Motorsport Off Topic Thread

mctiny said:
I mean a reform of the FIA and F1. a complete grounds up fresh start.
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You couldn't do that.

There's too much money involved. Everybody with a stake in the business would want their money back if they are going to get kicked out and formula 1 reformed.

dannyjo22 said:
Link?

It's hardly new that a run away team get's no air time. Even Ferrari used to get little air time when they were walking away with races if there was something else of interest. There have been plenty of races where the commentators have said at the end they have barely seen the winner as he's ran away at the front.

It really makes no sense that people think cutting their air time matters. What matter is them being on pole and crossing the line first.
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http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/121039


Obviously its not fact, just mercedes opinnion. But if mercedes think that ,and have gone public with it, you can't blame others on the internet believing the same.
 
Yeah so basically a load of crap. Sometimes you saw more of Hakkinens wife than his car when he was leading. As I say it's nothing new for a leader to get little air time when out front. Plenty of times you saw little of Vettel until the finish line.

Lauda being lauda.
 
deuse said:
If the teams wanted they could form a new championship with out Bernie and the FIA.
They did threaten to do it in 2009 but the FIA backed down.
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And it would be a disaster.

F1 is in the state its in now because 6 of the teams (and 2 of the engine manufacturers) have a say in the rules. The last thing you want is them having total say.

What F1 needs is for the FIA to be the sole makers of the rules, and FOM to be solely responsible for promotion, and for the teams to be competitors who race each other. Mixing the roles up just breaks it.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Yeah so basically a load of crap. Sometimes you saw more of Hakkinens wife than his car when he was leading. As I say it's nothing new for a leader to get little air time when out front. Plenty of times you saw little of Vettel until the finish line.

Lauda being lauda.
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The race I understand (but not the degree they did), but go back and watch qualifying too - there was little more than the Merc drivers crossing the line. Basically what was necessary and not a second more.

I was hardly the only one to notice this at the time. Check out any Suzuka weekend thread on any of the usual motorsport forums and you'll see the same thing.

It's the same treatment Manor got at the start of the season for upsetting Bernie.
 
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Skeeter said:
And it would be a disaster.

F1 is in the state its in now because 6 of the teams (and 2 of the engine manufacturers) have a say in the rules. The last thing you want is them having total say.

What F1 needs is for the FIA to be the sole makers of the rules, and FOM to be solely responsible for promotion, and for the teams to be competitors who race each other. Mixing the roles up just breaks it.
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Agree, time and time again they show they don't care about longevity of the sport or other teams. They only care about themselves. The only time a team cares is when they are not winning anymore. They shouldn't get votes and vetos. These are the rules, get on with it or **** off.
 
The big teams would stay, their threats to leave are always hollow. Ferrari for example hang their entire global brand off the marketing they get from F1, so their threats to leave are nothing to fear.

The FIA were stupid to surrender their rights to write the rules and are now stuck with a sport completely unable to react to changes happening around it. The mere suggestion that Todt, Ecclestone, Mercedes, Ferrari, RBR, Williams, McLaren and Lotus could come to an agreement on anything beyond where to eat dinner is absurd, so quite why they felt they could define the rules of one of the worlds biggest sports is beyond me.
 
Skeeter said:
The big teams would stay, their threats to leave are always hollow. Ferrari for example hang their entire global brand off the marketing they get from F1, so their threats to leave are nothing to fear.
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Maybe. Or maybe they might revert to previous tactics - as threats to leave I reckon the Ferrari 637 was a pretty strong one!

As soon as F1 is no longer a hot ticket for sponsors (and that day is rapidly approaching) you can watch them get serious about leaving. Honda will be off sooner rather than later anyway because they always leave. Renault don't seem to be committed to long-term participation as matters stand. I can't imagine the Mercedes board wanting to throw money at something with no ROI.

And there are no noises coming from any other manufacturer wanting to get involved - the brief clucking from EJ about Volkswagen seems to have gone nowhere, BMW aren't getting involved, Toyota aren't, Ford aren't....
 
JRS said:
And there are no noises coming from any other manufacturer wanting to get involved - the brief clucking from EJ about Volkswagen seems to have gone nowhere, BMW aren't getting involved, Toyota aren't, Ford aren't....
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All manufacturers who were showing interest when the 2014 engine rules were a turbo inline 4...
 
Skeeter said:
All manufacturers who were showing interest when the 2014 engine rules were a turbo inline 4...
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Showing interest the way Mercedes were showing it - by doing studies, putting together prototypes, dyno testing stuff - or saying 'well, maybe we will join in'? ;)

You know my feelings on it anyway. I think they should have been allowed to build inline-4s. And V6s, with a proper bank angle. And V8s. And V4s. And inline-5s. And boxer engines. And oddball stuff like VW's narrow angle VR series. Hell, anything as long as the displacement is no greater than 1.6 litres. Let them find out what the optimal layout is the same way the engine builders did in the past - by building stuff and racing it. At least then the R&D budget will have something to show for it.
 
JRS said:
Showing interest the way Mercedes were showing it - by doing studies, putting together prototypes, dyno testing stuff - or saying 'well, maybe we will join in'? ;)

You know my feelings on it anyway. I think they should have been allowed to build inline-4s. And V6s, with a proper bank angle. And V8s. And V4s. And inline-5s. And boxer engines. And oddball stuff like VW's narrow angle VR series. Hell, anything as long as the displacement is no greater than 1.6 litres. Let them find out what the optimal layout is the same way the engine builders did in the past - by building stuff and racing it. At least then the R&D budget will have something to show for it.
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all of which adds to the cost and rewards those who spend the most ....

Unless you get an engine supplier who can use that freedom to develop new technologies and sell it onto customer teams, it just rewards the teams who spend the most.

Thats the issue with the F1 engines currently. We need another Cosworth.
 
JRS said:
Showing interest the way Mercedes were showing it - by doing studies, putting together prototypes, dyno testing stuff - or saying 'well, maybe we will join in'? ;)

You know my feelings on it anyway. I think they should have been allowed to build inline-4s. And V6s, with a proper bank angle. And V8s. And V4s. And inline-5s. And boxer engines. And oddball stuff like VW's narrow angle VR series. Hell, anything as long as the displacement is no greater than 1.6 litres. Let them find out what the optimal layout is the same way the engine builders did in the past - by building stuff and racing it. At least then the R&D budget will have something to show for it.
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Fantastic idea in principle, but then you could end up in a situation where a manufacturer goes down what turns out to be a technological dead-end - such as Renault and their 110-degree angle engine of the early 2000s - and they end up pulling out because they've wasted cash on the wrong concept
 
JRS said:
Showing interest the way Mercedes were showing it - by doing studies, putting together prototypes, dyno testing stuff - or saying 'well, maybe we will join in'? ;)
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Saying "maybe we might possibly think about considering it" is still a mile better than the complete disinterest they are showing now.

Mass car makers have zero interest in a turbo V6. I'm almost certain an I4 would have seen Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, and at least one or maybe 2 Japanese manufacturers and possibly VAG in F1 by now. It would definately not have been any worse than now because Ferrari were never going to leave. There was that Pure company too, although I'm not sure how serious they were.

I don't think F1 needed multiple engine formats to work, it just needed one that was vaugly relevant to the commercial interests of those making them. You can't pop to a dealer and buy an F1 car, its all about marketing by association, which is a billion times easier when the race car bears even the slimmest connection to your products.
 
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