Bubble wrap F1

CaptainRAVE

CaptainRAVE

CaptainRAVE

Man of Honour
Joined
21 Nov 2004
Posts
46,243
What is happening to F1 at the moment? Are the FIA trying to push fans away?

Safety cars just because it's started raining a bit harder? By the time the safety car was in there was no need for wet tyres anymore!

Pretty much every attempted overtake being investigated?

Seriously, why don't we just do time trial races with one car on the track at a time or set a speed limit of 60mph and be done with it?

Driver safety is one thing, but F1 is starting to become a complete joke.

I preyed for rain in Canada this weekend, what a mistake that was!
 
far to long on the race resart by atleast 3 laps.

might have kept the track wet enough to give schumacher that podium to
 
I wish they'd just invent some tyres that could handle the extreme weather. It supposed to be a spectacle of the best drivers in the world - would be nice to see them in all conditions.

Seems like they raced on wetter tracks back in the day.
 
MooMoo444 said:
I wish they'd just invent some tyres that could handle the extreme weather. It supposed to be a spectacle of the best drivers in the world - would be nice to see them in all conditions.

Seems like they raced on wetter tracks back in the day.
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Its not the tyres, cars are lower down now .. and they have flat wooden plates under the bodywork.
If you get standing water more then about 4mm high then the car just skids around.

Only way to fix it would be to either 1) force the cars to be made say 15mm from the ground min.
or
2) prepare 'extreme wet' cars, with the above ruling, which drivers swap into in case of a red flag due to rain.
 
arknor said:
or just use wet weather tyres with a larger wheelbase? its the same thing as raising the car?
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Could do that, but team's would be hacked off that the car's become so different to drive even in light rain.
Pretty much if there's any rain going on you see most drivers dart in for full wets, inter's are only used when the track is starting to dry out.
Perhaps, to keep the teams happy just introduce yet another compound of "Extreme wet" which are as you said.
 
They could re-allow active suspension, giving teams the option then of using the system to raise the ride height easily when heavy rain comes along and lower it again as the track dries out. Or is that crazy talk?
 
JRS said:
They could re-allow active suspension, giving teams the option then of using the system to raise the ride height easily when heavy rain comes along and lower it again as the track dries out. Or is that crazy talk?
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Wouldn't raising a car even by a few milimeters on a dry setup make them horribly unstable though, surely the ride height is an important part of the combined package for stability?

(honest question as I'm not much of an aerodynamicist ;))
 
JRS said:
They could re-allow active suspension, giving teams the option then of using the system to raise the ride height easily when heavy rain comes along and lower it again as the track dries out. Or is that crazy talk?
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I thought about that yesterday but then figured it wouldn't be long before someone was cheating with it and even 3mm movement would be hard to detect and prove. Look at how long the fuss went on with flexi wings.

Quickest way would be in the tyres and wheel to raise the car and if the teams suspect rain coming then they should gamble on set up.

As for the FIA/Stewards I don't blame them for all the safety car stuff. I don't blame them for holding the car out oo long. I blame the drivers who start crying at the first sight of rain. They only have their feedback to go from and if 15 of them are crying like vettel was yesterday then they can't take the risk of a restart.

Aqua planning and bottoming out with these cars is nothing new, in the past they just got on with. Pull over or go slower.
 
What is happening to F1 at the moment? Are the FIA trying to push fans away?
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Are you kidding? Yesterdays race was the best I've seen for ages and I've spoken to many first time watchers - due to the time it was on- and they loved it!

Can't see an issue with yesterday - when the ran came down they needed canoes, not better tyres.

And so what they delayed it for a couple of hours - what was the rush? they had plenty of daylight left. They got the race restarted and what a cracker it turned out to be. For the rare times they have rain like this on a race day, I can't see the effort to adapt the rules/cars would be justified,

I do agree that the safety car could ahve come in a couple of laps earlier each time though.
 
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Duke said:
The SC was needed, but it stayed out too long each time.
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Safety Car is to slow the cars down in the event of an accident, a race should NEVER be started under a SC, and if heavy rain falls, there is enough weather info to make a call very quickly.

Lapping in formation is the most pointless thing ever, a race is either safe to start or it isn't.
 
Duke said:
The SC was needed, but it stayed out too long each time.
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This. Although maybe not for the start.

The Safety car should be used as a temporary measure while something happens (a crash cleared up). When starting under the safety car, it should be used to give the drivers a sighter and then let them go, so 1 lap, 2 at most. When its raining so hard the cars cant race, then the race should be red flagged, not run under the safety car for 5 laps before being red flagged.

Both starts under SC, the SC was out waaaaaaaaay to long. The SC before the red flag was also pointlessly long.

But also, I'd just like to raise the 'cotton wool' issue again. The thing with an F1 car is that they have a 5mm ride height. When standing water gets deep, the cars float. No amount of driver skill or bravery is going to counteract the laws of physics. If your wheels aren't touching the ground, there is nothing you can do. The drivers aren't being chicken, its just simply impossible for them to drive in that condition. And no they cant just increase the ride heights. F1 regulations mean everyone designs cars as low to the ground as possible, for the fastest times possible in dry wether and clear air. They are also unable to change it from a Saturday. Coping with wet wether properly would mean a massive overhaul of the rules, for a situation that happens once every few seasons...

Personally, they should take Mark Webbers advice. If its to wet, postpone it for a bit.
 
Was an awkward one with the safety cars really, particularly the one at the start. Easy to say that it should have started normally; but I imagine we'd have all complained if everyone crashed in T1 and they red flagged the race :p
Personally I think in really heavy rain they should either Delay the race, or start behind the safety car as a single sighter lap for a rolling start. None of this rubbish with 5 laps behind the safety car.

The safety car for when the torrential rain suddenly came down (lap 17 or so?) was fully justified imo, there is no doubt there would have been accidents there; it was the sort of weather that driving a normal road car hard in would have been tricky - let alone an F1 car.

Safety car for the restart? Definitely stupid; should have been a single lap like the start of the race should have been. Watching everyone come straight in for inters showed just how stupid it was.

I'd like to say the drivers should just MTFU and slow down if they aren't comfortable, but whilst that can apply for spray driving in water the same depth as your ground clearance just isn't going to work!
 
What he said. The SC would have been fine if they were for 1 lap each. Its the fact they were 5 or so each for absolutely no reason thats got peoples backs up. We were robbed of 15 laps of potentially epic racing.
 
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