If you got rid of all the downforce though, surely F1 cars would no longer be the fastest in the world?
Therein lies the rub. Unless they can come up with a source of downforce that is less degraded by turbulence (such as ground effects), this invariably
will mean slower races. So unless the same sorts of rules changes trickle down through GP2 and GP3, it will make them appear superior to F1.
But the truth is, the vast majority of fans only ever watch an F1 race on the telly. When you are watching on the telly, car speed is nigh on impossible to judge. But what
is blatantly obvious is when a car powerslides around corners, or four-wheel drifts out of the exit of a turn leaving four black stripes on the tarmac behind it.
When you see either end of one of the current crop of cars come unstuck, it most likely means either its tyres are ronnied or its driver has botched the maneouver. In the olden days, cars sliding about simply was the sign of a driver putting it on the ragged edge. It was the fastest way of doing business. The best could do it lap after lap, never straying from the racing line. Sometimes even while wheel-to-wheel.
So unless the commentators elect to belabour the point, most fans will never notice the loss in speed. But they
will notice the
increase in drama.
But I think Csaba is being a bit hyperbolic. He knew when he wrote this that a complete elimination of aero not only isn't practical, it isn't even possible. Otherwise the cars all would look like they'd been made from Lego. I think he was using an extreme viewpoint to illustrate that the problem is not unsolvable.
Except this one would be illegal, of course, because it still has wings.
