How to fix F1...

The Artist.....

Champion Elect
I think that we all agree that there is a lot wrong with F1 - the rules for 2022 should go some way to fixing some of the issues, but I imagine that there will still be quite a lot of problems.

There are some simple things that could be done:

1. Wastage

It is oscene how many sets of tyres teams go through. In qualifying, drivers will use 6 separate sets of tyres, and they will have used about 6 sets in practice as well.

I’d be tempted to restrict teams to 3 sets of tyres from the beginning of qualifying, of which they are only allowed to use one during all of qualifying. This would need to be paired with the tyre manufacturer getting rid of “newness” benefits.

2. Pit stops are just too damned efficient, and too little opportunity for mistakes.

There are too many people involved in tyres stops; there should be 6 people allowed; one on the front and rear jacks, and then teams can decide how to allocate personnel.

Whilst we’re at it, wheels should be attached with 5 nuts, (like road cars); the motivation for this is that it would be safer and less likely to have the problem of a single nut falling off.

3. There’s too much tech in the car

The steering wheels should steer the car. Possibly with paddles for changing gears, but nothing else. All of the adjustments that drivers make are completely unnecessary.

4. The driver in the best car wins

In seasons, particularly like this one, where one car is utterly dominant, almost every race is going to be won by Hamilton (or possibly Bottas).

I’d introduce central F1 contracts, with their salary paid out of prize money. Drivers are not contracted to teams, but to F1 as a whole. Each race, drivers are rotated around teams. There’s still an incentive for teams in the Constructors championship, but the winning driver will have to be the most consistent.

Drivers who finish in the bottom 2 are relegated (to F2 or retirement), and the top 2 in F2 gain promotion to F1.
 
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Now there's an in-cockpit yellow flag indicator, ban pit-to-car radio and car-to-pit data transfer.

Rather than limit tyre usage I'd personally open it up - bring back the tyre war.

Agree about reducing the no. of personnel in the pitlane, surely two wheel nuts would be sufficient though (maybe 5 for Haas, admittedly).

How about the amount of time you can run on Friday is proportional to your championship position from the previous season? 10 minutes for the champions up to the full 3 hours for the worst team.
 
Pehaps I should have put my post here, but didn't check the list of topics, except for tyres the problem is over regulation in an what was an innovative sport, had the same regulations been in place in the late 50's all the cars todaywould still be front engined.
 
ill admit as i said on beligan thread. im unsure if there is much bar swapping verstappen for bottas (which wont happen) or finding a way to bring mercedes back to pack losing them 3/4 a second. that F1 can do until 2022. we are sort stuck with this crap
 
I’d introduce central F1 contracts, with their salary paid out of prize money. Drivers are not contracted to teams, but to F1 as a whole. Each race, drivers are rotated around teams. There’s still an incentive for teams in the Constructors championship, but the winning driver will have to be the most consistent.
That wouldn't work for many reasons, just a few off the top of my head.

1 - The contractual issues would be too great to overcome. Besides, which privately run company is going to throw cash at something like that? The big teams definitely wouldn't.

2- All of the cars would have to be identical, and I mean identical because drivers would need to move with their car, due to seat fitting, etc., which means the mechanics would have to know how to work on it. Even if they don't move with their cars and instead a new fitting is done at each team, the cars would still need to be identical so the drivers are familiar with them.

3 - Who would design said cars? A group of engineers made up of personnel from all teams in a communal factory? There would be no innovation during the season, or more likely no innovation at all.

Something like that may work in a communist country with a government controlled race and teams, but commercially it's a non starter.

The big teams currently in F1 would just walk away and either start a new series or quit.
 
That wouldn't work for many reasons, just a few off the top of my head.

1 - The contractual issues would be too great to overcome. Besides, which privately run company is going to throw cash at something like that? The big teams definitely wouldn't.
Why? The only reason that there are contractual issues now is that this is how F1 has always worked... it could esasilt be solved with a new Concorde agreement...

2- All of the cars would have to be identical, and I mean identical because drivers would need to move with their car, due to seat fitting, etc., which means the mechanics would have to know how to work on it. Even if they don't move with their cars and instead a new fitting is done at each team, the cars would still need to be identical so the drivers are familiar with them.
The seat example‘s a little bit of a red herring. You could specify a required dimension for the seat - but that’s one issue. Yes, the controls would need to be simplified, as you couldn’t expect drivers to learn a different set of controls each week!
3 - Who would design said cars? A group of engineers made up of personnel from all teams in a communal factory? There would be no innovation during the season, or more likely no innovation at all.
The constructors would still have an incentive to perform, as there would be a constructors championship. This would then take on more prestige, as you could genuinely distinguish between individual driver’s genius, and design from the constructors,

Something like that may work in a communist country with a government controlled race and teams, but commercially it's a non starter.
How is it any different to requiring all teams to drive on Pirelli tyres?

The big teams currently in F1 would just walk away and either start a new series or quit.
 
You give them a series of boxes in to which the various parts of the car must fit, front wing, rear wing etc. They are given an amount of fuel which they can use in the race, which could be petrol, diesel or hydrogen (using an energy equivalency formula) and the car must pass certain safety tests, otherwise it's all down to the engineers to produce what they think will make it fastest.
 
It's ok... Christian Horner has the answer... We just need multi-stop F1 races... Apparently, the casual viewer wants to watch "strategy" rather than racing...

How about just not having tyres that fall apart if you dare put any pressure on them?

 
Horner utterly missing the point as usual.

It doesn't matter if you have a 1 stopper or a 10 stopper because every team will run a simulation and work out the best strategy which will result in every team doing exactly the same thing.

The line in that article highlights the problem is that when the safety car came out "teams were forced to go on to the hard tyre".

Nobody forced anyone to do anything its just that the strategy analysts went, "this is the fastest option"

If the race was a mandatory 2 stopper everyone would have pitted under the safety car anyway.

I believe strategy is important and does produce better racing but how often have we seen it? The teams just look at what every one else is doing and cover it off.

And finally, Hamilton complaining about tyre management and not being able to push is frankly laughable at the moment. What the hell does he need to push for? He's out in front almost every Weekend and we've already seen multiple examples of his race pace management. Get ahead, manage the gap and bang a few quick laps in in case anyone closes the gap a bit. No driver has ever sat in the lead of the race and pushed for the whole thing.

Actually, that's not quite true, Senna did it once at Monaco and talked of an out of body experience where he kept going faster and faster. His race ended with a crash into the barriers just before the tunnel. He ran home to his apartment and had a good cry.
 
It seems to have been a while, but every time a team or two threatens to set up a rival series, I'm just willing them to do it just to see how it can be done differently. Sure it might fail but some of the ideas might find their way into F1.

My general impression is that the technical car design regs are just way too prohibitive and strict, and because they're fixed & there's so little testing allowed, there can be little improvement throughout the season, or in the case of power units over many years. They seem to be tinkering at the edges by adjusting the rules and introducing artificialities such as DRS and disintegrating tyres to work round the boredom.
 
ive felt the tyres were great in 2012 & 2013 led to some good racing. but as goes without saying these are some of the brightest minds in sport (although they dont show it often) & with all the computers they worked this out very early on. cant remember if it was 2015 or 2017 but when hamilton won in austin the engineer came on congratulating him on how slowly he drove. but problem is the tyres are needed because we have cars that cant follow & have only got increasingly worse over the many years

what about a short term fix. you have to use all 3 compounds in a race or same rules as now you have to use both compounds but 1 of the compounds twice
 
F1Brits_90 - I'd go for a tyre compound that degrades predictably and (more importantly) reasonably linearly.

At present, the tyres will last forever, unless you push on them, at which point, they get too hot and become unusable.

You want to have two (or more) compounds available... One which is about 1 second per lap faster than the other, but lasts for about 20 laps, whilst the other tyre might last for 40-50 laps... (Oh and slow down the pitstops with the ideas above)

Then get rid of the compulsory pitstop, and let the drivers race.
 
F1Brits_90 - that's exactly what I mean about degrading predictably - tyres that simply get marginally slower lap by lap because the rubber is being worn away, not because they've got too hot, a chemical reaction has taken place, and they stop being sticky tyres, and become blocks of lead
 
While the engineering is worth more time than the drivers, it will always be a challenge. The format currently favours uncompetitive races, at least towards the front, with the midfield providing more excitement. Reliability, whilst not foolproof, is still significantly better than even 10-15 years ago, leading to less attritional races, not that anyone wants to see races decided by failures.

The challenge as i see it with my warped thinking is:
  1. Competitors have too much say in the rules
  2. technology and engineering plays a huge part in the sport, with little obvious merit to the outside observer
  3. When something innovative is created, it is either banned or copied in short order
  4. The sport has focussed on making money / sponsorship / marketing over spectacle
Whilst not a fan of Pirelli tyres, they are doing what they were mandated. The decision to go this way was a knee jerk rection based on one race in Canada, and the decision was not thought through with any strategic mindset.

What would I do about it?

Remove teams from the rule making process
Mandate dimensions / weights, in an "if the car fits in the box its ok" sort of a way.
Allow teams to source tyres either singly or collectively, but not be able to use more than currently.
Give the drivers the most basic of controls. Steering, gear change, safety indicators. No radio contact, except to issue race control instructions, e.g. stop the car, pull in to the pits. None of this "brakes need cooling".
Button to signal when driver will pit and what tyres to put on (Jenson will be working hard)
No multiple maps for the engines. Choose one and stick to it.
Allow set up adjustments throughout the weekend. Whatever you need. no new parts added outside free practice.
Mandate certain parts. Possibly Brakes and ducts, Front wing / Rear wing, Suspension elements to limit the areas for costly development, or add more parts to the list of things you can buy off another team.
Standard pit equipment / Wheel / Hub / Jacks and a limit on personnel allowed to use it.
Allow whatever fuel you want, with energy equivalence

Probably loads more, and probably bollocks.
 
When I saw this thread I decided what I would like. Then I got further and found that FB had beaten me to it. What we need is cars which can be competitive, fiddling around with the number of tyres is avoiding the issue. Get rid of dirty air and you will also reduce the cost enormously.
 
Limit wings to something akin to this:
1599073490443.png
 
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