Here's an issue we have to consider. Safety. Some people have suggested we just give a length, width and height of the car and leave the designers to do what they do best. Does that include bringing back sliding skirts for example or will the dreaded rule on "fixed aero that is having no degree of movement...." have to stay on the books?
We're on a sticky wicket here because pretty soon someone will say, they're too fast. We need to control the speed of the car. Slow them down a bit. We know F1 drivers are fit guys and face most of the same G-Forces that a fighter pilot would but how much can they take in a car when cornering? One of the problems with the ground effect era was that corning speeds went through the roof. In the turbo era speeds were brought under control by boost pressure limitations which were heavily disliked at the time.
How do you control a designer without controlling the design? Every rule in F1, especially as they've become more and more restrictive, is studied to the Nth degree to find that tiny advantage. If a rule in the book doesn't specifically say no then a designer will do it. This goes back to the very beginning. Remember there were no rules on how many wheels a car had to have? No probs, let's build a six wheeler. The somebody thought hmmm let's put four wheels on the back. Fortunately common sense prevailed. Look at the monster wings on sticks that teams shoved on top of cars in the late 60's.
As soon as the amount of cash started increasing so to the calls to control spending grew alongside it. The main reason alongside safety that Turbos were first banned after 88 was because they were deemed too expensive.
In my opinion, there are 6 things that effect how fast a car goes, The Driver, Under body aero, Over body aero, The engine, The Tyres and the Brakes/Suspension.
We can't throw open all the doors at once. It would be too much too soon. What we have to do is put the variables back in the system. The motorsport world has become too good at it's job. I firmly believe that open design rules on engines is the best way to start. Why not have diesels? V10's, V8's etc. Come up with a simple way of providing a single controlling factor for all (fuel flow regulation would almost certainly do it) we'd have a start.
Aero is the biggest problem. This 'dirty air' business has been going on for years. How do you solve that without putting so many regulations into it that they all end up looking the same?
