How Would You Change Formula 1?

[notApineapple]

If you leave the track it should be a punishment. It's totally different racing if you know there's tarmac to bail you out.

+100

then give the driver a drive through for leaving the track, its a punishment but not a race ending one, we won't need endless safetycar periods to remove stuck cars

The safety car rules are the problem here. So many times we have seen the safety car brought out while a problem is fixed (usually within a lap or 2) but then it stays out for another 3-4 laps because of this retarded system of bunching the field up and letting backmarkers unlap themselves and waiting until they are back in position or whatever.

For exaample: today Webbers car was gone in a couple of laps, Ricciardo's car was gone in like 1 lap in Singapore, and I also remember at Silverstone the tyre debris was cleared up in a couple of laps but each one of those safety car periods seemed to just go on and on and on...

[Just_a_fan]

If you leave the track it should be a punishment. It's totally different racing if you know there's tarmac to bail you out.

+100

Is this punishment enough for getting it a little bit wrong...?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/motorsport/24425701

[jknights]

How about returning to the old rule where
If a safety car comes out then the pits are closed, but if a driver comes in then he goes to the back of the pack!

This means tyre changes have to be made during racing or else you have to climb through the pack!!

[McMrocks]

How about returning to the old rule where
If a safety car comes out then the pits are closed, but if a driver comes in then he goes to the back of the pack!

This means tyre changes have to be made during racing or else you have to climb through the pack!!

There is an interesting thought, but:

Imagine the leader (doens't matter who it is) has worn his tyres to the end, but as he decides to pit the pit lane gets closed. Thus he has to pit immediatly (because his tyres are 2s slower) after the SC comes back in, this will put him back to the end of the pack. Although he has nothing done wrong...

@tarmac at run-off areas: It was made to make racing safer. Maybe it kills a bit of the thrill but i prefer the thrill being killed to people being killed (although it's hard to proof that lifes were safed due to this)

[langwadt]

How about returning to the old rule where
If a safety car comes out then the pits are closed, but if a driver comes in then he goes to the back of the pack!

This means tyre changes have to be made during racing or else you have to climb through the pack!!

There is an interesting thought, but:

Imagine the leader (doens't matter who it is) has worn his tyres to the end, but as he decides to pit the pit lane gets closed. Thus he has to pit immediatly (because his tyres are 2s slower) after the SC comes back in, this will put him back to the end of the pack. Although he has nothing done wrong...

@tarmac at run-off areas: It was made to make racing safer. Maybe it kills a bit of the thrill but i prefer the thrill being killed to people being killed (although it's hard to proof that lifes were safed due to this)

I'm also not sure about the tarmac being safer, sure if you have some form of brakes and/or steering tarmac might
slow a car down faster and safer but if you lose steering and brakes or if it is wet, gravel might be better

anyway if they want tarmac run-offs to carry a penalty like gravel, just give an automatic drive-through to anyone
driving on them

[krisfx]

Back on topic - mandate a minimum of two pit stops per race. Seems daft to try to ensure the same with rapidly degrading tyres, why not just put it in the rules ?

Nooo, no more gimmiks!

I fail to see how mandating two stops, but having the tyres go much further is more of a gimmick than having tyres made from chewing gum...

[GitanesBlondes]

From the main page....

Gravel traps make for better racing - Button

http://www.f1technical.net/news/18821

Just an opinion naturally, but it's nice to see a currently participating driver speak up about the downside of the tarmac run-off areas that have become some prevalent at just about every F1 circuit now. It pains me to see the copious amounts of run-off at Spa these days.

[Just_a_fan]

Button would like gravel traps. He's one of the steady drivers - hardly known for pushing the envelope like the really quick guys do at times. Gravel traps make it harder to overtake too which he probably feels is a good thing at the moment.

[monsi]

Last race of the season, why not have all the drivers put their names in a hat and then drive whatever car the name they pull out usually drives. Probably quite mad, I know, but might be a lot of fun too.

[krisfx]

Last race of the season, why not have all the drivers put their names in a hat and then drive whatever car the name they pull out usually drives. Probably quite mad, I know, but might be a lot of fun too.

Stick them all in GP2 cars for a double points race. That'd be 10x more interesting to see.

[zeph]

Massa is not optimistic about the 2014 changes:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/110502

I disagree. I think it is gonna be fascinating! [-o<

[MOWOG]

I agree with him completely.

Formula One is all about milking the cash cow, building tracks in places with no race fans to please generous politicians who think having a Formula One race will somehow propel them forward in the race for tourist with fat wallets or to dampen criticism of oppressive regimes. (See Korea, Bahrain, Dubai,Turkey, India, Russia, Jerkajerkastan, etc, etc.)

It is similar to the idiots in Washington DC who sell their souls to the highest bidder and could care less what the voters who elected them want.

Race fans want to see racing. D'uuhhhh. But the sport is bound and determined to give everything BUT racing. It wants to be "relevant". What does being relevant have to do with racing?

Formula One likes to point to the number of eyeballs that tune in for each race. But what if those eyeballs find something else to focus on, something that involves the fans more deeply in the competition? What happens when political entities in Melbourne and Spa and Nurburgring refuse to cover the losses that F1's astronomical sponsorship fees require?

I see the sport as being near the top of a bubble, much as the world economy was up until 2008. Irrational exuberance has a way of blinding people to the truth. I would not be at all surprised to see F1 take a tumble after the fans find out what a load of bollocks the racing will be starting in 2014 and find something else to amuse themselves with.

Or maybe I just forgot to take my anti-curmudgeon pills today.