The 2013 Season

[Mephistopheles]

I love racing and that is exactly why I'm not enthusiastic about the way F1 has gone lately, the powers that be are dumbing it down to make it more of an orchestrated show to attract people who know thing about it, rather than an actual sport, even the tribunal was nothing more than a media circus to attract attention with the outcome already decided before it had even started..

F1 has to get back to its roots or it is in great danger of becoming nothing more than a hyped up WCW wrestling match which is sports entertainment and not a real sport at all, that is if it hasn't already become that.....

 

[KekeTheKing]

What a complete load of nonsense. Tell any one of those drivers that they're participating in an "orchestrated show" and they'll tell you to take a ****ing hike. Tell the people at the factories that F1 is being "dumbed down" and they'll laugh their asses off as you try and figure out even the most mundane piece of kit.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Why can't you ever rebuke my arguments without getting personal KekeTheKing

My argument doesn't come from the drivers or the teams point of view, the sport today is what it is because of commercialism driven by the Bernie machine...

And by the way I am a fully qualified engineer, I did a five year apprenticeship in mechanical, electrical and technical engineering I also put myself through college on an advanced computing course, after which I went to university where I took a BSc degree in software engineering and achieved a 2.1 so your assumption that I would struggle to understand the "Most mundane piece of kit." is incorrect....

I may sometimes act dumb on this forum (To amuse myself.) but don't assume that I am....

 

[RasputinLives]

Meph I know your the most Machevilian poster on here mate

Hope you don't think my post was a rebuke at you. Just my view. Ain't no right or wrong.

 

[Brogan]

Presumably the minimum car weight will now go back down 2Kg to 640Kg, due to the tyres changing to the 2012 tyres?

Also, this is going to have a significant impact on all of the cars due to the different profiles and how the back ends are designed specifically around the tyres and the interaction with the air coming off them.

What a mess this season has turned out to be.
A very poor advert for F1.

 

[KekeTheKing]

The inmates are well and truly running the asylum. First we have Mercedes suggesting their own punishment as a peace offering towards the other teams that were unable/unwilling to take Pirelli's testing agreement seriously. Then we have Red Bull and Ferrari seizing an opportunity to enact payback on Mercedes by suggesting that Race Drivers should be permitted to run at the "YDT". I guess it really shouldn't be a surprise that the FIA heeded their "advice".

There is literally no way that the FIA/Pirelli/Interpol will be able to ensure that the "YDT" is run as a tire test. You're gonna have several teams running their own program with little in the way to stop them. This will be nothing like the 1 on 1 program that Mercedes ran for Pirelli on their experimental tires. And when you add in the fact that these teams will be running for FOUR days on tires that will be used in the coming Grands Prix, this decision is quite mind boggling.

 

[Brogan]

The FIA are sending observers.

The teams are prohibited from testing new parts when race drivers are in the cars.

The same can't be said for Mercedes' test.

 

[KekeTheKing]

.....aside from the FIA observer part, right.

 

[Fenderman]

We had better have a new Liegate to entertain us since if Mercedes tested new parts in Spain then Rosberg, Hamilton and Hembery, et al, must have lied about Pirelli running the test and Pirelli telling the Mercedes drivers what to do. Whichever way one cuts it any advantage from it, for Mercedes, will be well and truly gone by the weekend anyway.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story Fender!

And I just noted the same thing in the Merc thread, that they better get results this weekend because after that they're back to square one.

 

[F1 Shift.net]

Presumably the minimum car weight will now go back down 2Kg to 640Kg, due to the tyres changing to the 2012 tyres?

Also, this is going to have a significant impact on all of the cars due to the different profiles and how the back ends are designed specifically around the tyres and the interaction with the air coming off them.

What a mess this season has turned out to be.
A very poor advert for F1.

It's beginning to remind me of CART before the split with the owners "running" the show. Obviously it's different circumstances, but it does seem to be a bit of a mess from the top right now. I'm still hoping Zak Brown takes over in the near future.

 

[MCLS]

Either way, F1 2013 isn't in a good place, to an extent Meph is right about F1 being dumbed down, it's being filled up to the brim with showy gimmicks like DRS and KERS to try and improve the 'show' with tyres that can barely last 5 laps before exploding/degrading. Overtaking figures have gone from mostly racing to mostly statistics and foregone conclusions as it's mainly DRS/Pirelli related overtakes with only the occasional real racing overtakes. Technical innovation is being largely non existent these days as anything unique designed by the teams is accused of being illegal and thereafter banned, at the expense of European tracks we're ending up at bland identi-kit tracks in the Far East in front of 20 fans on the calls of the powers that be.

 

[FB]

Well that's cheery!

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

MCLS I'd double 'like' your post if I could.

 

[teabagyokel]

Overtaking figures have gone from mostly racing to mostly statistics and foregone conclusions

Overtaking figures have gone from practically none to mostly statistics and foregone conclusions. That is a huge distinction.

 

[Brogan]

I would even go so far as to say actual overtaking numbers have gone down.

A pass is not necessarily an overtake.

 

[Blog Zbod]

American racing driver and TV presenter Tommy Kendall has said that an overtake in F1, and I paraphrase, should be like a goal in a Champions League footie match; a rare thing that only can occur when a tremendous amount of skill is brought to bear at just the right instant, and with precisely the right supporting conditions. Instead, what we have now, as Jenson Button so aptly puts it, is the era of "After you, Sir" overtaking.

 

[teabagyokel]

Did the fact the actual pass was DRS devalue the Vettel/Hamilton battle at Austin?

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Yes teabagyokel, I believe it did. Not as much as, say, Alonso's pass on Hamilton (or in truth anyone's pass on anyone) in the DRS zones at Montreal this year, but it did nevertheless.

Time was you had to use some skill, judgement and bravery to pass someone into the final chicane at Canada; nowadays you just open up your DRS after the exit from the hairpin, breeze past and the job is done half way down the back straight. And just in case you were half asleep and don't quite make it there, you can get them up the main straight into turn one with another blast of your DRS. Same at Silverstone.

I agree with Jenson Button's 'after you sir' comment. It would be a lot cheaper to ditch all the expense of DRS and just wave a blue flag at any driver with someone behind them going a bit faster, lapped or not. In fact, why don't they have a 'crawler' lane that you have to pull into whenever someone wants to overtake, a bit like they have on some Swedish roads (or did when I was there in 1982)?

 

[Boyle]

At Austin, the DRS was perfect. It allowed Hamilton to get close enough for a look over a few laps but was short enough to give Vettel the chance to defend, something he did with aplomb until a HRT got in his way. It was a similar situation in their battle at Barcelona in 2011. This was why I liked DRS.

I hate DRS when the zones are far too long or there are two of them. This makes it far too easy for the passing drivers and leaves the defender with no option but to simply wave the place goodbye. This is simply exacerbated by the speed difference of the tyres. Making the zones smaller and having only one at each track wouldn't solve the problem but it would help.