employees move between teams.

With large restrictions, gardening leave, and only from memory.

If the teams had to upload their parts to a server in order for them to qualify for scrutineering, the other teams could research without reverse engineering and let's not forget the revenues that could be generated by journalists for access to this info for publication...

[AR3-GP]

I would agree with that. Give one season of secrecy and then all plans are open next season. That should result in 2 seasons of domination tops.

This already happens when employees move between teams.

With large restrictions, gardening leave, and only from memory.

If the teams had to upload their parts to a server in order for them to qualify for scrutineering, the other teams could research without reverse engineering and let's not forget the revenues that could be generated by journalists for access to this info for publication...

Why not just allow the sale of customer cars then?

[Zynerji]

This already happens when employees move between teams.

With large restrictions, gardening leave, and only from memory.

If the teams had to upload their parts to a server in order for them to qualify for scrutineering, the other teams could research without reverse engineering and let's not forget the revenues that could be generated by journalists for access to this info for publication...

Why not just allow the sale of customer cars then?

Because the whole point is to reward the DO. The teams that DO the best should be the champions. Buying someone else's DO does not qualify.

[AR3-GP]

With large restrictions, gardening leave, and only from memory.

If the teams had to upload their parts to a server in order for them to qualify for scrutineering, the other teams could research without reverse engineering and let's not forget the revenues that could be generated by journalists for access to this info for publication...

Why not just allow the sale of customer cars then?

Because the whole point is to reward the DO. The teams that DO the best should be the champions. Buying someone else's DO does not qualify.

What is the “DO” when you have someone else’s blueprints. Manufacturing is not the hard part.