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I think F1 definitely need to find ways to open up the ability to make meaningful innovation to attract the automotive world into F1. Right now, with all the rules currently applied to chassis and engine, there is a very small window of innovation allowed for. In addition, as newnhamlea1 points out, many of the little innovations are snuffed out within a season or two, hence reducing even more the already small area avaliable for innovation. Right now, automotive manufacturers are being attracted to sportscar racing because there have a lot more freedom to innovate (Porsche’s hybrid 911, diesels at Le Mans, bio-fuels in ALMS, etc). Since there it a high level of automotive interest in sportscar racing, the rule makers in sportscar racing don’t have to worry as much about controlling costs because they are not facing a lack of interest for possible participants. Perhaps if F1 created a rules packaged that allowed for meaningful innovation they may attract the manufacturers back who are apparently looking for racing venues to showcase their ability to innvated to the public. Additionally if the manufacturers see real benefits from the money they are spending they won’t complain about costs. This is key because F1 is supposed to be the pinacle of automotive design and sheer speed. How can it be that pinacle if, as newnhamlea1 points out, their slowly removing that title with testing-bans, reduced engine specs, reduced aero, and silly movable wings (really? like push-to-pass in Indy? really? good racing . . . really?). You don’t need to worry about HRT being able to compete if you have, for example, Volkswagon plus five more new manufacturer joining the sport. Additionally, there are only so many grid slots avaliable, and not ever engine supplier can team up with McLaren or every manufacturer buy Sauber. Maybe, if F1 attracts the manufacturers, some will chose to pour money into Force India, Torro Rosso, or HRT. Why can’t F1 roll the dice and find out?
Drivers: #1 – M. Schumacher or Alonso. These two drivers are the kind of the drivers whom given either the best car or a good car are garunteed to be in contention for the championship because they are COMPLETE talents – period. They are proven world champions. 90%+ of the time, if they make mistakes, they make them on Thursday or Friday, not Saturday or Sunday when it matters. They also get everything that be had a chassis and sometimes far more than is actually there. They are committed to testing as much as is absolutely possible. Additionally, they are ruthless.
#2 – Barrichello or Fisichella. These two drivers are good foils and hense teammates to drivers like M. Schumacher and Alonso. They are good, or even great talents, but they are not sublime talents. Hence, they consistently score points, but they don’t generally challenge the number one driver. I believe this is key. Having two drivers who are challengers for the championship is risky business. Even if you have the dominant car (Williams 1986, possibly Red Bull 2010) you risk losing the championship because your two drivers take points off eachother which, by dividing those points across two drivers, can keep drivers on other teams in the hunt when they otherwise wouldn’t be. Beyond that, both drivers are again excellent testers and have a handy nack for winning races when the number one driver does have race weekend troubles.
Test drivers: Alexander Wurz; Nick Heidfeld. These two drivers have basically made careers as F1 test drivers. Additionally, Wurz has schooling in engineering and apparently gives absolutely superb feed back to engineers.
Young Drivers Program: Steal fresh talent off lower F1 teams after they’ve been proven. Seems the tried and tested method to me. :)
Team Principal: Jean Todt. He was seemingly able to take the politics out of Scuderia Ferrari and turn a disaster into a team that wins six consecutive Constructors championships he’s my pick for sure even if he’s not on the market.
Technical Director(s): Ross Braun & Rory Byrne. This duo was responsible for Ferrari’s domination from 1999-2004. Where were Newey’s cars then? These two produce a car that’s both fast and reliable. Far too often Newey’s cars are simply not reliable or poor in mechanical grip because he’s too good an aerodynamicist (Newey has made some beautiful F1 cars).
Team Clown: Luca di Montezemolo or Flavio Briatore. Too keep us F1 fans entertained will rediculous opinions, and silly comments.
@ Ned Flanders
Haha, good call! When they showed the black and white flag message during the GP2 race I thought of my old F1 World Grand Prix for my N64!
…Also still one of the best F1 games I’ve ever played.
I just looked over the results and team line-ups of all the years Bourdais won Champcar championships. Penske and Ganassi were no longer in Champcar which left Newman/Haas (Bourdais’ team) by far and away the most experienced and competitive team in the series. In addition, the only true, consistent talent that Bourdais ever faced was Allmendinger, and he was stuck bouncing around teams and moved the the more lucrative NASCAR before he could really challenge for the title(Forsythe was the only descent drive Allmendinger found, but they were not near as consistent as Newman/Hass were). The rest of drivers in the field were either F1 drop-outs or drivers who had been around American Openwheeled racing for a long time and had either never really done anything consistently enough to be a threat, or, like Vasser, were past their prime (da Matta possibly could have challenged when he came back but couldn’t find a good enough team). Hence, my suggestion is that it made Bourdais look better than he actually was. It took Bourdais 3 seasons to win the F3000 championship and in the year he won not a single other driver in the that year’s championsip went on the make a successful career in Formula One. So did Torro Rosso make a mistake in letting him go or did they just take longer to come to the same conclusion that all the other F1 teams came to the year Bourdais won the F3000 championship?
Would is be a crazy idea to let in other type of fuels, like diesel and various bio-fuels? Not only that. If a team wanted to take a crack at an electric motor, let them have a crack at it? I definitely think Forumla One engines should reflect what the automobile industry is doing and where they want to be going. I think that’s why there’s a descent amount a manufacturer interest in sportscar racing, because the various series give them more freedom to go in the direction they want to go.
I definitely feel that the IRL isn’t doing much for Honda’s image. Being the sole engine supplier for a series that unfortunately comes across as amateurish (at least to me) isn’t the best evidence to fall back on when you want to claim your cars are race engineered or however they may phrase it.
And before I get yelled at, I personally watch IRL. In other words, I’m only taking a shot at it because I want to see it improve from where it is now.
@BasCB – Where do you get the information that tells you BMW, Toyota, and Honda engines weren’t good engines?
I definitely think Honda will come back as an engine supplier. There’s definitely opportunities for manufacturers who’ve recently left to get with some good teams as engine suppliers. I think McLaren has a contract with Mercedes for engines for 3 more years? And Red Bull gets customer Renault engines as opposed to having an exclusive contract. And it was very clear that BMW, Toyota, and Honda made good engines – their cars where just horrible.
I think we’re not giving the LMP1 and LMP2 classes in the 24 hours of Le Mans enough credit. In terms of chassis development the two classes of cars are basically Formula One cars with fenders over the wheels and “two” seats. In addition, the engines in the two classes are very technically advanced and are designed to run at the max power they can and still last 24 hours – just like F1 engines are designed to run at the max power they can and still last a race weekend. Point being, why have a 24 hour F1 race when the two prototype classes at Le Mans are basically what you would end up with (other than the fendered wheels) if you tried to design an F1 car to last a 24 hour race.
I can’t over the fact that an F1 driver, racing for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, spun fives times in a race because it was wet. SLR, you may well be right about Massa, but I just can’t get over that.
I think Williams, based on budget and overall know-how, has the worst car of 2010. I think they should definitely be consistently beating Force-India, Torro-Rosso, Sauber, and at least giving Renault a hard time.
It’s obvious from what’s been said in the media and in articles on F1Fanatic that Sauber have very little budget to spend on improving the car as its seems they may be on the ropes. In conclusion, it seems fairly clear that from testing onwards they basically just lost ground the everyone else.
At the back of the field, I think by results that it’s pretty clear Lotus is doing the best. Considering HRT’s lack of funding that and the fact that for the first half of the season they were sorting out issues with Dallara, and hence having difficulty developing the car, I’d say Virgin were the biggest disappointment of the three. I say that on the assumption that they at least have parity of funding with Lotus, if not better funding.
Massa spun five times in the 2008 British Grand Prix in the wet. I’m definitely don’t think Hamilton convincingly won the 2008 championship, but I don’t think I drive as inconsistent as Massa would’ve have deserved it much either had he won. I say that acknowledging that Massa had more wins than Hamilton in 2008 as well.
In 1982, had Gilles Villeneuve or Didier Pironi actually been around for the entire season, one of the two of them would have won the title, not Keke Rosberg. The Ferrari 126C2 was clearly the class of the field(not to disparage the class of the drivers either).
Outside of this, however, considering that Keke Rosberg was up against the turbo might of Ferrari and Renault (having only a normally aspirated Ford DFV himself) he was able to score one win, five other podiums and four more points scoring finishes. Other than his three retirements and one disqualification, he only missed the points once. The next highest non-turbo driver in the championship, John Watson, scored two wins and three other podiums (so the same total of Podiums as Rosberg) but missed the points three times and retired four times. Again, considering the fact that the Renault either blew up or won, if Ferrari didn’t win, and Ferrari didn’t have a consistent driver lineup, I’d say Rosberg is a deserving champion based on what he was able to do with a underpowered car.
Beyond his championship year he won Monaco in 1983, again with a Ford DFV, when the only three championship contenders in 1983 were Brabham, Renault and Ferrari, all with Turbos. Between the three teams they won 12 of the 15 rounds. In 1984 Rosberg won one race, his team-mate won none, and Rosberg’s Williams was sixth best on the grid by constructors points. In 1985, Rosberg tied his team mate Nigel Mansell with two wins a piece, and outscored Mansell by nine points. 1986 is the only year Rosberg can be brought to account for, having no wins to his team-mate Prost’s four, and scoring 50 points less than Prost. However, Rosberg had eight retirements, hence, his suffered poor reliability. Additionly, though not to make excuses, the only team-mate that has ever beaten Prost on sheer pace was Ayrton Senna , and that’s saying something for the abilities of Alain Prost.
