Horner: F1 'is missing an opportunity' with 2017 changes

[Jolle]

All that bloody Red Bull moaning. Of course they want more freedom in the aero department. That's how the team is build and thats their strong point. aka Newey.

But cost wise, very very expensive and a big waist om money. Aero development can't be transferred or copied to another car as a engine. Teams like Williams, Force India and Sauber, who don't have to invest too much to stay into the midfield, are send way back and the domination of the big budget teams becomes even bigger.

With small envelope of development, an x amount of money would mean a certain gain in laptime, while with lots of freedom, the same amount of money would widen the gap.

You can get a Mercedes or Ferrari engine, and strap it on, but you can't buy a blown diffuser and make it work. You have to develop it on your car.

[Juzh]

But cost wise, very very expensive and a big waist om money. Aero development can't be transferred or copied to another car as a engine.

Just as expensive as it is today. F1 teams will always spend what they can, be it on refinements worth hundreds, or seconds. It doesn't matter to them.
I'd call spending 10s of millions on a few tenths much bigger waste of money compared to gains of few seconds.
Aero is the easiest thing of the car to copy. Seeing as how you can actually.... see it.

I agree with Horner, F1 is in fact missing an opportunity to make F1 cars ridiculously fast as they once were.

[Manu_Forti]

How is he moaning ??, what he says about the cars being more of a challenge is spot on. The point he makes about the aero and the engine is a valid one. F1 has become stale and boring, these days I watch more in hope than expectation of an exciting race. I want to see cars that are a challenge being driven to the limits by the best drivers. If I want to see cars routinely circling with a gap between them every minute and a half I can save myself a packet and go sit at a roundabout. I dont care about fuel saving, driving to the limits of the tyres or hybrid technology and how efficient it is. Yawn. On the edge racing. Thats it. Nothing more.

My first race was at Silverstone in 1988. I was sixteen. I am in my mid forties now and have watched F1 since. The sight of that red and white McLaren coming at you with the yellow helmet tilted to one side still makes me smile and the hairs go up on the back of my neck at the thought. The sound was like an angry god gargling with bees and Senna was fighting that car all the way, it was on the edge. Pure talent in motion that you could see. His arms were going like he was sawing a log. And god it was exciting, I wondered how Senna fit in the car with testicles that big. I took my son to Silverstone in 2014 and he was left feeling a bit underwhelmed by the cars, he clearly didnt have the same feeling that I had. And thats a real shame.

F1 needs to get back to basics. And soon.

[gandharva]

Regarding the cars, I totally agree with Horner. The cars need to be much faster and much harder to drive. Btw. this is also what the drivers want! But, this needs other changes too! E.g. reverse grid order after qualifying (Bernies idea was great imho), but 1/3 of wdc/wcc points has to come from qualifying then. This would automatically lead to much better races, because engineers would be forced to develop cars to work in dirty air.

[Unc1eM0nty]

The thing that concerns me is the constant meddling, knee jerk changes which are ill thought out and rushed, they solve one problem while causing a new one

Wasn't it only few years ago they thought cornering speeds were too high ? they brought in new measures to slow the cars down a little, some people have short memories don't they

Come 2017 and there's a bad accident (god forbid), can you guess what the new topic will be ? then they cycle will kick in again, rinse a repeat

[Just_a_fan]

E.g. reverse grid order after qualifying (Bernies idea was great imho), but 1/3 of wdc/wcc points has to come from qualifying then. This would automatically lead to much better races, because engineers would be forced to develop cars to work in dirty air.

What a ridiculous idea! Do you want to know what would happen then? The teams would spends inordinate amounts of effort making sure they got the best slot on the grid to give the best average position. No one would be going flat out in qualifying. No one would want to be at the front of the grid other than Haas et al. And they wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight when, in the first couple of laps, the big boys came powering by. It's another Mickey Mouse idea.

[gandharva]

If you get enough points for quali everyone would try to be on top, because he simply needs to be on top to win wdc/wcc.

[mikeerfol]

Why is this in the races section?

[Manoah2u]

why does this thread even excist.......don't we have enough of these threads and isn't there a 2017 rule changes topic?