Some thoughts on 2009...

[Zynerji]

After watching the 2009 season on the F1TV app (race in review, 10 mins/race), a few things stood out pretty starkly.

1. The field was much closer than the Brawn story gives credit for. Brawn, RBR, McLaren, Toyota, and Williams, Ferrari and BMW were all serious race-win contenders that only failed through strategy or reliability. Once Monaco hit and all teams had the DDD, the racing was very close.

2. Refueling definitely had better/faster racing. I know the "why's" of the current rules, no need for lecture.

3. On-Board sound was waaaaay better than current cars, and the sense of speed was more pronounced.

4. No DRS wasn't terrible.

[vorticism]

"..the sense of speed was more pronounced." Does anyone have a comparison of lap times year to year? afaik F1 has been turning roughly the same laptimes for two decades.

Some say you can't bolt on another team's aero solution. Yet, in '09, all teams eventually bolted on a DDF. The following year, everyone bolted on an F-duct. This year Alfa Romeo just bolted on wider sidepods.

[Zynerji]

"..the sense of speed was more pronounced." Does anyone have a comparison of lap times year to year? afaik F1 has been turning roughly the same laptimes for two decades.

Some say you can't bolt on another team's aero solution. Yet, in '09, all teams eventually bolted on a DDF. The following year, everyone bolted on an F-duct. This year Alfa Romeo just bolted on wider sidepods.

The sense of speed was due to the lower fuel. There was multiple times per race where you had fresh tyres and low fuel. While the lap times may be overall similar, the race-laps were definitely faster in the first stint.

[vorticism]

I should have been more clear, I didn't mean to contest what you were saying. It just got me think about lap time deltas year to year, and how I had read recently that this year's cars are slower. You're right that the cars were lighter then.

[CMSMJ1]

After watching the 2009 season on the F1TV app (race in review, 10 mins/race), a few things stood out pretty starkly.

1. The field was much closer than the Brawn story gives credit for. Brawn, RBR, McLaren, Toyota, and Williams, Ferrari and BMW were all serious race-win contenders that only failed through strategy or reliability. Once Monaco hit and all teams had the DDD, the racing was very close.

2. Refueling definitely had better/faster racing. I know the "why's" of the current rules, no need for lecture.

3. On-Board sound was waaaaay better than current cars, and the sense of speed was more pronounced.

4. No DRS wasn't terrible.

I have also been watching older seasons and it is very clear, as you say, that the sense of speed of the cars - both on and off board, was more pronounced.

Refuelling was good in my view. I think that the argument to give teams xx litres per event and let them decide how to manage it would be a good thing. People refuelt in the real world - it is no massive deal breaker. Maybe prevent the stupendous 12l per second options....

Brawn had it dialled at the first few races and the other DDD teams were from the midfield - so they had the advantage.

DRS - It is poor. The teams design cars knowing they can DRS past another car. Surely that is oh so easy..and needs not to be the sticking plaster that has become the accepted norm?

The rose tinted specs are so comfy...

[Zynerji]

The Race Reviews are like the behind the scenes action of the reality show, "Drive to Survive"..

[continuum16]

Although I didn't watch the 2009 season as it happened, looking back I actually think they are some of the better looking cars we've seen. In particular their so-called "aspect ratio" looks great to me. From 2010 onwards the cars are just so long (bigger fuel tank doesn't help with this), and I think something similar in size to 2009 should be the target of the 2026 regs.

Also, it makes me wonder, if someone today built a car to 2009 regs, how fast could it be? I know looks can be deceiving but the aero looks so wonderfully simple in some places...

[Zynerji]

Although I didn't watch the 2009 season as it happened, looking back I actually think they are some of the better looking cars we've seen. In particular their so-called "aspect ratio" looks great to me. From 2010 onwards the cars are just so long (bigger fuel tank doesn't help with this), and I think something similar in size to 2009 should be the target of the 2026 regs.

Also, it makes me wonder, if someone today built a car to 2009 regs, how fast could it be? I know looks can be deceiving but the aero looks so wonderfully simple in some places...

I fully agree! If you have the F1 app, watch the race reviews. Some amazing racing happened that year, and unfortunately it was buried under the Brawn Cinderella story.

[JordanMugen]

3. On-Board sound was waaaaay better than current cars, and the sense of speed was more pronounced.

Gee, it's almost like they had V8 naturally aspirated engines screaming away!

I used to imagine it as a modern day version of Schumacher's Benetton-Ford. The 18,000rpm limit was a step-back from how they used to sound (19,000+ rpm) but it still sounded "ok". A least a Grand Prix engine was still as it was traditionally in the DFV-era: two motorcycle racing engines joined together.

I remember in FP1 in Melbourne with the turbo hybrids that Alan Jones said "That sounds horrible to me". That was when the microphones were still placed up forward in the sidepods to capture the induction noise, like they had been with the V8 (& V10) engines. But with the turbo V6 hybrid, the induction noise was something of a low-pitched drone [Ricciardo Melbourne 2014] instead of the angry bark/howl of the V8[Hamilton Melbourne 2013] & V10.

So a few years ago, they changed the microphone placement and added a piezo microphone on the exhaust at the rear of the car and mixed that in with the other mics, so we hear a lot more of the exhaust and transmission whine on the turbo hybrid onboards nowadays. That does make them sound a little more high-pitched, but of course it doesn't make them sound like a screaming V8 or wailing V10.

Refuelling was good in my view.

Refuelling is dangerous though.

"What fuel load did X qualify on?" was the height of tedium. No refuelling made the pitstops much safer, and the races build in a more traditional way.

I'm watching some of the 1983 races with pressurised refuelling too, and it gives a very different race strategy to no refuelling. While the stops in the 1983 season are impressive, for whatever reason, onboard jacks were banned and never reinstated. Refuelling was banned, reinstated and then banned again, I have no issues with it being banned.

If you have simple gravity-fed refuelling (and a smaller maximum tank size to necessitate pitstops), then you get strategy such as all the cars pitting on a safety car with just barely too many laps left to make it to the end, and everyone saving fuel and so forth (who can save enough? who needs to pit?) which is not necessarily that interesting.

looking back I actually think they are some of the better looking cars we've seen. In particular their so-called "aspect ratio" looks great to me.

The 2014 hybrid cars had the same basic aerodynamic regulations, with a few tidy-ups and loopholes closed, those rules were nothing amazing. In 2014 they were so slow, hence the impetus for sprucing the cars up in 2017!

While the minimum radius rule in the 2009 rules was a triumph, the narrow rear wings looked kind of goofy.

Don't forget that Grand Prix cars are 'supposed' to be wide (very wide, like this Ferrari 643) and short, not narrow and short. The only reason that they were narrowed twice is because the FIA said so, not for engineering reasons. [Perhaps my copy of Nigell Mansell's World Championship influenced my view on the classic Grand Prix car look! ]



You obviously had things like a transverse gearbox on the 1995 Ferrari, such was the priority of designers to opt for a short car at that time, such was the car tyre and weight distribution towards the rear.

After watching the 2009 season on the F1TV app (race in review, 10 mins/race), a few things stood out pretty starkly.

Did you watch it at the time? It was decent season, but things change after all. I don't remember the season as a particular standout. 2008 (I was cheering for Massa!), 2010 (I was cheering for Mark "Potsie" Webber but his WDC bid went horribly wrong in Korea and Abu Dhabi ) & 2012 were probably more exciting.

[CMSMJ1]

Refuelling was good in my view.

Refuelling is dangerous though.

"What fuel load did X qualify on?" was the height of tedium. No refuelling made the pitstops much safer, and the races build in a more traditional way.

I'm watching some of the 1983 races with pressurised refuelling too, and it gives a very different race strategy to no refuelling. While the stops in the 1983 season are impressive, for whatever reason, onboard jacks were banned and never reinstated. Refuelling was banned, reinstated and then banned again, I have no issues with it being banned.

If you have simple gravity-fed refuelling (and a smaller maximum tank size to necessitate pitstops), then you get strategy such as all the cars pitting on a safety car with just barely too many laps left to make it to the end, and everyone saving fuel and so forth (who can save enough? who needs to pit?) which is not necessarily that interesting.

Snipped a bit - but yeah, agreed - the qually rules to run 1st stint fuel was bobbins. If you allow refuelling then leave it at that.
Qualify as light as possible
Fuel up (maybe have a mandated tank size) to start and go as fast as you can for as long as you can.
Lighter cars, less stressed tyres and with more of a laptime delta between cars at certain stages of the races

If the safety element can be addressed, then the environmental ones can also be sorted I am sure

[continuum16]

looking back I actually think they are some of the better looking cars we've seen. In particular their so-called "aspect ratio" looks great to me.

The 2014 hybrid cars had the same basic aerodynamic regulations, with a few tidy-ups and loopholes closed, those rules were nothing amazing. In 2014 they were so slow, hence the impetus for sprucing the cars up in 2017!

While the minimum radius rule in the 2009 rules was a triumph, the narrow rear wings looked kind of goofy.

I think some of my favorite looking F1 cars that were more of a Frankenstein creation were the hybrid 2008/2009 cars. I mean, look at this. OK, the crop and zoom make it look huge but in reality we know that it is much smaller than the brilliant 2017-2021 limousines, because it's just the MP4-23.

On the 2014 rules, the majority of the problem aesthetically was the stupid way the nose cross-sections were defined, leading to the "creative" interpretations of the regulations that year.

From a purely aesthetic perspective, I think their decision to go even lower with the nose heights from 2015 onwards was stupid. I get the reasoning for reducing the heights after 2010, because the cars were getting ridiculous and they did it for safety, but they overreacted I feel. I mean now we have these sort of wedge-shaped cars which can slide easily underneath the cars in front. That's why all the weird rollover crashes have happened in the past few years, anyways. I think the perfect height is probably between the 2009 Brawn and the 2009 McLaren. Or the 2014 Red Bull without the stupid droop on the front.

I feel like we will look back on the 2022 cars and draw comparisons with 2009, because I'm sure the relative complexity of the cars will increase dramatically over the next three years, and the 2009 cars just look so simple compared to say, 2013 even.

[Banr]

After watching the 2009 season on the F1TV app (race in review, 10 mins/race), a few things stood out pretty starkly.

1. The field was much closer than the Brawn story gives credit for. Brawn, RBR, McLaren, Toyota, and Williams, Ferrari and BMW were all serious race-win contenders that only failed through strategy or reliability. Once Monaco hit and all teams had the DDD, the racing was very close.

2. Refueling definitely had better/faster racing. I know the "why's" of the current rules, no need for lecture.

3. On-Board sound was waaaaay better than current cars, and the sense of speed was more pronounced.

4. No DRS wasn't terrible.

DRS still isn't terrible. But we would love to live in a world where we can overtake without DRS.

[PlatinumZealot]

Overtaking worse horrible before DRS. We basically had to wait for tyres to be worn down. I don't remember as much overtaking as we have now.

There was a year when we had both cheese tyres and DRS ane overtaking was off the charts ; think it was 2011?!