beneboy

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  • #307659
    beneboy
    Participant

    There are loads of ways teams could save money:
    Standardising equipment such as jacks, coolers, and other non-performance related stuff.
    Introducing a single hospitality and catering facility to replace the ones each team takes to circuits.
    I’m sure there are plenty of other similar savings that could be made to the way the teams operate non-core activities.

    You’ve then got a whole load of wasteful spending on parts, such as carbon suspension elements, that could be made for a fraction of the price if they were made from metal instead. In the past various materials were limited to prevent costs of engines from getting out of hand, I think the time has come for that to be extended to certain other parts of the car.
    Standardising wings would save huge amounts, and do away with the need for a lot of rules and prevent teams from trying to make flexible wings that go against the spirit of the rules.
    Live telemetry also costs a fortune, with teams employing hundreds of staff to monitor and analyse it all during sessions. I’d be happy to see most telemetry banned, or at the least restricted to being for post race download so that the teams wouldn’t need data centre facilities to be shipped around the world.

    F1 has become so dominated by aero performance, even with the new engines, that the cars and the technology used is irrelevant to the rest of the world. If aero was severely limited, or standardised, the teams could go back to concentrating on chassis, suspension, drive train, and other technologies that are relevant to the motor industry and the wider world. And that could give them an opportunity to make money, either as an R&D platform, and/or from selling technologies to other companies.

    #305454
    beneboy
    Participant

    I’d keep Suzuka, Spa, Monza, Interlagos, COTA, Montreal and Albert Park.
    I’d bring back Istanbul, and add Le Mans (the WEC layout) and Laguna Seca. If the Circuit of Wales turns out to be as good as it looks I’d add that too.

    Most other circuits F1 uses are pretty bland, mostly a mixture of generic Tilke tracks and butchered classics that don’t really excite me. Malaysia and China are probably the best of the remaining “new” circuits, and probably the only two I’d keep. Silverstone can be great when it rains, but is generally a lot more fun to race than it is to watch. Monaco should have been dropped years ago, or turned into an F1 TT, it’s impossible to race there in a modern race car.

    #301768
    beneboy
    Participant

    I can’t stand our national anthem, I think Billy Connelly had the right idea:

    #266621
    beneboy
    Participant

    I’m pretty much against all those in the list apart from performance balancing – I don’t like it but can understand why it’s needed in competitions like WEC/Le Mans where you’ve got such different types of engines and power units in the same class – and double points for longer races – I’ve always thought it made sense for a 24 hour race to have double the points of a 12 hour race, for example, but it only makes sense when there is such a dramatic difference with some races on the calendar being double the length of others.

    DRS is a great example of the sort of gimmicks I don’t like, it’d be fine if it was something drivers could use whenever they want but to have it only available when you’re within a set time or distance from the car in front makes overtaking under DRS boring and far too easy. Qualifying handicaps and success ballast also make it to the top of my pet hate list.

    #266478
    beneboy
    Participant

    MotoGP have introduced different rules for open class bikes and the factory teams so that the open class teams can use softer tyres, more fuel and more engines/parts per season but these changes were brought in to help the series survive the current economic crisis and they’re only short term solutions rather than gimmicks.
    MotoGP came very close to collapsing in 2008-10 with Suzuki leaving the sport entirely and many other teams facing banckruptcy and in no position to be able to challange the Honda and Yamaha factory teams so the governing body, rights holders and teams worked together to bring in changes that would allow Honda and Yamaha to keep up their relentless development programs that are so important to their parent companies while allowing the smaller teams to survive and still make bikes that were stll competitive (even if they’re unlikely to beat the big two teams in normal conditions), this started with the CRT and continues with the open class bikes.

    The important factor in this is that these are temporary changes that were brought in as an affordable and workable solution while a more revolutionary and long term plan was put together and to give the smaller teams plenty of time to prepare for the big changes that will be introduced in 2016.

    One of the gimmicks that has been introduced recently is that all practice sessions for MotoGP are now timed with a riders average best time from all sessions qualifying them for the new qualifying system. Qualifying has been split into two sessions with those outside the top 10 from the best laps in practice sessions competing against each other in Q1, the top 2 from Q1 make it into Q2 where they compete against those who were in the top 10 in practice sessions.
    I know this sounds quite complicated and convoluted but it’s actually resulted in a lot more action in the practice sessions and a far more entertaining qualifying system without seeming in any way artificial or giving an unfair advantage to any rider or team.

    #185175
    beneboy
    Participant

    If you think that’s bad; S4C gets £75 million a year from the license fee (TV Tax) and for that it produces a channel that attracted fewer than 110,000 viewers for it’s top rated show last week (Y CLWB RYGBI – GWEILCH v SCARLETS) and only 8 programs that attracted more than 50,000 viewers, five of which were the daily episodes of Pobol Y Cwm – a Welsh language soap opera, most programs on S4C attract fewer than 15,000 viewers.

    The highest viewing figures for S4C in 2010 was the Bristol City v Cardiff City FA Cup match in January which attracted a paltry figure of 459,000 viewers, or less than 15% of the average F1 race on the BBC.

    So they’ll spend £75 million of our money producing an entire channel that virtually nobody watches yet they won’t spend £40 million plus production costs for one of the most watched sports in the country that also happens to bring billions of pounds a year into our economy.

    #184365
    beneboy
    Participant
    #179167
    beneboy
    Participant

    I can’t see the point of putting Kubica into a Ferrari; Massa is past his best and needs to be replaced sooner rather than later but he should be replaced with someone such as Perez, di Resta or Kobayashi who has still got a lot to learn but has the potential to be a very good driver.

    #179312
    beneboy
    Participant

    I’m with you; I’d much rather the drivers were allowed to get on with racing without the constant interference by the stewards.

    Not that long ago you could go several races without seeing a single message from the stewards that they were investigating an incident; these days it’s rare to get to the first pit stops without somebody being investigated and, in my opinion, far too many racing incidents are being penalised due to one of my least favourite rules, namely the causing an avoidable accident rule, which may as well be renamed the “penalising anyone who tries to overtake in a tight situation” rule.

    #179077
    beneboy
    Participant

    Stav1 “do you remember Murray Walker.”

    Yes I do; I remember him being unable to tell one driver from another, I remember him rambling on for minutes on end while ignoring what was happening on the track, I remember him making elementary mistakes that got very tired, very quickly, I remember him being constantly corrected by whoever was sat alongside him and I remember that while he was a great personality he wasn’t a particularly good commentator.

    Like many people who grew up listening to Murray I have a very big soft spot for the guy but if I’m being honest then I’ve got to admit that he just wasn’t that good at commentating and were he to start working as an unknown commentator today he’d be ripped to bits by F1 fans on internet forums.

    Take off the rose tinted glasses and watch some video’s of races he commentated on, particularly the last five or so years before he retired, and you’ll quickly realise that he wasn’t anywhere near as good as people make out.

    In my opinion DC and MB are the best commentary team F1 has ever had and with the exception of EJ I think that the whole BBC team do a very good job.

    #177321
    beneboy
    Participant

    matt90 “Also, motorsport without noise will be rather unappealing to me, and apparently it is difficult to drive aggressively without it.”

    I must disagree with that mate; the TTXGP is amazing to watch and the lack of engine noise takes nothing away from the racing, nor does it appear to prevent the riders from riding aggressively.

    The series has only been running for a couple of years at the Isle of Man TT but the bikes have improved massively already and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the TTXGP bikes are lapping at the same speed as the Superbikes within the next ten years. They’re already hitting 140 mph and an average lap speed of just under 100 mph; which is pretty much the same speed that many people have been running at the Manx GP over the last couple of weeks on normal petrol bikes.

    I don’t think electric cars are the best option for developing the technology just yet, the technology probably needs a couple more years of development, but I think it’s a great development for motorbikes that has the potential to provide some very good road going technology and some exciting racing.

    2010 TTX

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dCR5Eht5M&feature=related

    2011 TTX

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVp3FK4-mDs

    #177580
    beneboy
    Participant

    Nick Mason

    Jodie Kidd

    Sachin Tendulkar

    Wladimir Klitschko

    Jay-Z

    Rowan Atkinson

    Ice-T

    #177857
    beneboy
    Participant

    Frustrating !

    #177428
    beneboy
    Participant

    Modern track design is rubbish because everything that makes a track great has been restricted so much by the FIA.

    #177286
    beneboy
    Participant

    I doubt that Jenson would have the time to be the Stig & I doubt the BBC could afford to pay him.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 74 total)