5 ms·

It was actually banned almost immediately after convincingly winning its inaugural race, at the hands of the legendary Niki Lauda.

dom96 4y ago
I wonder why it still remains banned. Surely once all cars can get the same fans it should be allowed?
- lljk_kennedy 4y ago
  Costs cap most likely.
- VBprogrammer 4y ago
  We could build a car which no human being could survive a 100 mile race in today. The human is the limiting factor so we have to limit the technology to what humans (even elite sportsmen) can deal with. There are all kinds of restrictions added to race cars of almost any series, some for commercial reasons (promoting the original vehicle in rallying and touring cars for example), some for financial (generally to keep the price of entry reasonable) and sometimes for safety.
  - fnimick 4y ago
    Relevant XKCD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/116/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/116/
  - smm11 4y ago
    Not at all related, but I watched the various motorcycle jumps of the Caesars Palace fountains the other day. Watching Travis Pastrana jump the fountains on a fairly heavy Indian flat track bike, with modern ramps designed with computer input, and planning rather than seat-of-the-pants go-for-it-ness made it okay, but hardly death-defying. I see guys jump motorcycles furthers on the dunes in Southern California. When EK did it, it was terrifying. Just like F1 was, once upon a time. Now F1 is scary because speeds are up against human reaction. It's inevitable the cars either have to slow down, or the driver needs to be on controls not in the car, making this ground-based drones.
- barkingcat 4y ago
  F1 racing bans a lot of tech. For example, anti-lock brakes and AWD are banned in F1. Just because all cars can get it easily doesn't mean F1 want it. Most often the quoted reason is to have a better spectator sport and to make it safer. I really doubt those reasons because you can still have a difficult and tight race while having all the modern safety features. For example why don't F1 cars have entire car air bags (ie air bags that envelop the entire car that deploy when the car goes airborne in a crash/rollover)? if it's too "heavy" just make a rule that all F1 cars need to have air bags so the playing field is even. F1 cars should have self driving collision avoidance that can activate faster than human response times as well. that would be way safer for everyone involved.
  - perryizgr8 4y ago
    Why not go all the way and just have RC F1 cars that are remotely driven like FPV drones? Then the cars can do truly insane stuff without any danger to the driver. But I feel it wouldn't be F1 anymore if this happens.
    - bitexploder 4y ago
      FPV1 would be a different sport. The element of danger is part of why so many are drawn to it.
  - nier 4y ago
    I wonder whether an airbag enveloping the whole car would have been advantageous in the case of Romain Grosjean’s crash in Bahrain in 2020. He might have bounced off the guard rail or be stuck in it just the same with extra material surrounding him and catching fire. There have been also at least two cases I remember of race cars becoming airborne after touching wheels and being able to continue the race. This usually happens when the field is packed after (re)starts. Deploying airbags in such cases would probably entail a chain reaction that might resemble corn being popped.
    - micheljansen 4y ago
      I would watch F1 popcorn edition!
- animal_spirits 4y ago
  It would suck up rocks, dust, and debris from the track and spit it out to the driver behind. There are interviews with drivers complaining about it from the very start.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I think main goal is to avoid big deadly accidents. Drivers dying is not good out look for a sport from marketing standpoint. As such lot of thought is put in making the races slower and removing failure points that can lead uncontrollable 300km/h rockets. Like fan failing at end of straight and car becoming uncontrollable then crashing to concrete barrier. Very nasty for driver and possibly the audience and people next to track.
- adrr 4y ago
  They need to slow the cars down to be safe. Recently, there’s a push to make the cars cheaper.
- m3kw9 4y ago
  Tradition vs too much complexity balance. Adding too much smarts will make it the driver uses less and less skill. Adding fans would just make the car more likely to break down and screw up dynamics.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  F1 stopped chasing the frontier of what's possible engineering wise back in the 80s. Cars were already potent enough then to exceed human capacity, even the very best drivers. F1 rule makers shifted to stuff they saw as the intersection of good racing and useful R&D for automakers. In fact there's almost no racing events that have a true open class engineering wise anymore. It's just too dangerous. Look up what happened during the Group B Rally era for examples of how it can go wrong and blow back.
ryndbfsrw 4y ago
The BT46B being banned after a single race is a bit of an urban legend. It was not banned and was perfectly legal to run for the remainder of the year. The background to why Gordon Murray (designer) decided to go with the fan design was the flat-12 engine used by Brabham didn't allow venturi tunnels along the side of the car (flat-12s being too wide) so he had to find another way to respond to the then-new ground-effect others were exploiting. A neat legal trick was discovered: a fan could be installed on the car as long as its primary purpose was to cool the motor. Primary purpose in this case meant, and GM got a lawyer's opinion on this, at least 51% of the volume of air went to cool the engine. Brabham was very clear this fan sucked the car to the ground but also proved to the governing body that most of the air went to cooling, so it was deemed legal for the rest of the year but the loophole was to be closed for the following year. Stories by Andretti about the BT46 throwing stones and being dangerous to other drivers was complete rubbish made up by Colin Chapman to get the car banned as he saw Brabham would walk away with the championship. In effect the tips of the fans never moved particularly fast (ballpark 50mph along the edges) so it was never dangerous to other drivers. The actual story as to why it was withdrawn is Bernie Ecclestone, then owner of the Brabham team was also the head of the Formula One Constructors Association and the other manufacturers threatened to leave the association if he didn't withdraw the car. Seeing the bigger picture of securing TV and advertising rights to F1, Bernie withdrew the car after a single race.

dom96 4y ago

I wonder why it still remains banned. Surely once all cars can get the same fans it should be allowed?

lljk_kennedy 4y ago
Costs cap most likely.
VBprogrammer 4y ago
We could build a car which no human being could survive a 100 mile race in today. The human is the limiting factor so we have to limit the technology to what humans (even elite sportsmen) can deal with. There are all kinds of restrictions added to race cars of almost any series, some for commercial reasons (promoting the original vehicle in rallying and touring cars for example), some for financial (generally to keep the price of entry reasonable) and sometimes for safety.
- fnimick 4y ago
  Relevant XKCD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/116/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/116/
- smm11 4y ago
  Not at all related, but I watched the various motorcycle jumps of the Caesars Palace fountains the other day. Watching Travis Pastrana jump the fountains on a fairly heavy Indian flat track bike, with modern ramps designed with computer input, and planning rather than seat-of-the-pants go-for-it-ness made it okay, but hardly death-defying. I see guys jump motorcycles furthers on the dunes in Southern California. When EK did it, it was terrifying. Just like F1 was, once upon a time. Now F1 is scary because speeds are up against human reaction. It's inevitable the cars either have to slow down, or the driver needs to be on controls not in the car, making this ground-based drones.
barkingcat 4y ago
F1 racing bans a lot of tech. For example, anti-lock brakes and AWD are banned in F1. Just because all cars can get it easily doesn't mean F1 want it. Most often the quoted reason is to have a better spectator sport and to make it safer. I really doubt those reasons because you can still have a difficult and tight race while having all the modern safety features. For example why don't F1 cars have entire car air bags (ie air bags that envelop the entire car that deploy when the car goes airborne in a crash/rollover)? if it's too "heavy" just make a rule that all F1 cars need to have air bags so the playing field is even. F1 cars should have self driving collision avoidance that can activate faster than human response times as well. that would be way safer for everyone involved.
- perryizgr8 4y ago
  Why not go all the way and just have RC F1 cars that are remotely driven like FPV drones? Then the cars can do truly insane stuff without any danger to the driver. But I feel it wouldn't be F1 anymore if this happens.
  - bitexploder 4y ago
    FPV1 would be a different sport. The element of danger is part of why so many are drawn to it.
- nier 4y ago
  I wonder whether an airbag enveloping the whole car would have been advantageous in the case of Romain Grosjean’s crash in Bahrain in 2020. He might have bounced off the guard rail or be stuck in it just the same with extra material surrounding him and catching fire. There have been also at least two cases I remember of race cars becoming airborne after touching wheels and being able to continue the race. This usually happens when the field is packed after (re)starts. Deploying airbags in such cases would probably entail a chain reaction that might resemble corn being popped.
  - micheljansen 4y ago
    I would watch F1 popcorn edition!
animal_spirits 4y ago
It would suck up rocks, dust, and debris from the track and spit it out to the driver behind. There are interviews with drivers complaining about it from the very start.
Ekaros 4y ago
I think main goal is to avoid big deadly accidents. Drivers dying is not good out look for a sport from marketing standpoint. As such lot of thought is put in making the races slower and removing failure points that can lead uncontrollable 300km/h rockets. Like fan failing at end of straight and car becoming uncontrollable then crashing to concrete barrier. Very nasty for driver and possibly the audience and people next to track.
adrr 4y ago
They need to slow the cars down to be safe. Recently, there’s a push to make the cars cheaper.
m3kw9 4y ago
Tradition vs too much complexity balance. Adding too much smarts will make it the driver uses less and less skill. Adding fans would just make the car more likely to break down and screw up dynamics.
jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
F1 stopped chasing the frontier of what's possible engineering wise back in the 80s. Cars were already potent enough then to exceed human capacity, even the very best drivers. F1 rule makers shifted to stuff they saw as the intersection of good racing and useful R&D for automakers. In fact there's almost no racing events that have a true open class engineering wise anymore. It's just too dangerous. Look up what happened during the Group B Rally era for examples of how it can go wrong and blow back.

ryndbfsrw 4y ago

The BT46B being banned after a single race is a bit of an urban legend. It was not banned and was perfectly legal to run for the remainder of the year. The background to why Gordon Murray (designer) decided to go with the fan design was the flat-12 engine used by Brabham didn't allow venturi tunnels along the side of the car (flat-12s being too wide) so he had to find another way to respond to the then-new ground-effect others were exploiting. A neat legal trick was discovered: a fan could be installed on the car as long as its primary purpose was to cool the motor. Primary purpose in this case meant, and GM got a lawyer's opinion on this, at least 51% of the volume of air went to cool the engine. Brabham was very clear this fan sucked the car to the ground but also proved to the governing body that most of the air went to cooling, so it was deemed legal for the rest of the year but the loophole was to be closed for the following year. Stories by Andretti about the BT46 throwing stones and being dangerous to other drivers was complete rubbish made up by Colin Chapman to get the car banned as he saw Brabham would walk away with the championship. In effect the tips of the fans never moved particularly fast (ballpark 50mph along the edges) so it was never dangerous to other drivers. The actual story as to why it was withdrawn is Bernie Ecclestone, then owner of the Brabham team was also the head of the Formula One Constructors Association and the other manufacturers threatened to leave the association if he didn't withdraw the car. Seeing the bigger picture of securing TV and advertising rights to F1, Bernie withdrew the car after a single race.