A crisis meeting in the cards?

[mrluke]

Not at 12 000 Rpm, see that's power, torque is what happens between 9 000 and 11 000. Hope I got this right now?

Torque is 1 revolution.

Power is at rpm.

Funny how last year Ferrari were praising the new 2014 regs and saying how good it would be that the power unit is the most important part of the car. Now they have found that they aren't very good at power units they want the 2014 rules changed..shock horror

[MOWOG]

Funny how last year Ferrari were praising the new 2014 regs and saying how good it would be that the power unit is the most important part of the car. Now they have found that they aren't very good at power units they want the 2014 rules changed..shock horror

File this under "Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it."

APRIL 4, 2014

Ferrari, Ecclestone want quick F1 rule changes

In a rare media statement, Ferrari has declared that fans are "unhappy with the new formula one". In the past days, the Italian team has polled 50,000 fans and "83 per cent are disappointed" with the new fuel-saving formula, the statement declared. "In addition, the fans don't like the noise from the new engines and are confused by rules that are too complicated," the team added.

Ferrari's statement follows a meeting this week between president Luca di Montezemolo and Bernie Ecclestone in London, and the pair will now sit down with FIA president Jean Todt in Bahrain. "I spoke to Luca and we have the same sort of feelings about what needs to be done," F1 chief executive Ecclestone told The Times in Bahrain. The implication is that Montezemolo and Ecclestone want some rule changes to be implemented quickly.

Apparently at the top of the list is a reduction in the race distances, so that drivers can press the throttle harder with the new 100kg per race limit.

"We need a bit of support from the teams to get it done," said Ecclestone. "The only team who might be reluctant are Mercedes because they are going so well but I am sure they won't stand in the way of what needs to be done because we all want the sport to be as good as possible."

However, Ecclestone might be mistaken in thinking Mercedes will play ball. "I think di Montezemolo didn't say a thing when Michael (Schumacher) won those five world championships," Sepang winner Lewis Hamilton said in Bahrain. "It's the same when McLaren won all their championships that they didn't say anything, and the same with Red Bull when they won, they weren't saying anything," he insisted. Mercedes-powered Force India driver Sergio Perez, however, on Thursday denounced the 2014 spectacle as "boring".

But FIA president Todt on Thursday said there is currently "too much emotion" in the paddock, just two races into F1's technological revolution. "So many things in these past days have been said and written without really thinking," the Frenchman told Auto Motor und Sport. "And the new media very quickly spreads it all over the world," added Todt.

Even Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, while lamenting the fact that the cars are now almost ten seconds slower today than they were just a few years ago, thinks "more time" should pass before the new formula one is written off. "There will be some exciting races and some boring ones," said the Spaniard. "If you allow some more fuel in the cars that are fast, they will be even faster. And the cars that are slow will be a little bit less slow," he added.

For now, the fastest car by some margin is the Mercedes, whose engines will be "way quicker than us" on the long Bahrain straights, according to Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel.

"The name of the game is to take the focus off yourself and put it on someone else," Hamilton responded. "So I'll do the same -- we're expecting them to be really quick this weekend, blah, blah, blah, blah."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Of all the bloviating commenters quoted above, I think Hamilton is the most lucid.

[bhall]

[...]
I think di Montezemolo didn't say a thing when Michael (Schumacher) won those five world championships," Sepang winner Lewis Hamilton said in Bahrain. "It's the same when McLaren won all their championships that they didn't say anything, and the same with Red Bull when they won, they weren't saying anything," he insisted.
[...]

Does that count as honesty?

"I feel for the fans because I remember watching when Michael Schumacher was winning,” said Hamilton.

“I remember watching the start, going to sleep, then waking up when it ended because I already knew what would happen. I am pretty sure a lot of people were doing that today. At least in my family there were!”

[xpensive]

Point is that even if MS won every race for five years, there was something interesting going on behind him,
this fuel-saving procession is like an inverted "burning fuel" all-driving-around in Q3 a few years ago.

[heidenreich27]

Remove fuel, make minimum rev 15.000-18.000

[mrluke]

To be honest the 5 power units per year is as much to blame as anything else for stopping the teams pushing hard.

[CHT]

Bernie will be hoping Merc doesnt finish with a 1 2 by a big margin this weekend. If it turn out that way I expect viewership to hit record low this year.

[MOWOG]

There was a time, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, when there were three types of racing: NASCAR, front engine Indy cars and Formula One. Many of us had to wait months to read about F1 results in Road & Track. Back then, the sport was a mystery wrapped in an enigma for most of us.

But then things began to change. IMSA, then CanAm, then V8 SuperCars, then WRC, then MotoGP and Le Mans racing all began to compete for attention from the unblinking eye of the television camera. Exposure, as it always does, de-mystified the products and the products all became more and more like each other in a frenzied drive to appeal to television audiences.

"Spicing up the show" is just another way of saying that the viewing public has many choices and each sport has to do what it can to shoulder its way forward in front of the cameras. Heck, I remember when tennis players wore all white! Yes, I am that damn old.

This year's technical package was designed for one purpose and one purpose only - to push Formula One forward in the world of motor sports in order to garner higher TV ratings, which in turn lead to more sponsors wanting to spend more money. I have heard that the rear wings on the cars were originally nothing more than an idea on how to increase advertising space on the cars, making them rolling billboards in effect.

At the moment, it appears that the new rules package is having a boomerang effect. But I think the sport risks doing more damage to itself by abruptly altering the rules to meet what it perceives as a crisis. We survived several years of Ferrari processions thanks to Schumacher/Brawn/Todt et als. We survived the year of the trick double diffusor that gifted a WDC to Jenson Button and a Constructor's Championship to Brawn. We survived a year when Vettel and Red Bull reeled off wins, poles, fastest laps, and fastest pit stops race after race. We will survive this crisis as well.

In truth, the advancements for this year could and should have been phased in over several seasons. With all the new technology, further restricting the number of permitted PU's is ludicrous. The issues surrounding brake by wire present the teams with staggering challenges at a time when they are up to their asses in alligators. What F1 has come up with represents sheer stupidity by some supposedly smart people. Proving once again that there is no observable correlation between money and brains.

What the teams forgot was the effect the new rules package would have on the fans. By excluding us from their intricate calculations, they have dug themselves a hole so deep, they may never be able to climb out.

What is need, in my humble estimation, is to reprise a technique last observed in Stanley Kubrick's film Clockwork Orange. All of the F1 muckety mucks from Bernie on down should be strapped to chairs, have their eyelids levered open and be forced to watch hour after hour of BTCC and MotoGP racing. Maybe then they would come to understand what it is that we fans really want. And construct the rules for the series accordingly. Personally, I rather like the idea of reverse grids and reward ballast. Yes, they both are gimmicks. But they produce some damn fine racing and that's what I want to see.

[xpensive]

I think it's a parallel to european politicians being alienated from reality and the sentiments of their voters, in their quest and zeal to give evidence of their own goodness, they listen to pc-journos on what is the right thing to do. Energy taxes, windmills, subsidized ethanol fuel and next to free immigration with access to the welfare-state disguised as multicultural enrichment.

The repercussions of that will be obvious by the result of this fall's election to the European parliament, UK is a good xample.

Again, the parallel to this year's F1 engine rules are almost scarily clear.

[Just_a_fan]

What the teams forgot was the effect the new rules package would have on the fans. By excluding us from their intricate calculations, they have dug themselves a hole so deep, they may never be able to climb out.

What you have forgotten is that the huge majority of the fans who watch racing don't do it because of the technical aspects. They watch it because they support a given team or, much more likely, a given driver. The occupants of this forum are a relatively rare bunch because we are as interested in the machines as we are in the racing.

[rich1701]

Di Montezemolo, Bernie and Todt meeting tomorrow will be interesting. In the Ferrari fan survey apparently consisting of the views of 50,000 fans. 83% of them are dissatisfied with the sport. dismissing it mainly because of the drivers being forced to lift off to save fuel. What a coincidence then that Ferrari is rumoured to have the most thirsty engine. Di Montezemolo wants shorter races, I will give up watching f1 if that happens.

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12474 ... in-bahrain

[ESPImperium]

Personally, i think there is about 3 or 4 things that can be done to improve the spectacle.

Firstly, the lack of downforce, we want to see drivers struggle and have the cars move around, but i think the lack of rear downforce is killing the cars, id much rather go back to a rear wing closer to the width of the 2008 rear wings.

Secondly, on the rear wings, and DRS, make it 300 seconds per session per car, make the bloody thing a strategic thing. However in the race, the leader dosnt have use of DRS. And DRS can only be used on up to 4 straights per track. DRS should be used in an attack/defence mode in the race, you may have the driver in P2 with 23 seconds with 5 laps to go and the guy in P3 with 80 seconds left and lapping 2 sends quicker and getting the 11 second gap demolished easily. Who wouldn't want to see a lead chase down? Think about Canada and Monza in 2012, like that but less tyre dependant. Those two races must be two of the best dry races in the past 5 years.

Thirdly, the engines, there needs to be a performance differentiator like MotoGP, where if a team hasn't won a GP in the past gets an extra engine or two a year, and for those who haven't made it onto a podium in the past two years gets an extra 10 or 20 kilos of fuel enabling those guys to push that little bit extra in the race nullifying the performance differential there, meaning Caterham and Marussia can be that second a lap faster than anyone else.

Fourthly, tyres, id have those guys at Pirelli develop tyres that are as good as the old Bridgestone ones we used to have, but also have tyres that degrade enough so as to keep the races as either a 2 or a 3 stopper. Id like to thing a tyre that chemically rears out may be better than one that physically wears out.

[iotar__]

Di Montezemolo, Bernie and Todt meeting tomorrow will be interesting. In the Ferrari fan survey apparently consisting of the views of 50,000 fans. 83% of them are dissatisfied with the sport. dismissing it mainly because of the drivers being forced to lift off to save fuel. What a coincidence then that Ferrari is rumoured to have the most thirsty engine. Di Montezemolo wants shorter races, I will give up watching f1 if that happens.

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12474 ... in-bahrain

One struggling team's survey is not worth the paper it was printed on. They should check what "fans" think of unequal financial treatment, lobbying and big teams affecting all kind of rules in their favour or coming soon customer cars and DTM F1 while they're at it. Seeing their incompetence in every possible area (be it aerodynamics or engine driven F1) I very much doubt their diligence with surveys.

It's in the same ballpark as Red Bull's tyre lobbying in 2012-13, sudden interest in sound and sensors in 2014 or Hamilton's disgust at not pushing 100% in 2013, this once the only true racer doesn't seem to have any problems with much worse situation in 2014. They are all worth on another.

[Frafer]

As far as i know there were around 3.400.000 spectators (adding Sat to normal tv broadcast) at last Malaysian GP, as regards Italian audience. that is, comparing to 5.000.000 of last year, a big problem to handle.

[hollus]

Di Montezemolo, Bernie and Todt meeting tomorrow will be interesting. In the Ferrari fan survey apparently consisting of the views of 50,000 fans. 83% of them are dissatisfied with the sport. dismissing it mainly because of the drivers being forced to lift off to save fuel. What a coincidence then that Ferrari is rumoured to have the most thirsty engine. Di Montezemolo wants shorter races, I will give up watching f1 if that happens.

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12474 ... in-bahrain

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/04/03/f ... t-trusted/

Nowhere in the poll did Ferrari ask about the impact of the fuel rules, the noise of the engines or the complexity of the new formula. The poll results give Ferrari no justification for asserting that fuel conservation, noise or complexity are why those who responded are criticising the sport.