3 ms·
From a pure engineering perspective I absolutely agree. I'm too young to remember the P34 or BT46 in person but the shock of seeing different approaches is defi
by eftpotrm 16y ago
From a pure engineering perspective I absolutely agree. I'm too young to remember the P34 or BT46 in person but the shock of seeing different approaches is definitely sadly missed.
In sporting terms though, I (sadly) think they've gone down the right general path. Partly for containing safety as there's no denying that some of the developments have been less than ideally safe to put it delicately - the idea of the combined evolution of an MP4 ground-effect car with the 1500BHP Honda V6 turbo, but with another 25 years of development, just wouldn't be manageable or safely driveable with the lateral G it could generate. Also though, for cost containment - F1 had spent too long going up expensive blind alleys that served no competition benefit.
This is a benefit of LMP racing though for me, which I love to watch. The diesel cars may sound a bit odd but the sight of a Peugeot 908, Audi R10 and Lola Aston LMP1 thundering through the Becketts-Maggots complex while picking their way through the GTs is just awesomely impressive, and you can continue to see genuine differentiation and innovation in the chassis.
- bigiain 16y agoAgreed. While I feel curious about what sort of spectacle we'd be seeing if they were still allowed to run 1.5l turbo motors with active suspension and ground effects all at the same time, I understand the need to both keep costs within reasonable bounds, and to keep drivers alive...
- siika2000 16y agoHere's something I don't understand: Why do they ban technologies on cost grounds? Why not just force the teams to sell one of their cars (chosen by random) in an auction at some minimum price at the end of the season? Banning technologies to control costs just results in more money being poured in to old technologies, when it should be poured into new technologies that could finally set us free from the tyranny of traditional IC engines.
- eftpotrm 16y agoWell, at present the cars are pretty much written off at the end of the year as total losses anyway - you might see a few cropping up for sale, but for well below the manufacturing costs in my experience. So forcing a sale wouldn't really change the economics of the situation in the way you're thinking. Who would buy though? The cars gain new parts on a race-by-race basis - they're never line production vehicles so there'd never be a stock of parts available to support them. The support infrastructure to run them is horrendously intricate, components are designed to be inspected every few hundred miles.... I can't see how it'd be viable - the current market that buys the few cars that crop up is hardly enormous.