Bubble wrap F1

arknor · 13 Jun 2011 at 14:35

PinkFloyd said:
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

heres an idea dont use the safety car , start the race under yellow flag conditions but only for sector one

controlled start to prevent a first corner pile up , leader controls the pace rather than a safety car staying out for the whole lap or multiple laps, its actually better to just to yellow flag the whole circuit than have a safety car imo as the cars dont build any heat behind the safety car where as under yellow flags they can

Skeeter · 13 Jun 2011 at 14:36

arknor said:
heres an idea dont use the safety car , start the race under yellow flag conditions but only for sector one

controlled start to prevent a first corner pile up , leader controls the pace rather than a safety car staying out for the whole lap or multiple laps, its actually better to just to yellow flag the whole circuit than have a safety car imo as the cars dont build any heat behind the safety car where as under yellow flags they can

F1 doesn't have full course cautions, we have a safety car for that instead. 1 lap of SC would have been fine.

alx · 13 Jun 2011 at 14:53

Isn't part of the issue that they can't change setups after qualifying, hence if it rains on race day they can't put a wet setup on, only wet weather tyres? Surely this must be part of the issue as the cars are too low down for wet weather.

Skeeter · 13 Jun 2011 at 15:00

alx said:
Isn't part of the issue that they can't change setups after qualifying, hence if it rains on race day they can't put a wet setup on, only wet weather tyres? Surely this must be part of the issue as the cars are too low down for wet weather.

No amount of wet wether setup would have allowed them to race in that rain. A wet setup is more downforce and softer suspension. I don't think a wet setup puts any more height in the car at all. Even if it did, your talking 1 or 2mm.

arknor · 13 Jun 2011 at 15:02

5mm from the wet tyre , whatever mm from the tread and the suspension gets raised 5mm or so + higher downforce is basicly a wet weather setup.

you can change the cars under a red flag but i think on teds pitlane report thing he said only torro rosso did or whoever it was

Skeeter · 13 Jun 2011 at 15:05

Williams tried to change Rubens suspension setup but were told by the stewards they werent allowed to.

Valentino · 13 Jun 2011 at 15:10

Bridgestone used to have monsoon tyres. It's not like putting larger tyres on teh car will do anything to the car. They are open wheelers so there will be nothing to rub on. Just for extreme weather a tyre that is an inch larger in diameter.

This isn't a rare occurance, it happens almost every year. You should have seen the weather the GP bikes were racing in, although as Mork Webber said it was a bit of a boring race, too many riders fell off making it a little like F1 with no overtaking lol.

Skeeter · 13 Jun 2011 at 15:13

Oh yeah, I'm so bored of the 'MotoGP bikes were fine in the rain' talk too. MotoGP bikes don't have 5mm ride heights and flat floors. The comparison is utterly pointless.

And fitting larger tyres would mean changing the cars for the new setup. Something you canno't do with parc ferme rules. Then if we remove park ferme rules, we open ourselves up for a world of expensive pain.

Valentino · 13 Jun 2011 at 15:19

Skeeter said:
Oh yeah, I'm so bored of the 'MotoGP bikes were fine in the rain' talk too. MotoGP bikes don't have 5mm ride heights and flat floors. The comparison is utterly pointless.

And fitting larger tyres would mean changing the cars for the new setup. Something you canno't do with parc ferme rules. Then if we remove park ferme rules, we open ourselves up for a world of expensive pain.

I think they should be allowed to change the setup if the weather conditions change. If qualifying is declared dry and then the race is declared wet, everything can be changed and vice versa, but if both are wet, or both dry then no changes. I'm surprised you can't already do this seeing as how pathetic they are getting over safety.

Yup, i think the better comparison was to NASCAR, where they just won't race, they'll go racing on Monday instead, but because of F1 being a money investment, rather than a motor sport they can't afford to do that.

Duke · 13 Jun 2011 at 15:23

They said on the commentary that the extreme wets raise the ride height a bit, maybe increasing that further would be a quick way to help.

JRS · 13 Jun 2011 at 15:30

Valentino said:
Yup, i think the better comparison was to NASCAR, where they just won't race, they'll go racing on Monday instead, but because of F1 being a money investment, rather than a motor sport they can't afford to do that.

If Goodyear could make a tyre that would allow a NASCAR stocker to race on an oval in wet conditions (think on, they need to keep a certain speed up on the steeper banked ovals or they'll slide down the hill!) then the NASCAR drivers would race in the wet. I know they've ran a roadcourse race in the wet in the Nationwide series before (2008, ironically enough at this very same Montreal track *edit* and 2009, must have missed that one), and the Cup Series and Trucks have done roadcourse testing in the wet as well. But oval racing and wet weather really don't mix.

***edit***

NASCAR in the wet at Montreal back in '08.

arknor · 13 Jun 2011 at 16:23

Valentino said:
It's not like putting larger tyres on teh car will do anything to the car. They are open wheelers so there will be nothing to rub on. Just for extreme weather a tyre that is an inch larger in diameter

indeed

perfct solution! i bet none would dare bang wheels either lol

rypt · 13 Jun 2011 at 17:34

Alpherah said:
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.

Or force them to run and let the teams decide whether they want to run super low but then not be able to run in the wet or run more compromised in the dry but be able to handle the wet

ins0mn1ac · 13 Jun 2011 at 18:03

arknor said:
indeed

perfct solution! i bet none would dare bang wheels either lol

Swap them for Pirellis and we'll talk