The Artist.....
Champion Elect
Following the Baku race, a number of drivers and team bosses have come out, complaining about the ban on communications about car settings and driver coaching. Drivers, including multiple world champions Hamilton, Alonso, and Raikonnen have been vocal recently about this ban, and they feel that it is ridiculous that given the complexity of a modern F1 car, and the number of available settings, that the engineers, with more information cannot tell them what to do- and this view has been backed up by Toto Wolff.
This does raise a question, but I don't think that the solution is to allow driver coaching again; if there are too many settings on an F1 car (which I have long believed), then they need to be simplified; the steering wheel has so many switches and controls on, that there are likely to be about a million different combinations of settings available to a driver- is this really necessary?
Even as recently as the 1990s, the drivers could adjust only one or two things in the car; the brake balance (which was adjusted through a screw wheel they had to turn), sometimes the rev limiter (which could be removed temporarily), and that was about it.
Now the drivers can adjust recharge rates, the fuel flow to the engine, the fuel/air mix, the brake balance, etc etc with millions of electronic settings.
Rather than allow radios, simply simplify the cars!
This does raise a question, but I don't think that the solution is to allow driver coaching again; if there are too many settings on an F1 car (which I have long believed), then they need to be simplified; the steering wheel has so many switches and controls on, that there are likely to be about a million different combinations of settings available to a driver- is this really necessary?
Even as recently as the 1990s, the drivers could adjust only one or two things in the car; the brake balance (which was adjusted through a screw wheel they had to turn), sometimes the rev limiter (which could be removed temporarily), and that was about it.
Now the drivers can adjust recharge rates, the fuel flow to the engine, the fuel/air mix, the brake balance, etc etc with millions of electronic settings.
Rather than allow radios, simply simplify the cars!