what F1 rules would you implament?
- Thread starter Glaucus
- Start date
Soldato
So they'd have to drive slower. Some drivers might be able to tough it out at higher speeds, and they would win races. Don't we want to see a formula where driver skill and bravery is rewarded?
Mostly I'd think about throwing up....
Here's what I'd do with it:
No restrictions on energy recovery systems
Scrap engine homologation crapola
Allow ground effect
Allow active suspension
Qualifying - Friday practice times set provisional grid, Saturday session is a 1 hour/12 laps/smell-of-an-oily-rag job
Race - allow refuelling but limit overall amount of fuel available for the race to current or lower level, remove two compound tyre rule
It's that, or scrap the whole bloody mess. I'm bored with the state that it's in right now. And to think I was fairly optimistic after the Australian race :/
Soldato
Split the current grand prix lengths into a sprint race and a longer one.
Each car has to use all four slick tyre types over the two races at a venue, unless it is raining.
More championship points given in the longer race, but at least the top 10 grid is reversed from the result of the sprint race.
Each car has to use all four slick tyre types over the two races at a venue, unless it is raining.
More championship points given in the longer race, but at least the top 10 grid is reversed from the result of the sprint race.
Soldato
So they'd have to drive slower. Some drivers might be able to tough it out at higher speeds, and they would win races. Don't we want to see a formula where driver skill and bravery is rewarded?
Of course, but not to the point of a driver going off at, say, the Ferradura because they can take it flat out. That's not bravery, that's stupidity.
Ok, I've avoided this thread until now for a number of reasons (primarily the title not even being spelt right), but with all the talk about losing teams, here are my suggestions for a way to stop F1 falling to well below 10 teams:
And that's it. Everything else stays as it is now or as its planned to be in the future. These are designed around removing the requirement for a team to build its own chassis. At the end of the day this is why Marussia and Caterham are not competitive. The engines and gearboxes and drivers (to some extend) are comparable with the rest of the grid, but the Chassis is poor and the result is they are slow. If they could buy a chassis from someone competent in making one they suddenly jump into the midfield without having to spend gazillions on their own aero development.
The parc ferme rule is to allow chassis makers who are also team owners to continually develop throughout the season. They can bring development parts to races and use them in Practice sessions, and use them in testing too. But as soon as they decide that part is good enough to give them an advantage in competition, and they use it in Quali or the Race, its available to their customers. This should mean a 1 race advantage, maybe a bit more if its a major part or back to back races, but ultimately it would prevent customer teams being given a spec car at race 1 and then getting no upgrades throughout the whole year.
I'd envisage this producing a mix of relationships. There would be some really strong ties (RBR and Toro Rosso being effectively a 4 car team), some independent teams partnering with a manufacturer (Ferrari building everything, and supplying Haas), and then some complete customers. Imagine Prodrive make a chassis but don't own a team, and Caterham buy a Prodrive chassis, a Renault engine, and a Red Bull gearbox and suddenly are able to compete in the midfield without going bankrupt? Meanwhile Sauber buy the other Prodrive chassis, and mate it to a Mercedes engine and Williams gearbox and chase them down.
You also make chassis manufacturing competitive, especially for manufacturers who don't run their own team. Just like engines now, if you produce a good one, you get lots of people wanting it, and can charge more. If you produce a dog, nobody wants it, you need to drop your prices, or even end up without a team buying your chassis. The chassis, just like everything else in an F1 car, becomes a component a team buys to go racing. At the moment its the only thing you need to make yourself, and its the one thing that is a black hole of a money pit, and the primary reason slow teams are slow.
Buy changing the Constructors championship to a Teams one means its the Team that get the money. Sure you would see some teams being friendly to other on track, but that happens now anyway. However you would only need 6 chassis makers to have a 24 car grid, whereas now we have 11 for a 22 car grid, and at least 2 of them may soon vanish. Swings and roundabouts, but I think I'd rather see 24 cars close in competition, with a few inter team friendships, than 18 or 20 cars with 4 or so that may as well not bother they are so slow.
- Remove the Constructors Championship and replace it with a Teams Championship. Scoring and prize money operates as it does for the WCC now.
- Chassis manufacturers can supply a maximum of 2 teams
- Chassis manufacturers can be Team owners or completely independent
- Engine and Gearbox mounting standardised to allow any Engine or Gearbox to be used with any Chassis
- Chassis development is open, as it is now, but once a part has been used in parc ferme conditions by a single team, that part must be available to any other customer teams of that Chassis.
And that's it. Everything else stays as it is now or as its planned to be in the future. These are designed around removing the requirement for a team to build its own chassis. At the end of the day this is why Marussia and Caterham are not competitive. The engines and gearboxes and drivers (to some extend) are comparable with the rest of the grid, but the Chassis is poor and the result is they are slow. If they could buy a chassis from someone competent in making one they suddenly jump into the midfield without having to spend gazillions on their own aero development.
The parc ferme rule is to allow chassis makers who are also team owners to continually develop throughout the season. They can bring development parts to races and use them in Practice sessions, and use them in testing too. But as soon as they decide that part is good enough to give them an advantage in competition, and they use it in Quali or the Race, its available to their customers. This should mean a 1 race advantage, maybe a bit more if its a major part or back to back races, but ultimately it would prevent customer teams being given a spec car at race 1 and then getting no upgrades throughout the whole year.
I'd envisage this producing a mix of relationships. There would be some really strong ties (RBR and Toro Rosso being effectively a 4 car team), some independent teams partnering with a manufacturer (Ferrari building everything, and supplying Haas), and then some complete customers. Imagine Prodrive make a chassis but don't own a team, and Caterham buy a Prodrive chassis, a Renault engine, and a Red Bull gearbox and suddenly are able to compete in the midfield without going bankrupt? Meanwhile Sauber buy the other Prodrive chassis, and mate it to a Mercedes engine and Williams gearbox and chase them down.
You also make chassis manufacturing competitive, especially for manufacturers who don't run their own team. Just like engines now, if you produce a good one, you get lots of people wanting it, and can charge more. If you produce a dog, nobody wants it, you need to drop your prices, or even end up without a team buying your chassis. The chassis, just like everything else in an F1 car, becomes a component a team buys to go racing. At the moment its the only thing you need to make yourself, and its the one thing that is a black hole of a money pit, and the primary reason slow teams are slow.
Buy changing the Constructors championship to a Teams one means its the Team that get the money. Sure you would see some teams being friendly to other on track, but that happens now anyway. However you would only need 6 chassis makers to have a 24 car grid, whereas now we have 11 for a 22 car grid, and at least 2 of them may soon vanish. Swings and roundabouts, but I think I'd rather see 24 cars close in competition, with a few inter team friendships, than 18 or 20 cars with 4 or so that may as well not bother they are so slow.
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Four engine manufacturers HAVE to supply three teams each (whether its their own or a customer team)
If there are customer chassis teams, I don't see why WCC needs to be rebranded as such - whats in the name really?
Cant see an external chassis maker coming in - it just wouldn't be economical for exactly the same reason (that's why the back end teams cant make it pay - it only starts making it cheaper once you sell the design down the grid that you are using).
I actually like the fact Merc had a gearbox design that allowed them to change their back end so drastically for which ever track. Standardising this and engine mounts makes the whole customer part work easier, but curtails options those teams have at the same time (because they cant change this for good or bad).
If there are customer chassis teams, I don't see why WCC needs to be rebranded as such - whats in the name really?
Cant see an external chassis maker coming in - it just wouldn't be economical for exactly the same reason (that's why the back end teams cant make it pay - it only starts making it cheaper once you sell the design down the grid that you are using).
I actually like the fact Merc had a gearbox design that allowed them to change their back end so drastically for which ever track. Standardising this and engine mounts makes the whole customer part work easier, but curtails options those teams have at the same time (because they cant change this for good or bad).
At the moment the prize goes to the constructor, its just the constructor is the team as each team needs to make its own chassis. You would need to change it to a team championship otherwise the chassis maker would get the prize, who could be another team, or even a completely seperate company.
As it stands at the moment the team and constructor are the same thing, so it would work the same.
Basically SkeeterGP could rock up with $100m, buy a supply of engines from X, gearboxes from Y, chassis from Z, get Y. OungDriver and A. Nother onboard, and be competitive. And it could happen in a few months. Haas is taking 18 months to join F1 because they need that time to design and build their own car, while there are 22 (or 18) other ones driving around every other weekend.
There are very few championships where teams are required to build their own cars to compete, and I think that approach is now hurting F1.
As it stands at the moment the team and constructor are the same thing, so it would work the same.
Basically SkeeterGP could rock up with $100m, buy a supply of engines from X, gearboxes from Y, chassis from Z, get Y. OungDriver and A. Nother onboard, and be competitive. And it could happen in a few months. Haas is taking 18 months to join F1 because they need that time to design and build their own car, while there are 22 (or 18) other ones driving around every other weekend.
There are very few championships where teams are required to build their own cars to compete, and I think that approach is now hurting F1.
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Something I was mulling over was a second drivers championship table. It would compare your finishes against you teams average (so would work better with 3 car teams, but might still work for 2 car teams as well).
This would mean that any driver would have a chance, no matter how bad their car (as long as they finish races). In a sense, the only people you are racing against are your teammates, who have the same car as you do. This would allow drivers who are outperforming their car to get some attention and show who the real drivers are.
For example:
Driver 1 finished 6th
Driver 2 finished 12th
Driver 3 finished 13th
Team average score is 10.3
Therefore points are awarded like this:
Driver 1 -4.3
Driver 2 +1.7
Driver 3 +2.7
It would work like golf, so lowest score is better.
This would mean that any driver would have a chance, no matter how bad their car (as long as they finish races). In a sense, the only people you are racing against are your teammates, who have the same car as you do. This would allow drivers who are outperforming their car to get some attention and show who the real drivers are.
For example:
Driver 1 finished 6th
Driver 2 finished 12th
Driver 3 finished 13th
Team average score is 10.3
Therefore points are awarded like this:
Driver 1 -4.3
Driver 2 +1.7
Driver 3 +2.7
It would work like golf, so lowest score is better.
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Soldato
Has that worked as intended in BTCC?
Associate
- 2 Sprint distance races at each event
- Drivers and teams are free to chose which tyre they like from the following compounds:
-Hard should last whole race no worries but be slower
-Medium should be right on the edge at the end of a race but only if the driver is careful
-Soft will require a single stop but be faster. - 2nd race has a reverse grid like BTCC
- Cars can contain as much or as little fuel as the team wants
Soldato
Limit the fuel tank size to 40kg of fuel and allow refuelling with a max 100kg allowed, this forces them to at least 2 stops, unless they are really efficient and/or dont need the full 100kg of fuel.
Make the tyres last longer, so they can push harder on the tyres, they dont need to be the limiting factor anymore, as the fuel will be. I dont mind seeing cars lift and coasting, id rather see them drifting/sliding more because they aren't worried about burning the tyres up. Also harder tyres should equal less marbles, so more track available.
With these rules you could see two types of racing.
1: Cars trying to save fuel to do the race with only 1 stop.
2: Cars pushing like mad, trying to make up time since they have to do 2 stops.
Might mix it up a little, but i actually dont believe the formula needs much change, the racing was much better this year than its been for 15+ years!
What needs to change is costs, They are worried about lower fan numbers, well why does it cost £300+ to go Silverstone? Why are bran new tracks being dropped after only 2-3 seasons because they charged too much to get in. New tracks should have much lower ticket costs to try and incite people in and create new fans. Reduce the ticket prices to get 200k people into the tracks, make it a great day out. Get people back to the stands. F1 seems to forgotten that if the teams are suffering from less money, SO ARE THE FANS, hence lower ticket sales.
Oh and WHY use the same guy to design EVERY track... Mix it up a little for Christ sake.
Make the tyres last longer, so they can push harder on the tyres, they dont need to be the limiting factor anymore, as the fuel will be. I dont mind seeing cars lift and coasting, id rather see them drifting/sliding more because they aren't worried about burning the tyres up. Also harder tyres should equal less marbles, so more track available.
With these rules you could see two types of racing.
1: Cars trying to save fuel to do the race with only 1 stop.
2: Cars pushing like mad, trying to make up time since they have to do 2 stops.
Might mix it up a little, but i actually dont believe the formula needs much change, the racing was much better this year than its been for 15+ years!
What needs to change is costs, They are worried about lower fan numbers, well why does it cost £300+ to go Silverstone? Why are bran new tracks being dropped after only 2-3 seasons because they charged too much to get in. New tracks should have much lower ticket costs to try and incite people in and create new fans. Reduce the ticket prices to get 200k people into the tracks, make it a great day out. Get people back to the stands. F1 seems to forgotten that if the teams are suffering from less money, SO ARE THE FANS, hence lower ticket sales.
Oh and WHY use the same guy to design EVERY track... Mix it up a little for Christ sake.
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Ticket prices are so high because it's the only income the circuits get to keep. They (well, most of them, Monaco pays no hosting fee) pay Bernie Millions to host a race (with an escalator every year, as much as 10% year on year) yet all the TV money, trackside advertising, sponsorship etc. gets kept by Bernie so the circuits have to live on the tickets. For government backed races like China, India, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi etc. it's not a problem but for a track like Silverstone it unfortunately means high ticket prices because there's no other way they could even get remotely close to breaking even otherwise.
Also regarding the newer circuits there are now rules dictating maximum rates of crests, rises, dips, up/down hill sections and circuit width which many traditional tracks would immediately fall foul of if they created a track the same now and asked to host a race. For example Eau Rouge has too steep an incline with too harsh a change before the rise so any new circuit that were to try and emulate it wouldn't be able to host a F1 racee and would likely be denied the 'Class A' classification required to host F1.
Also regarding the newer circuits there are now rules dictating maximum rates of crests, rises, dips, up/down hill sections and circuit width which many traditional tracks would immediately fall foul of if they created a track the same now and asked to host a race. For example Eau Rouge has too steep an incline with too harsh a change before the rise so any new circuit that were to try and emulate it wouldn't be able to host a F1 racee and would likely be denied the 'Class A' classification required to host F1.
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Soldato
That's where FIA and FOM or whatever need to change. Give money back/reduce the fees. It's almost impossible to make more fans if they can't afford to go to the tracks. The ban on in season testing caused issues too. I went to more tests than races, and a lot of peoples first experience of f1 cars running would have been those in season tests (£25 test vs £150 race).
Also TV money should be spread equally amongst teams. Rewarding a top team with more money just increases the gap. Do they release info on what teams earn from TV money? I'm sure the reduction from the top 3 teams would be less damaging to them than what it would help the bottom teams. In the long run this will create better lower end teams and probably make more money for the sport overall, ie teams at the back would close the gap and hopefully be more attractive to sponsor.
Also TV money should be spread equally amongst teams. Rewarding a top team with more money just increases the gap. Do they release info on what teams earn from TV money? I'm sure the reduction from the top 3 teams would be less damaging to them than what it would help the bottom teams. In the long run this will create better lower end teams and probably make more money for the sport overall, ie teams at the back would close the gap and hopefully be more attractive to sponsor.
Man of Honour
I like the idea of two sprint races with a reverse grid. When you think about it, a lot of GP's are pretty much a snoozefest from lap 20 to the end.
Soldato
Dunno if you watched the same racing as me...
There's no magic button to breath life back into F1. However, reintroducing real engines (V8/V10/V12) and making it less of an endurance race would be a good start.
Man of Honour
There are real engines on the cars already. They aren't scalextric cars..
Soldato
exactly, people are living in the past. Sure V10 and V12s are great but turbo and hybrid are the way to go, and to be fair its made the racing far better.