Motorsport Off Topic Thread

I think street tracks are an easier sell for sponsors and for non-hardcore fans as they are considered to have much more glam about them.

The non hardcore fans are much more likely to tune in or even turn up to something they recognise as they know what to expect. Miami is an internationally recognisable place set in a pretty part of the world and will look great on camera. If you talk to anyone that isn't a hardcore motor racing fan about Sebring they'll likely just yawn and walk off. F1 really hasn't been about the racing for decades, its all about the spectacle these days and Miami is a much better fit for that (aka loads of $$$ there).
 
Miami would be terrible, made marginally interesting only should it rain (which would then be torrential and result in red flags).

They may as well just race across the bridges to the Florida Keys and have fans spectate from cruise ships. Actually, I reckon I could sell that idea to Liberty...
 
Spunkey said:
They will *never* resurface Sebring. The bumpiness is part of its heritage. Plus the fact that there's very little run off areas at the end of the long fast straights, at least compared to what the F1 circuit guidelines require.
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the latter part can be fixed unless it's also part of it's heritage?
 
CaptainRAVE said:
http://www.planetf1.com/news/fia-plotting-the-demise-of-necessary-evil-drs/

So we acknowledge that DRS needs to go, good. But in the meantime we are going to make the DRS effect even bigger :(
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I dread to think how bad most the races will be without DRS with the current rules. We had races in 2004-2008 with no overtakes at all (and not just on the street courses), and while some remember those races through rose-tinted glasses, I think some of them were the worst races we've ever had (some of them at the site of the race this weekend).

We've had some OK/good races in 3 of the last 4, but I still think 2 of those were the exception rather than the norm.
 
this_is_gav said:
I dread to think how bad most the races will be without DRS with the current rules. We had races in 2004-2008 with no overtakes at all (and not just on the street courses), and while some remember those races through rose-tinted glasses, I think some of them were the worst races we've ever had (some of them at the site of the race this weekend).

We've had some OK/good races in 3 of the last 4, but I still think 2 of those were the exception rather than the norm.
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People seem to forget that though. I watched loads of 200x races on Sky F1 over the years and the amount of times a car would speed up behind another and then hit an invisble brick wall and be unable to pass was unreal. I think DRS was probaly introduced rightly or wrongly to mitigate this. I.e. if a car is fast enough to get within x amount of you, they should get a shot at passing. Then if the other car is fast enough it will do the same back on the next lap. (You hardly ever see this happen though)
 
this_is_gav said:
I dread to think how bad most the races will be without DRS with the current rules. We had races in 2004-2008 with no overtakes at all (and not just on the street courses), and while some remember those races through rose-tinted glasses, I think some of them were the worst races we've ever had (some of them at the site of the race this weekend).

We've had some OK/good races in 3 of the last 4, but I still think 2 of those were the exception rather than the norm.
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I remember well. We also had a big rule change. Why DRS was introduced instead of modifying the cars I will never know.
 
The infamously pro-Ferrari FIA has banned Ferrari's new wing mirrors. Even though they don't technically break the rule as it is written, hence them being allowed to run them in Barcelona. If history is our guide, this fact should now see a whole chorus of 'but but but why weren't they disqualified???!!!1111oneoneeleventwelve'... :p
 
CaptainRAVE said:
I remember well. We also had a big rule change. Why DRS was introduced instead of modifying the cars I will never know.
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Because it's not just about the rules. Slipstreaming was about gaining a large drop in drag which enabled the car to accelerate faster than the car in front. Regardless of any regulations you pick, no matter what you do, teams now have so much better understanding of aero/drag that compared to 15 years ago they have drastically less drag for any given rules on aero. This means the slipstreaming effect is diminished.

If you brought back rules from 2004, 1994 or 1984 then the teams with their current knowledge of the science behind the aero would make cars with more downforce and less drag.... which would instantly make slipstreaming less advantageous. The car ahead has less drag than before so the engine is less hampered by it, the car behind also has less drag so being in the slipstream has a smaller gain in engine power and so you've reduced a say 7-8% acceleration difference to a 3-4% difference. DRS basically puts the difference back to 7-8% by making the drag reduction compared to the car ahead larger as it used to be.

Personally I think DRS should stay, the alternative is to mandate a minimum level of drag which would be very hard to enforce, or mandate another aero device like everyone has to have some stupid part somewhere on the car that is high drag to force a lead car to have a larger speed reduction... and that is basically the opposite of DRS and still a forced aero change to facilitate overtaking.

Ignoring that the science and capability of teams changes and that slipstreaming simply isn't as effective as it was in the past without measures to fight it is to me, sticking your head in the sand and whining about the past and how it used to be. Things change, people need to get past that, DRS is a fairly elegant solution in general though it's implemented extremely poorly. There should be far more science and precision used in terms of determining the DRS zones, lengths and number, to facilitate passing without making it easy or near useless.

But the same goes for track design, people should have seen the Mexico track and said... how the hell do literally none of the corners facilitate overtaking , now are they such boring corners and such boring sequences and how can you have such a poor corner sequence right before the only passing zone on the track.
 
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