Wombcat
Podium Finisher
No, it's a ridiculous interpretation of an old one.
FIA Clamping down on radio communication relating to Driver performance
- Thread starter ATL11
- Start date
Michael Schumacher's first ever race in F1 was for Jordan at Spa the 11-year veteran de Cesaris was his teammate all through practice de Cesaris was complaining about a certain bump on the circuit that kept unsettling the car and losing him lap time the team tried to sort it out by numerous set up changes but nothing worked, eventually the team asked Michael if he was having the same problem Schumacher said that he did have that problem for the first couple of laps but he realized that if he short shifted into third just before the bump it settled the car down and it wasn't a problem anymore.
Schumacher qualified seventh Jordan's best ever qualifying position out qualifying his more experienced teammate, nobody had to tell Michael how to drive he figured it out for himself, now all a driver has to do is cry to his race engineer and wait for him to come up with a solution to sort out the problem for them, It's pathetic that's not what racing is all about...
Schumacher qualified seventh Jordan's best ever qualifying position out qualifying his more experienced teammate, nobody had to tell Michael how to drive he figured it out for himself, now all a driver has to do is cry to his race engineer and wait for him to come up with a solution to sort out the problem for them, It's pathetic that's not what racing is all about...
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soccerman17
Race Winner
Do MotoGP riders have radio?
No
Just think how much more interesting races will be for us, we will be watching every pit board and listening to every radio transmission for codes. I imagine drivers like Alonso will do much better adapting than some of the current crop of youngsters
I think the youngsters would have the advantage because they've not had years of doing it the other way.
You don't miss what you've hardly ever had.
You don't miss what you've hardly ever had.
Dizzi
Podium Finisher
A driver should know when to change gear, how to take a corner and feel how their tyres are managing without input from anyone else.
Fuel consumption is trickier & I'm predicting one or two DNF's in the first couple of races as drivers have to stop relying on continuous updates on 'when to push' and when to conserve.
MotoGP has managed fine for years without pit-bike radio & we get some cracking races aas the riders have to think for themselves.
In the past we've been screaming at the telly 'you're tyres have gone off - pit you numpty!' while the driver waits for the message from the engineer (always wondered if Hamilton would've won the 2007 WDC if he hadn't relied so much on being told stuff)
I think a total ban of radio would be the only realistic way to ensure the rule isn't got around but that's way too simple for the FIA.
Fuel consumption is trickier & I'm predicting one or two DNF's in the first couple of races as drivers have to stop relying on continuous updates on 'when to push' and when to conserve.
MotoGP has managed fine for years without pit-bike radio & we get some cracking races aas the riders have to think for themselves.
In the past we've been screaming at the telly 'you're tyres have gone off - pit you numpty!' while the driver waits for the message from the engineer (always wondered if Hamilton would've won the 2007 WDC if he hadn't relied so much on being told stuff)
I think a total ban of radio would be the only realistic way to ensure the rule isn't got around but that's way too simple for the FIA.
I think F1 should hurry up and decide whether it wants to be a team sport or not. If it's a team sport than all these radio messages should be allowed, if it's not then team orders should be banned. We now have one rule that has been changed to emphasise the role of the team and another that has been changed to lessen it 
.
Aside from that, one thing I've found frustrating about this years championship battle is that whenever one side of the Mercedes garage gets an edge the other side can just look at the telemetry and copy it. Both of them get all the telemetry from the other driver and know precisely where they're slower/faster, what the setup differences are etc. etc. etc. However, this is as a result of having a championship battle which is exclusively between team mates, and that's a pretty rare occurrence in the history of F1.
In general, I dislike the messages that specifically talk about lines through corners, anything that's driving advice as opposed to strategic or car performance information. The strategic/car related messages I'm completely fine with though, so I personally think these rules go too far. To some extent it just makes it a memory test for the driver, you can talk about MotoGP, historic F1 or other series not needing all this information but they don't/didn't have hundreds of settings in front of them on the steering wheel. A driver might know exactly what change he wants to apply to the car but not that the correct setting is "left hand dial 3, position 6, red button 4 clicks, green square to confirm" or whatever.
I think there's an argument for saying just let the drivers drive and let the engineers deal with the intricacies of all the knobs and switches. In fact, I would prefer a reduction in the number of parameters the drivers can change in car rather than restricting radio messages.
P.S. Most of all, I wish the FIA would stop fucking around with the rules mid-season!
.Aside from that, one thing I've found frustrating about this years championship battle is that whenever one side of the Mercedes garage gets an edge the other side can just look at the telemetry and copy it. Both of them get all the telemetry from the other driver and know precisely where they're slower/faster, what the setup differences are etc. etc. etc. However, this is as a result of having a championship battle which is exclusively between team mates, and that's a pretty rare occurrence in the history of F1.
In general, I dislike the messages that specifically talk about lines through corners, anything that's driving advice as opposed to strategic or car performance information. The strategic/car related messages I'm completely fine with though, so I personally think these rules go too far. To some extent it just makes it a memory test for the driver, you can talk about MotoGP, historic F1 or other series not needing all this information but they don't/didn't have hundreds of settings in front of them on the steering wheel. A driver might know exactly what change he wants to apply to the car but not that the correct setting is "left hand dial 3, position 6, red button 4 clicks, green square to confirm" or whatever.
I think there's an argument for saying just let the drivers drive and let the engineers deal with the intricacies of all the knobs and switches. In fact, I would prefer a reduction in the number of parameters the drivers can change in car rather than restricting radio messages.
P.S. Most of all, I wish the FIA would stop fucking around with the rules mid-season!
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I think we may have hit on a solution here. Yellow G4 to the end of the race.
As far as mid-season rule changes or "enforcement" as they are calling it this time, it's a bit of a stretch to say that a radio message telling a driver where he needs to speed up or where he can make up time, is the driver receiving aid to drive the car. The rule says the driver must drive the car alone and un-aided. That's surely meant to say you couldn't change gear remotely or control the engine power remotely. While I'm not a fan of these instructions as it makes the driver look silly, I believe what the team are doing is called "Coaching". Could you imagine in football if the FA suddenly banned managers from making tactical decisions for the team from the bench?
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best way to stop it is to ban radios.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best way to stop it is to ban radios.
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Of course if you ban radios you make it impossible for these messages to be transmitted but you'd also make the races complete guesswork for the drivers. The way Formula 1 is at the moment it's not possible to push all the time - fuel, tyres and more have to be managed all the time. The decision about when to push or not, and what systems need to be managed or not, I would argue is almost impossible without a radio in the current regulations without detailed information on the strategies and pace of other drivers around you, for example.
Radios being banned completely isn't even on the cards, of course, so it's a bit of a moot point anyway.
Radios being banned completely isn't even on the cards, of course, so it's a bit of a moot point anyway.
Give 'em a fuel gauge and if they think the tyres are shot they signal to the guy with the pit board they are coming in next lap or turn up in the pit box and wait for someone to bring the tyres out. The driver can then decide when to push and if he gets it wrong he's stuffed his race. Hamilton was told to "hold station and push at the end" in Monza but pushed on the new rubber and forced Rosberg in to a mistake, took the lead and won. If he had listened to the pit advice chances are he wouldn't have won the race.
Wombcat
Podium Finisher
A bit of a stretch? That's an understatement imo. And surely telling a driver to save fuel is no a driver aid. If it is, a fuel gauge is a driver aid.
Ayrton Senna ran out of fuel while leading on a number of occasions for Lotus in 1985. Lotus (and I would expect many other teams did something similar) then used a micro computer on the car to measure fuel consumption and display the number of laps left in the tank. As Peter Warr puts it, if the number of laps left on the car computer was equal to or greater than the number of laps left in the race as shown on the pit board then the driver could push. If not he'd have to modify his driving to gain fuel. Simples !!!!
I absolutely 100 percent agree with FB. Let the driver figure his own race out but remove any chance of doubt and just ban radios. I'm no mystic meg but I can forsee a time when we have a CTA post running in to many pages debating whether Hamilton should have been / was penalised for receiving an illegal radio call. The thought of it makes me shudder.
I absolutely 100 percent agree with FB. Let the driver figure his own race out but remove any chance of doubt and just ban radios. I'm no mystic meg but I can forsee a time when we have a CTA post running in to many pages debating whether Hamilton should have been / was penalised for receiving an illegal radio call. The thought of it makes me shudder.
There are so many reasons why I'd be strongly against completely banning team radio, here's just one of them:
Edit: And 10 more for good measure:
Edit: And 10 more for good measure:
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Incubus
Champion Elect
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That's right cider_and_toast but the onboard computer wasn't always reliable though.
I think it was actually Renault (the team) who pioneered the onboard fuel computer a year earlier. Didn't stop them for running out of fuel at a few races that year.
McLaren followed suit in 1985. The San Marino GP that year was the first real instance of a direct on-track battle between Senna and Prost. It was fun while it lasted until Prost had to let him go, alarmed at his computer' fuel readings. Senna, deprived of that tool, could only cross his fingers. In vain as it happened.
Incubus
Champion Elect
...which is actually a very interesting point because it brings back the subject of returning initiative to the driver and let him do the work, and how to achieve that.
Back then there were no "fuel-saving mode" switches operated on your pit-s instructions.
Drivers saved fuel when they needed to by operating the scientific method of being gentle on the throttle, changing gears earlier and not go the full revs, and still trying to go fast in spite of it.
Back then there were no "fuel-saving mode" switches operated on your pit-s instructions.
Drivers saved fuel when they needed to by operating the scientific method of being gentle on the throttle, changing gears earlier and not go the full revs, and still trying to go fast in spite of it.
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In the early days of turbo engines drivers had adjustable boost control so could choose to use more or less fuel if overtaking or lapping. Was in '86 when Mansell passed Piquet at Silverstone and spent the last 20 laps on full boost with the team certain he would run out of fuel. He did, on the slowing down lap.
Incubus
Champion Elect
They did indeed FB. I think the hand-operated adjustable boost only came in 1986 though but in any case they were still operated by the driver. I think telemetry llinking fuel consumption to pit in real time only started a few years after that.
The point is, however many switches there are inside a cockpit they should still be for the driver to judge on how and when to use them.
McLaren, one of the first teams to adopt an onboard fuel computer, were strangely enough, just about the last to even have driver radio. They didn't have them until 1987.
Someone earlier was asking whether F1 would still be a team sport after these new changes but I think that's missing the point somewhat.
It always was a team sport, and always will be. It's just that traditionally the team part is about building, preparing and setting up the car.
After the green lights, it's just up to the driver.
That's the way it should have stayed. And that's certainly no technological back-step to say so. The technology is still just as ground-breaking as it always was, it would just operate within an ever-changing set of regulations. You don't see the most advanced road-cars being remotely operated by a neighbouring garage do you?
The point is, however many switches there are inside a cockpit they should still be for the driver to judge on how and when to use them.
McLaren, one of the first teams to adopt an onboard fuel computer, were strangely enough, just about the last to even have driver radio. They didn't have them until 1987.
Someone earlier was asking whether F1 would still be a team sport after these new changes but I think that's missing the point somewhat.
It always was a team sport, and always will be. It's just that traditionally the team part is about building, preparing and setting up the car.
After the green lights, it's just up to the driver.
That's the way it should have stayed. And that's certainly no technological back-step to say so. The technology is still just as ground-breaking as it always was, it would just operate within an ever-changing set of regulations. You don't see the most advanced road-cars being remotely operated by a neighbouring garage do you?
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