What should the FIA do to tackle the dominance of Red Bull?
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Hi all this is my first ever posted topic on this forum but one I have been scratching my head over all season. First of all what I am writing is just my opinion and not meant to offend anyone it is just a discussion I have always wanted to post so please be kind with your replies. So lets start..
Its no secret that the FIA have been creating rule changes in order to level the playing field among the top teams in F1, this year was the contraversial Pirelli tires at the beginning of the season which did work against the Redbull’s as their main advantage against the rest of the teams (to me anyway) is TRACTION. By eliminating the traction advantage with extra wear on the tires they could not fully utillise their cars best atribute. That is the reason why there was so many winners at the beginning of the season blowing the whole championship wide open which is good for ratings as you dont know who would have won until the very end which is much more exciting to watch. Unfortunately as you all must know the tires were no constructed quite as well as Pirelli thought and the ‘De-lamination’ issues were such a safety risk that they referred back to the 2012 spec tires. When they announced this I knew Redbull would win it again as they dominated the year before with those tires so it was just a no brainer, they could just refer back to using the exact same car in 2012, the FIA could of just handed the trophy to them on the day of the tire change announcement and save us watching the races every sunday hoping for a different winner. What is truly a shame though is that Vettel broke all time records set by men who deserved those records using more driver skill then car advantage. To me the RB9 broke the records not Vettel.
To the end of the season there were rumors that REDBULL might be using a modified blown exhaust system to aid TRACTION through corners when off trottle. Videos on Youtube show the car with a strange sounding (if loud) engine similar to the hot blown exhaust days. Some rumors also suggest Traction control using clever mapping settings. So its quite obvious to me that Redbulls main aim when developing their cars is ‘Maximum Traction’. The FIA have been trying to take away their traction advantages by banning blown exhaust, double diffusers etc. But to me this is a mistake as they are the smartest guys on the grid so they will always be able to get around this e.g banning hot blown exhaust, use cold blown exhaust SOLVED! So my suggestion is to not place any ban on them at all if they are to develope their traction systems in stead they should just reintroduce TRACTION CONTROL back to the teams then REDBULLS advantage will be broken as in my mind there is only so much traction you could use before you destroy your tires so once all the teams have that advantage then it will be a fight of aerodynamics. In 2008 when Lewis Hamilton won the championship he pulled of such crazy overtakes using traction control that they have become legendary, so the notion that by removing the system from being used would create more exciting overtaking is baffling to me.
Sorry for the long post but as you can see I had a lot to say and my wife is not such a big F1 fan to give a t**s. LOL!
@siu16 Welcome to the forum!
I remember a similar comment coming out when Ferrari won the titles in 2000 – a few alleging they had a traction advantage (illegally?) In any case, they felt that the restoration of traction control in 2001 would remove Ferrari’s advantage. Of course, Ferrari went on to win the next 4 years.
I guess what I’m saying is, Red Bull won’t dominate this long if they had a great all-around package. They won’t get defeated through a silver bullet. It will take one of their rivals really finding a breakthrough of their own along with Red Bull slipping up or stagnating in development to turn the situation around.
@siu16 I’m not sure the records involved more of the RB9 than the old ones involved Fangio’s and Ascari’s top-of-the-field car, and the RB9 is still not an FW14B or MP4/4 at the end of the day. Besides, did Senna and Prost deserve to be frontfunners in 1988, or did the MP4/4 win the championship?
And then there are similar “cases” like the W196, the Lotus 25, the Silver Arrow and the Auto Union, the Ferrari cars of 2000-2004, the BGP001, and the BT46B. Were those who drove those cars bad drivers?
And wasn’t TC gone in 2008, having had its last season to date in 2007?
As for the title of the thread, I think somebody will catch Red Bull even without too much of the FIA’s interference sooner or later.
Introducing traction control wouldn’t reduce Red Bull’s traction advantage.
Traction is a measure for the amount of force you can put through the tyres at any given time.
Say Red Bull can put down 1000Nm at 80km/h (completely made up numbers!) but Mercedes are only able to put down 950Nm at 80km/h. Using traction control will allow the driver to on average come a little closer to those numbers then they normally do, but if we say that Vettel and Hamilton are equally good at applying their right foot, then the TC advantage will mean that Lewis can come closer to 950, and Vettel can come closer to 1000. Making no difference.
If a driver however has a bad right foot and while the car is able to put down 1000Nm, and he only applies 950, or 1050 (causing slip) then he will be no faster then a good driver with less traction.
Introducing traction control will allow the worse driver to get equally close to his cars maximum traction, as a better driver.
Meaning it is now a lot more about the car, then the driver.What should the FIA do to tackle the dominance of Red Bull?
Absolutely nothing. The problem is that the FIA doesn’t understand there is no problem.
That post is a tl;dr to me. To answer the topic’s question, “nothing” is what the FIA should do. They’ve already tried banning flexiwings and EBDs, and we even have new regs for next year. If Red Bull continue to dominate, then it’s an issue to be tackled by the engineers and drivers at other teams, not the overpaid figures of the governing body.
Honestly, I don’t think they should do anything other than reducing the amount of money and resource teams can pour in. Then leave it up to the teams to come up with the best solutions to gain performance, as it should be.
May the best team win.
I know it is less exciting this way for some, but as far I’m concerned, the FIA shouldn’t do anything. Red Bull are dominating because they built the best car, and that should always be the case, they deserve the success they have got.
FIA should do nothing. Set and enforce rules. That’s all. The people who should be (and are no doubt doing their absolute best to), are the other teams. End of.
Can only concur that the FIA should do nothing to level the playing field. It’s up to the other teams to improve, not for the FIA to introduce things that would handicap Red Bull.
I’m glad many others have said what I wanted to: all the FIA should be doing is ensuring cars adhere to the specified formula (of course there’s rule bending, but if it’s within regulations, then that’s it). The teams need to up their game to compete with RBR.
I’m always interested in changes to a formula; anything that keeps the engineers on their toes and thinking of radical solutions is fantastic. However, I have no interest in introducing technical changes solely for the purpose of trying to handicap top performing teams. I’m all for budget caps (yes, I know this appears to be near-impossible to introduce) to limit top teams and level the playing field somewhat, but this type of change is detrimental to what F1 is about (in my opinion).
What is truly a shame though is that Vettel broke all time records set by men who deserved those records using more driver skill then car advantage.
Let’s look at Ascari’s results in his nine race winning streak and see if it was his driving skill or “the car” which led to that streak.
1952 Belgium – won by 1 minute 55 seconds.
1952 France – won by more than a lap over the second placed car.
1952 Britain – won by more than a lap over the second placed car.
1952 Germany – won by 14 seconds.
1952 Dutch GP – won by 40 seconds.
1952 Italy – won by 1 minute two seconds.
1953 Argentina – won by more than a lap over the second placed car.
1953 Dutch GP – won by ten seconds.The runner-up in many of these races, and the runner-up in the 1952 season, was Ascari’s teammate, Nino Farina. In fact in only one of these nine races was the runner-up not one of Ascari’s teammates.
Based on his margin of victory and the performances of his teammates, Ascari’s Ferrari played a significantly larger role in his nine race winning streak than the RB9 did in Vettels.
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