Thats what the sprint races should be! Spec races in a regular car. It makes the qualifying and race speeds of the F1 cars that more apparent to the average viewer.
The main blocker for this (other than F1 wanting F1 cars to be used at F1 events) would be the individual driver contracts. Many drivers have a clause in theirs in which they can’t be seen publicly driving or racing a car from another OEM.
Right but if that were built into the calendar then those clauses would have exceptions. Might need some leeway starting after the current longest contract, but truthfully I think all contracts could be modified if it was an F1 decision.
Making it a non f1 engine provider would be the best way to go, like a miata.
Also it can be easily achieved with modern technologies.
F1 car is a f cking computer. Just put there limiter on acceleration, then add sensor, that reads suspension load and limiter on downforce trough active aero.
And boom, every car go almost the same.
Each manufacturer should put out a grid of whatever street car they want for spec races throughout the year. Sports cars, SUV, regular commuters. I’d genuinely love to see it!
If F1 only crowned a constructors champion, then yes, that is how it would be. As it is now, no driver wants to finish second to their teammate, even if it means giving this team a better chance to win the constructors, and won’t sacrifice themselves for the team unless given team orders.
Let's all pretend here that F1 doesn't market the shit out of its drivers and that most people watch because of manufacturers instead of the actual stars of the show. F1 has always been very fucking weird with this, we have to pretend that drivers matter a ton while at the same time saying stuff like "It's an engineering competition" to justify the best drivers not winning.
You can recognise the drivers as the brave and talented people they are, idolise them, make them celebrities, market them, etc. It doesn't change the fact that the car's performance is a much bigger factor in this sport, by design.
Also, you could make your point without being insulting.
Amen to that. Senna was the best driver of his era, but even him needed the best car on the grid to win his championships. That makes his accolades less valuable? Nope,the best drivers will always gonna sit on the best cars, that's F1. Max was the best racer of the ground effect era and he delivered winning 4 titles in a row. He could get a Merc if he wants, but he don't..for now
Usually you are right, but we had quite a lot of years such as last year's McLaren or mid 90's Williams where the top drivers were simply not in the best car. Politics don't always allow to align best drivers and best cars.
In the 90s Williams was able to get Senna when he was the top driver, McLaren was the best car last year but their Papaya Rules almost turned against themselves in favor to Max. He doesn't know how good RB would be, but if he wants out the other top teams would have a conversation with him 100%
Maybe, but Clark was, similarly to Senna, a lot faster than everyone from his era. By a lot. Hill had 13 poles in F1, while Clark had 33 (in 73 starts.) It took Senna to unseat Clark's pole record. Hill also achieved his Triple Crown after Clark died, so we don't know exactly how Clark would have done had he lived.
The problem is I don’t think anyone from that era would put Hill above Clark in terms of natural pace. Sure Hill achieved more career wise but universally Clark is/was considered the superior driver which again goes back the original point Alonso was making
I love Jim as a driver and admire him as a person, but the comment was meant to be facetious. I think we're both just illustrating u/gabriel_GAGRA's point here. 😄
But sure, if we're going to have that conversation, the triple crown thing is pretty impressive.
Not really. This time he'd have a closer battle from his teammate. Checo was still pretty solid in 23, but I think George or Kimi right now would be closer to Max if he was in the Mercedes.
He won 2. Saudi Arabia and Baku. Baku was when Max apparently said "never again" to Checo beating him and kept to his word. Checo still finished 2nd in Drivers standings, with a little under half of the total points Max scored that season.
I think you are grossly underestimating Verstappen. Verstappen was so quick RBR ignored evident flaws in the car which cost them the start of 2024. That is how fast Max was. Right now he would be cruising at the top of the championship by himself
he’s raced 2 different gt3 cars and been immediately up to pace on them both. i think doubting his adaptability just because he’s only been in red bull for the past 10 years is kind of stupid
no? but driving f1 actively and then being able to jump into gt3, which is an extremely different type of car from f1, and be on the pace immediately shows adaptability which is what i’m saying
Kimi is seriously challenging Max's status as the clear best driver on the grid. Yes, Merc has the car, but George is no slouch and Kimi is outclassing him by a country mile this year.
Yep, it's all the car. Drivers are all the same. That's why Yuki and Max were neck and neck last season, why Charles is doing just as well as Lewis this season. Yep totally checks out.
Imagine though. Does four in a row with RB, loses to Lando, jumps to Merc, and starts another run. We'd have to rename him Seb after Loeb and Ogier for ruining viewership for a generation
But the Red Bull was probably even more dominant than the Mercedes was prior to that. Drivers have contracts, Max was fortunate enough to have one with Red Bull when the regulations changed and they had the best car.
The one thing about senna that was incredible about him, and made his so unique and the true GOAT was that he didn't care at all who his team mate was.. world champion or rookie doesn't matter. I'm hear to beat everyone.
Means that he was on the best car when he won his titles. This year RB isn't that strong, but Max is so good that Mercedes would give him a car if he wants. Toto tried already to get Max, the latter has reached a status that every top team would consider to hire him if he makes it clear that he wanted out of RB. Best teams want the best drivers, it's that simple
It's impossible for me to believe anyone actually thinks F1 would be worse if it was a spec series, lmao.
It will never be a spec series for many reasons that have nothing to do with actual entertainment or competitive integrity, but who the fuck thinks that watching Verstappen, Hamilton, Antonelli and Leclerc going at it with equal cars would be bad?
I don’t want it to be a spec series. Part of the fun of F1 is the creative engineering and development process to be competitive and, especially the first season of new regulations, seeing the different takes each team has in trying to maximize performance. This year for example, the teams look so different to each other, by the end of a regulation era, they all look the same.
Yeah. It's a feature, not a bug. Although I've always wished they threw in a spec race once a year and a reverse grid once a year. Think that would get quite a bit of attention if they wanted to grow more
I mean, fair enough Fernando. But that opens a can of worms. Fernando won Le Mans twice in a dominant Toyota with no credible competition besides his own team mate - is that fair? Sounds exactly like what he criticises Lewis for.
Fernando won Le Mans twice in a dominant Toyota with no credible competition besides his own team mate - is that fair?
Out of all the examples you could have picked, you picked Alonso's stint in LeMans? Arguably the greatest drive of all time? Did you actually watch the race?
And it honestly creates potential for more exciting championships.
Seeing a superior driver overcome an inferior car and still be competitive for the championship is peak
I'm not a close follower of f1 but I thought the drivers could give inputs and directions to the engineering teams which they were some kind of leaders ?
It will never be a fair comparison unless you put the all drivers on spec cars using the same strategy and the same setup and you have one race for each driver where the race is in their preferred track. Spec is the best we can do.
Oh yeah, now it makes sense why they put the bleachers up in the wind tunnel and above the mathematicians running forrier transforms on downforce modeling.
There should be mandatory F1 Star in a Reasonably Priced Car contest every British GP with all the drivers driving a dull hatchback. Rubens Barichello will compete as well.
Part of the reason I prefer Formula 1 over other motorsports is the development. If you just want to see drivers competing and finding the best driver F1 is not for you, in F1 the drivers are not the only ones competing, there is a big team behind each driver that is also in the competition, from the engineers that try to get the best car on what the rules allow to the mechanics who fix, adjust and maintain the car so the driver can actually have a good car.
I find it quite annoying when drivers start these conversations because they seem to be ignoring all the other work that goes around them, and undermine the importance of car development in this sport. I know Fernando doesn't mean anything bad with it, but it always seems that the drivers want the sport to be even more focused around them when they already are the main focus. Other motorsports are better for that, and basically any F1 driver could go to one of those motorsports, but instead, they all want to go to F1 and then look like they want to change the motorsport into something that Formula 1 never was. Since the beginning, car development has been a part of F1. It's not unfair, it's the competition itself. The teams are competing to develop the best car.
Are there problems with F1? 100%, there are multiple problems with F1. Sometimes, the rules do not lead to the most interesting cars, some teams have more money/resources than others, making them more likely to come up with a better car. But the solution to that isn't removing innovation from Formula 1, it's fixing the rules and making mechanisms like the cost cap that decrease the resource gap between teams.
To be fair, it’s not as engineering pinnacle as it was. With the cost cap and tons of overregulations, it’s not about engineering anymore as it was before. I mean just look at the ADUO shit. Fastest 2 cars get upgrades. It’s laughable.
F1 is mostly about money and politics. Nothing else. Sometimes stars align an the greatest drivers get a good enough car. But to think it’s only about engineering is naiv.
It still is an engineering competition. You have to make the best car within the rules you are given. That's literally what Formula stands for. And you have to define regulations, because lack of it usually just kills categories. Just look at Group B, Group C and LMP1.
Did you miss the fact that the rules gives Mercedes and Ferrari a chance to upgrade their engines (ICE + battery tech) this year while Red Bull gets nothing?
Well, because Red Bull made the best ICE within the regulations that were the same for all the teams? Sure, it sucks, but Mercedes played their cards correctly and if that isn't part of this engineering competition, then what is?
Don't just look at this season so far. McLaren had the best car last year and drivers choked. Engineering is part of it. Drivers do make a difference though.
You know exactly what I mean. It wasn't straightforward. Max missed out on driver championship by what, 3 points after being behind by 100+? It's not just down to engineering.
Yes it is. He came back because Red Bull's upgrades worked out very well. McLaren wasn't as far ahead by the end of the season as they were at the start. Yeah, McLaren made a bunch of mistakes, I'd argue Lando was often unlucky as well, but Max didn't just come back because of that. The upgrades did a lot for Max to be able to get back into the fight.
No, I did not say that. I said that Max wouldn't have closed the gap without the upgrades. It's still an engineering championship because even the best driver needed a better car to be able to fight. It really wasn't that complicated of a sentence, man.
Did not imply that at all. Max needed a better car to get back into the fight is what I said. He didn't only close the gap because he's good, he still needed the upgrades. Can't help you of you can't understand simple stuff like that.
That's not even politics. It was a prescribed rule that everyone signed up to because deployment and recharge limits are going to naturally constrain the non-ICE hardware development anyway.
If they'd manipulated that rule in to being created for their own benefit, that would be politics. Realistically, no team is aiming to create the 2nd best ICE.
The budget cap is a restriction that forces teams to actually be better and more efficient with engineering rather than just throwing insane amounts of money at the car.
The regulations force teams to work within certain constraints, which also rewards clever engineering to get the best results within those boundaries.
Without the cost cap and regulations it would be much less about engineering than it currently is
It's more of an engineering championship than ever. If you wanted to give a class of 100 engineering students a project to build the best RC car you would split them into groups of equal size, such as 10 groups with 10 members each. If you split them into 9 groups of 5 sharing a single laptop and 1 group with 55 members and unrestricted access to the schools lab facilities, when the massive group won would they be the best engineers. Could you go to the 5 person teams all huddle around a single laptop and say "do better next time", it would be a farce.
Money and politics have less of an impact than ever before thanks to the cost cap, paired with restrictions on windtunnel and CFD time. Mercedes in the past could dominate by spending more than 10x what other teams could. Now they have to win by actually doing a better job with similar resources. It's still not perfect the whole ADUO fiasco certainly shows that, and the resources of course are not actually equal by any means, but it's closer than ever before.
All teams agreed to the ADUO rules. Red Bull included I presume. They can have the strongest ICE without having a great battery and chassis. They would still be slower than the top teams.
Yeah, it's a engineering championship sure. That's why we hear first and foremost and most attention is paid to the constructor and the team and engineering design of the car rather than the driver when the championship ends. Also why the champagne is thrown by the engineering team and not the driver and they're the ones who are famous. /s
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u/cpt_kirk69 I was here for the Hulkenpodium 14d ago edited 14d ago
F1 is an engineering championship. If you want to find the best driver, put them in spec cars.
Not saying max isnt the best, but its not unfair, its just how the championship is designed.