[Ducati] (NDC) Of weights and measures (was Jerez GP testing 800's)

[Garth Williams]

Mikiel,

Agreed, except that in the 80's costs did get out of hand, and banning 
the most expensive stuff was the easiest way to deal with it. In 
retrospect, it only made costs go up as engineers now had to figure out 
how to squeeze that last little bit of performance they could within the 
rulebook. 

I don't like traction control and active suspensions because they took 
something away from the absolute control of the driver.  It used to be 
that the driver was King.  Now, it's a bit watered down.

The real issue the FIA should deal with is getting aerodynamics to the 
point that the cars don't need "clean air" in order to turn good lap 
times.  That, above everything else, killed F1 for me.  If you can't 
pass in dirty air, you can't pass anywhere except in the pits. 

One single FIA Kart race has more passing than an entire season of F1.


Garth

Mikiel Kingsley wrote:
>
>
> That's the thing that bothers me about the rule changes.  They stifle
> innovation.  Love it or hate it, cars like the Tyrrell were fascinating
> design experiments.  Regenerative braking?  Banned.  Active suspensions?
> Banned.  Anti-lock brakes?  Banned.  Number of cylinders other than 8?
> Banned.  Ground effects?  Banned.  Traction control?  Banned several 
> times
> but currently legal because the FIA can't figure out a way to ensure 
> no one
> is cheating.  And now all the cars look pretty much the same, sound 
> pretty
> much the same, and have nearly the same performance.  It's only going 
> to get
> worse too, next year F1 will have a single tire supplier and there are 
> plans
> in the works for every car to use the same FIA-issued engine control 
> unit.
> As far as I'm concerned the F1 technical regs should state that the 
> car must
> weigh X and it has to fit inside this shipping container.  Anything else
> goes.
>