F1 2009 Season discussion/development thread
- Thread starter Duke
- Start date
Would love to chat more about the state of F1 but im off to Autosport Awards
No your not, you just stole the invite off some bloke
Soldato
What, you mean every GP season since time immemorial?
Okay, slight exaggeration. Emphasis on "slight". There have been many, many years where the pointy end of things was defined by 2-3 teams. That's why we've had the "Big Four" (the 4th usually being distant.....hell, the 3rd too) for a long time - Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Benetton/Renault. They've won every single constructors title since.....'79, by my reckoning.
The other teams might not have been 2sec per lap slower, but they were certainly slower. And that gap has only increased over the years. Take '82 - after all the shenanigans (FISA versus FOCA) and all the deaths, Rosberg won the title in the final round with only one race win in his Williams (that win coming in round 14 of 16, and under the 9-6-4-3-2-1 points sytem). Fast forward two decades to 2002, and Schumacher annihilates the opposition - taking the title at the French GP, 11 rounds into a 17 round series (with 10-6-4-3-2-1 being the points system and 8 wins at that stage, rising to 11 by the end of the year) and never finishing off the podium.
Aah, progress!
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Deleted member 11679
D
Deleted member 11679
Source? What potential seats are up for taking?
BMW [Both seats taken]
Ferrari [Both seats taken]
Force India - what is the status of Fisi and Sutil?
Honda - Obviously out the equation
McLaren [Both seats taken]
Red Bull - could Webber be dropped?
Renault - Piquet Jnr has already signed on for another year?
Torro Rosso - Spare seats
Toyota - Both confirmed for next season?
Williams - Wouldn't be welcome back? Both confirmed for next season?
Few seats left! Bet his manager has been in overdrive this weekend. I am almost wishful thinking for a year out, enters BTCC and wins the Championship, then returns to F1 for a top 3 team in 2010. Most, most unlikely though.
Thanks for clearing that up.
I know exactly what you mean and like I stated in my previous response, that if this is how things continue, then so be it. We might get to see the top drivers, in near identical cars, racing eachother. If this happens for only 2-4 years (until the financial problems sort themselves out), then it might be a welcome change and might actually increase viewing figures as we wont see 1 or 2 teams dominate so much.
You make this scenario sound very much like a doomsday scenario; I see it more as change in the rules and perhaps more exciting racing - far from the doom and gloom you predict.
Soldato
I am amazed that there seems to be so much demand for Button. He must bring a lot of money/investment/sponsorship/relationships with him... or something.
Soldato
Not really. Here is a man about to be made redundant and facing the prospect of early retirement from F1. If Brawn isn't "in" F1 next season then that is it for him really.
Too right.
I remember when Brawn first joined Honda, he said that the 2008 car will improve, right the way through the season. He also suggested that they had some MAJOR developments planned which would allow them to leapfrog other teams.
The months went by and though intially there was a push forward, we then saw Honda move backwards and as normal, they then "began concentrating on next year's car". Low and behold, Brawn is coming out with the same nonsense yet again.
If Honda get bought out, the car will probably be near the back of the grid, again, with Brawn telling us that the car will improve. Midway through the season, he will then say that the team are now concentrating on next year's car.
At Ferrari he had a fantastic pilot, in Michael Schumacher. This gave everyone in the factory extra motivation to produce a car that would be driven by the best driver in F1 at the time. At Honda, he doesnt have a Schumacher to pilot the car and the people at Honda probably dont have the same level of motivation, especially now that Honda is to pull out, I see motivation/morale being pretty low.
What's the point of working hard on the car, if they are likely to be looking for new jobs soon?
I wonder if Toyota would take him? It seems a waste of expertise/experience to let dissapear from F1.
Soldato
We'll hopefully not have to endure another season of Button's underperfoming ways now.
What, you mean every GP season since time immemorial?
Okay, slight exaggeration. Emphasis on "slight". There have been many, many years where the pointy end of things was defined by 2-3 teams. That's why we've had the "Big Four" (the 4th usually being distant.....hell, the 3rd too) for a long time - Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Benetton/Renault. They've won every single constructors title since.....'79, by my reckoning.
The other teams might not have been 2sec per lap slower, but they were certainly slower. And that gap has only increased over the years. Take '82 - after all the shenanigans (FISA versus FOCA) and all the deaths, Rosberg won the title in the final round with only one race win in his Williams (that win coming in round 14 of 16, and under the 9-6-4-3-2-1 points sytem). Fast forward two decades to 2002, and Schumacher annihilates the opposition - taking the title at the French GP, 11 rounds into a 17 round series (with 10-6-4-3-2-1 being the points system and 8 wins at that stage, rising to 11 by the end of the year) and never finishing off the podium.
Aah, progress!
Just because thats the way it has almost always been doesn't mean that's the way it should be. It's boring, it's why nearly every one you speak to these days thinks the sport is boring and predictable.
Look how much money it's taken for mclaren to finally win another title. 1999-2008. More than a Billion pounds your reckon?
If this is what it takes to finally be able to turn the TV on and have a little bit of doubt as to whose going to win if most of the cars stay running then so be it. It needs to be that way, otherwise it's a totally pointless investment.
Banging on about F1 being the pinacle and needing to be at the forefront of technology doesn't cut it. How much of this stuff makes it into road cars these days. Perhaps it's should be the other way around, Hamilton certainly needed parking sensors in the pitlane this season
The general public became bored of watching drivers in a gadget ridden car.
Soldato
i think hes better than almost everyone in here makes him out to be. Those issues with Williams and BAR/Honda kinda messed up his idea of choosing the best team. He stayed with Honda because of a better future, but it never really happened so hes been proved wrong. YES Williams fell off the pace too, but if they had a Brit they might have got more sponsorship from Brit countries etc etc. Who knows what could have been?
Hondas cars have always looked like barges with pace to match.
Soldato
Don't mention it.
Oh, good! This is new! 'cause you seemed to somehow manage to miss every single ******* occasion last season where I went off on one at the governing body! Tell me, what changed? Did I use different language, a different font, anything? I really need to know.
Oh, it will be. I don't disagree with that. But it won't be Formula One. It'll be Grand Prix racing held to a different Formula. Not Formula One.
I don't get it - what is so doom-and-gloom about the Grand Prix world championship being run to something other than Formula One? It's been done before. '52-'53, they ran the championship to F2 rules in order to get more teams involved and avoid a Ferrari walkover. It half worked - more teams got in on the act, but Ferrari still dominated. In '61, they changed the rules to use much smaller engines (changed from 2.5 to 1.5 litre motors). Ferrari dominated again but it heralded the truly competetive arrival of Lotus. Since then, the trend has been to make Formula One the true pinnacle of motorsport.
1) 1966 - the "Return To Power", when they allowed engines of up to 3 litres in capacity.
2) The entry of wings through the late '60s/early '70s.
3) Ground effects in '78.
4) Turbos through the late '70s/through the '80s.
5) The end of the rubos, but the increase in allowed engine capacity. Leading straight into....
6) ....the 'high tech' era where active ride, semi/fully auto 'boxes, traction control, ABS and CVT et al all made at least a brief appearance on the F1 stage.
Since then, the trend has been one of the governing body constraining the teams. Active ride, ABS, CVT, fully auto gearchange and traction control are all gone. Teams have to use a common ECU. Soon, they probably won't even be able to design the entire ******* car themselves.
And this is the pinnacle of motorsport, huh?
Mind, I'm running out of options. The BTCC is just expensive bumper cars, the WRC doesn't work on television, GT cars don't really excite me. And as for my favourite - NASCAR is in serious trouble. Petty Enterprises is having to join up with Ganassi in order to survive. DEI won't last forever now Junior is at Hendrick Motorsports.There's every chance that NASCAR's Cup Series could be in real bother by the end of next season. God bless the NASCAR Truck series, keeping decent racing alive!
Just what I was thinking! Surely they would not drop Webber for JB.
Well Brawn has a CV that reads much like Adrian Newey and lets see what he has achieved at Red Bull, yet he has not been dropped. RB knows better than most how to make a world championship winning car so I doubt he will be dropped from F1 just like that!
Adrian Newey is a legend. TBH, by moving to Red Bull he has hampered his career. I think 2009 will be his first year, in a while, working with a top line driver (Vettel). He tends to specialise in making very very tight monocoques which obviously suit the slimmer drivers - Vettel is perfectly suited. Lets see how Vettel does.
You say he is in demand. Can I ask who is demanding him?
anyone else disapointed with this, was expecting a good read but most of the points seemed fairly poor. Read better ideas on here
Soldato
I really don't want F1 to turn into a spec series, but I think in these more troubled times a Standard engine, chassis and Gearbox should be available for teams to use. This will go down well at big teams like Ferrari, as it means they can carry on making there own stuff like they want to. But Smaller teams will be able to take part.
There is no reason why the standard parts should be any worse, if all the engines are made to the same spec and say development on the engine is banned there would be no issue. If development was allowed, then the standard engine can be developed too! Same goes for other parts like gearboxes and chassis.
Brundle's point about dropping the RPM limit is a good one, why not drop it back even more. Why is there any need for such a high RPM limit? Surely if the engines were made to more real world specifications the technologys behind them could be brought to road cars easier. Bringing back turbos would happily counter any loss of power from a much lower rpm.
There is no reason why the standard parts should be any worse, if all the engines are made to the same spec and say development on the engine is banned there would be no issue. If development was allowed, then the standard engine can be developed too! Same goes for other parts like gearboxes and chassis.
Brundle's point about dropping the RPM limit is a good one, why not drop it back even more. Why is there any need for such a high RPM limit? Surely if the engines were made to more real world specifications the technologys behind them could be brought to road cars easier. Bringing back turbos would happily counter any loss of power from a much lower rpm.
Newey lost interest years ago. Wanting to split his time between cars and boats. Mclaren wouldn't let him so he left. Red bull paid the money and so far he hasn't delivered much.
F1 design and how many are involved has moved on so far now that you can see mclaren didn't suffer much when he left and red bull have hardly made great strides.