Pulled the Plug on F1

[FoxHound]

So people are complaining about the current formula, but actively promote the old formula wherby technical failures robbed us of racing?

"Any car which holds together for a whole race is too heavy." ~ Colin Chapman

You can pull as many quotes as you like B....it just aint racing when a car goes POP.

[GitanesBlondes]

The thing Beelsebob forgets is that back in that era, Monza, along with Hockenheim were true engine killer tracks.

There was a little more to the race than just the on-track racing.

You are miss-remembering. There was tyre saving, fuel saving, and as you say, engine reliability. This was era of having exciting races robbed from us because engines went pop in 1/3 of the cars.

There was a huge thrill to be had when mechanical failures were routine business in F1 whether it was exploding engines, or something else.

Not really, no. Pot luck is no where near as exciting as actual on track battles, and strategic calls, all of which can actually be affected by the teams.

The great thing about F1 in all the eras prior to the homologation/overly restricted era, was even if a race was dull in terms of on-track action, you could be surprised in other ways. The problem when you make everything ultra reliable is that all of the suspense goes out the window too...

Not really, no. There's nothing exciting in random failure. That's why people were so disappointed when we had random tyre explosions taking random people out of the race in Silverstone.

so all you really have to rely on is the hope there is on-track battles. If not...may as well DVR and fast forward through the whole thing.

Thankfully... There are lots of on track battles at the moment. Also, apparently, you're not really thinking about strategy enough.

Bob, you do know F1 is a team sport too right?

I ask only because you seem to forget it's an indication of how well put together a team is when there are mechanical failures. Keep in mind too, when the sport progressed forward, you would get mechanical failures.

The sport no longer progresses anywhere, and the end result is you have great reliability. While yourself, and others, may see this as some sign the sport has gotten better...I see it is as confirmation the sport no longer moves anywhere...it kind of just decided to stretch out, and lounge on the couch, and hope people don't notice the beer gut setting in.

I mean, how did Ferrari find out how well their cars were built back in the late 70s and early 80s? Just let Gilles Villeneuve drive them to see how quickly they break...I mean you can't really improve a car either if you don't know where the limit of the car is right...?

[GitanesBlondes]

So people are complaining about the current formula, but actively promote the old formula wherby technical failures robbed us of racing?

"Any car which holds together for a whole race is too heavy." ~ Colin Chapman

You can pull as many quotes as you like B....it just aint racing when a car goes POP.

Part of F1 is about building a car that can race...

And it is part of racing no matter how much you want to imagine it's not.

[bhall]

So people are complaining about the current formula, but actively promote the old formula wherby technical failures robbed us of racing?

"Any car which holds together for a whole race is too heavy." ~ Colin Chapman

You can pull as many quotes as you like B....it just aint racing when a car goes POP.

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

[FoxHound]

To finish first, first you need to finish.

[bhall]

Nobody ever got anywhere by standing still.

[FoxHound]

Part of F1 is about building a car that can race...

And it is part of racing no matter how much you want to imagine it's not.

So "part of something" is now something I must imagine as whole?
How about the winning part? Or the racing part that we are robbed of due to a failing part?


Or is it just the taking part with failing part that is the sum of racing's parts?

[FoxHound]

Nobody ever got anywhere by standing still.

Oh indeed!

[Moxie]

So people are complaining about the current formula, but actively promote the old formula wherby technical failures robbed us of racing?

it just aint racing when a car goes POP.

If I simply want to watch a bunch of cars pass each other in completely reliable cars, and root for my favorite driver, I'd watch NASCAR.

As I stated before, F1 used to be a competition of engineers. When engineers compete, truly push the limits, things break. Watching a single team take over 60% of the available podium positions. Watching a second team take all but a few of the remaining podium positions, indicates that the engineering is neither extreme nor competitive.

[GitanesBlondes]

Part of F1 is about building a car that can race...

And it is part of racing no matter how much you want to imagine it's not.

So "part of something" is now something I must imagine as whole?
How about the winning part? Or the racing part that we are robbed of due to a failing part?


Or is it just the taking part with failing part that is the sum of racing's parts?

You're so cute when you try to create a straw man argument Foxy.

Anyway since you don't actually have a point, I'm just going to assume you knew exactly what I meant.

Besides mechanical failures are lots of fun...after all, watching all of those exploding Mercedes engines (or were they Ilmor engines were Mercedes valve covers?) in the 90s and early 00s made for some exciting moments. Plus it proved how a large enough bag of Deutsch marks could make fans pretend that after one year the Mercedes engines were somehow better than the prior season's Peugeot V10's...just sayin'...

[flyboy2160]

Put me in the camp that says that F1 was more entertaining when there was a much higher chance of mechanical failure (except for Hobbs and his 'Klabamo!' I don't know which was worse: 'Klablamo' or 'Klag to the right of me! Klag to the left of me!'..) Nowadays, it's too much of a cruise to the flag.

I suspect, but can't prove, that there are several reasons for the current reliability. Certainly engineering knowledge is greater now. And more money is spent on the engineering. But mainly I think it's due to the over-regulated, egalitarian, restricted, homologated engineering. The non-homologated engineering development used to be the most fascinating part of the sport for me. I remember the rpm war. Who would be first to 20,000 rpm? Would that engine last for the race or end up as shrapnel?

If they wanted to maintain this Green facade, then why not just set a maximum fuel amount for the race, stand back, and let the engineers have at it to try to come up with the best solution. KERS or MGU thingy or not - let the engineers compete and decide. A 5 liter engine at 10,000 rpm or a 2.5 liter engine at 22,000 rpm? Turbo or supercharger or NA? A I4 or a V6 or a W12 or an H16 - let the engineers compete and decide. Then you might really be able to say "racing has improved the breed." But this design straight jacketing and innovation-strangling homologation both kill all that engineering competition.

Yes, you will have a spending war also, but too bad. Encourage the engine makers in every way possible to sell engines up and down pit lane. You'd have the additional fascination of watching teams pick their engine from amongst a wider variety.

Alas, this is all lost. The current strangled engineering competition just doesn't do it for me; I understand Moxie's point completely.

[Cam]

So people are complaining about the current formula, but actively promote the old formula wherby technical failures robbed us of racing?

it just aint racing when a car goes POP.

If I simply want to watch a bunch of cars pass each other in completely reliable cars, and root for my favorite driver, I'd watch NASCAR.

As I stated before, F1 used to be a competition of engineers. When engineers compete, truly push the limits, things break. Watching a single team take over 60% of the available podium positions. Watching a second team take all but a few of the remaining podium positions, indicates that the engineering is neither extreme nor competitive.

Here's a story.

Went Kart racing with some mates - dared one of them to 'emulate F1' - so he put in ear plugs to deaden the noise and proceeded to 'lift & coast' every lap. Afterwards he said he it was weird and he felt left out. Maybe he did, because he was lapped twice while the rest of us flogged the **** out of those karts trying to beat the track lap record and we had a ball - came out with ears ringing, grime all over us, karts minus bits from where we banged into each other and plenty of stories of 'hearts in mouth' trying to take that corner just that bit quicker.

F1 might be what is now - but how many of you will 'emulate F1' when you go racing.

[beelsebob]

Here's a story.

Went Kart racing with some mates - dared one of them to 'emulate F1' - so he put in ear plugs to deaden the noise and proceeded to 'lift & coast' every lap. Afterwards he said he it was weird and he felt left out. Maybe he did, because he was lapped twice while the rest of us flogged the **** out of those karts trying to beat the track lap record and we had a ball - came out with ears ringing, grime all over us, karts minus bits from where we banged into each other and plenty of stories of 'hearts in mouth' trying to take that corner just that bit quicker.

F1 might be what is now - but how many of you will 'emulate F1' when you go racing.

There's way too many problems with this analogy, sorry.

First, lift and coast is not something you do continuously, there's plenty of room in the modern formula for balls to the wall racing, as we saw last weekend.
Second, lift and coast does not work the same way in a kart as in F1. To simulate it, he would actually have had to have been lifting something like 0.1 seconds earlier before he breaked. This certainly would not have resulted in being lapped many times.
Third, karts do not burn fuel at anywhere near the rate that F1 cars do. Because of that, he was not gaining any advantage from lifting and coasting, while F1 cars do. The result of this is that the F1 car lifting and coasting may well be faster than the F1 car not doing so. The same is not true of the kart.
Fourth, karts are no where near as loud as F1 cars, even with modern V6s, so ear plugs are completely off the wall in terms of noise levels.
Fifth, there's absolutely 0 strategy involved in karts, due to the lack of pit stops, making tyre conservation entirely pointless, and not actually gain you anything.

There's so many more problems here it's not even worth enumerating them all. I hope this shows why this is such a terrible analogy though.

[FoxHound]

You're so cute when you try to create a straw man argument Foxy.

Anyway since you don't actually have a point, I'm just going to assume you knew exactly what I meant.

Besides mechanical failures are lots of fun...after all, watching all of those exploding Mercedes engines (or were they Ilmor engines were Mercedes valve covers?) in the 90s and early 00s made for some exciting moments. Plus it proved how a large enough bag of Deutsch marks could make fans pretend that after one year the Mercedes engines were somehow better than the prior season's Peugeot V10's...just sayin'...

And what feeble attempt would you call this?

You see, I don't see why an engine failure adds anything to racing. It doesnt, it takes away. Thats the point Gitanes, take it or leave it.
And that troll bait you left is most odious....almost as if the scent of the destroyed Mercedes/Ilmor engine smoke was more acrid than those of BMW, Toyota, Ferrari, Honda, Ford, Coswoth etc etc.
Try some panache next time...

[strad]

People people...
First while failures added to the suspense, and you might hope your less than favorite team might suffer a failure, I don't think that is what made F1 exciting.
And certainly beelsebob has a valid point in that husbanding your equipment often played a role all the way back to Nuvolari and von Brauchitsch,,But the difference, one the biggest differences anyway, was that the make up was 75% driver 25% car.
A great driver could drag a dog to the front and in so doing that created a hell of a lot of excitement. By their own admission, today the car is as much as 90%. With the inability to follow within 50 yards of another car without losing downforce there's not much the driver can do with a dog. Thus not much in the way of real passing or more than a corner or two of real racing.