The weight handicapping system is just not fair. At least,
not in the form proposed right now. I mean, why hang weights in Schumacher's
car - and not in Rubens's as well?! After all, they have the same car,
right?
The problem in Formula 1, in my perspective, is not the difference in
performance of the cars, but more like the actual SIZE of this difference.
Actually, everyone wants a little difference there - otherwise how would one
draw Ferrari / McLaren / Williams to invest in the development of a good car?
Just to get an ultra-high performance aerodynamic design and an extra-wide
angled 19000 RPM v10 engine - and 15 kgs of ballast hung to the package to
make it level with the Arrows's (in case they make it back on track, of
course)?
Let's not forget that first of all the team bosses are businessmen - and that
really doesn't sound much like a good business. Instead of slowing down
Schumacher, one would really want to see a more level field as a whole. We
want to see who is the better driver, and that's really hard given that he's
got the better car to steer around the tracks. But the constructors really
want to show they've got the better car, right? Mercedes wants to show they're
better than BMW (poor job doing it this year), Ferrari wants to show they're a
lot better than Jaguar, and so on. In a word, winning teams want to keep their
image, and good drivers want to show what they're made of. So, what if Ferrari
would have had a car capable of going only 0.3 seconds a lap faster than the
rest of the field, instead of the typical 1-second-and-something shown this
year? What if the difference between Williams BMW and McLaren Mercedes would
have been of 0.1 seconds a lap? I for one think that we would have seen a lot
more overtaking, and probably plenty of pole positions clinched by hundredths
of seconds instead of more than half a second now and then. However, during
the race one could still see who has the better car - but the drivers would
count a lot more.
My idea is: LET'S HAVE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CARS LOWERED BY A GIVEN
FACTOR. For instance, let's have the difference of 1 second a lap between
Ferrari and McLaren shot down to a mere 0.2 seconds a lap (a scaling-down
factor of 5).
And how would we do this? Easy. Organize 2-3 times a year an event at which
every driver gets to drive all the other cars - except his own (because he
might want to drive it pretty slowly, just to show the world what a dog of a
car he's got, right?); and, at the end of it, make an average of all the
clocked times for each team's car - and see the ACTUAL differences (driver
skills differences not being measurable any more).
NOW, knowing the differences, weights would be applied to each car (except the
slowest, of course) so that the time difference to the next-best car would be
reduced by, say, 75%. Wouldn't that be an EXCEPTIONALLY interesting event?
Let's suppose that during a week every driver gets an hour's running in every
car in the field (they run a lot more than that when testing, don't they?),
during which he sets the car up and gets a couple of fast laps. Every driver
would try to run the other cars as fast as he can, to get the smallest
possible weight added to his own car - and that would be a great show, and
would LEAD to a great show! Carmakers would remain happy that they've shown
the world how much better their car REALLY is, and drivers could really get to
fight each other during the season and kill the boredom of nowadays F1
show...
Plus, I don't really think it would be too complicated to design a car such
that it can accommodate all sizes of pilots - from tallest to shortest. For
instance, a standard seat-fitting design could be imposed (by FIA), and at
those events each driver would come at a new car with his own seat (just an
idea, like all the rest here). - Adrian - Romania (Reference Heretic
4-27 - It is all over)
The Heretic replies:
Thanks for your lengthy and obviously well thought out
contribution.
I do not understand what they are trying to achieve by
treating f1 racing like horses. At the end of the day this is not a drivers
only competition like we see in sailing where theoretically all the boats are
identical and teams get a different boat for each heat.
Yes. The dominance of a particular team does affect the
spectator value of the sport. Yes one must wonder why Minardi are in it at
all. But if they artificially manipulate the outcome of races to make the
sport more acceptable to television, which is where the motivation is coming
from, I cannot see that the big money will stay with the sport and the whole
thing will change again.
The only way that I believe the sport should be “controlled”
is by changing the rules well before the start of a season but not so long
that everyone has a car that complies six months before it is needed. These
rule changes should be focussed on making the sport cheaper as well as more
competitive and exciting.
Areas where I think a lot more can be done is in
aerodynamics (don’t limit downforce just limit wing sizes and positions and
keep on moving it from season to season), tyres (make them race on
commercially available road running tyres of which there were more than say
10,000 sold in the preceding year), allow each team three engines and one set
of spares per race meet for both cars – much better than saying that they
should do the entire weekend on only one engine per car. Have more than one
qualifying session and influence grid position by overall performance during
practice sessions.
Making the engine smaller will drop them too close to
other formulas but limiting the fuel so that they can't afford to maximise
power may help.
The formula does not need to be overhauled in one
revolutionary change followed by a period of stabilisation. That is where
these dominant periods come from. It should constantly change in easy to
police areas.
