F1’s boffins have got together to decide on a new bunch of rules to overcome one team being much better than the others. This one team domination does happen from time to time in F1 and if you’re lucky (unlike the Ferrari dominated early 2000’s) the team is fair and lets both drivers race. Which is the case for Mercedes. So if you’re looking to blame anyone for the current state of F1, blame Nico Rosberg.

But all the complaining about last year’s season was bewildering. Whilst you had a far superior car, the two lead drivers wore each other down for mutual dislike by season’s end, and further back the racing was better than ever. Even this year you have a genuine alternative winner at some tracks with the revival of Ferrari, plus a randomness in the midfield with a rotating roster of which car is next best. So, it’s not all that bad.

If history in F1 has proven anything, the longer you leave the rules, the more competitive it becomes. And another thing, when these changes are being proposed, they very rarely improve anything nor do what they say they were going to.

Courtesy of the BBC is the new rules explained.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/32751118

Whilst the refuelling aspect is probably a welcome change from the no refuelling which simply hasn’t worked. The changes to aerodynamics seems to be moving in exactly the wrong way to what a layman would think to improve racing.

Yes the cars should be faster, and will be under these rules, but a flicker back to old days of Trulli trains, and Bernoldi holding up Coulthard at Monaco for what seemed 180 laps, it doesn’t matter how fast they go if they can’t get past.

Found an article from back in the heady days when Autosport was AtlasF1 and free and great on the 1997 to 1998 rule changes.

http://atlasf1.autosport.com/97/can/reading.html

They claim is was to lead to longer braking zones, which will increase overtaking opportunities — something desired by all racing fans. Wrong.

The theory behind the narrower car is it gives the designers less room to play with to create downforce. It will have the same affect as widening the circuit, giving more space for the drivers to race on. Pffft.

Also found an interesting quote from Jacques Villeneuve about the changes. Whilst his rant was based on 98 changes, it is hard to argue that his views don’t somehow sum up what’s happening now. Although the quality of the driver probably more reliant on budgets than skill. There’s also an explanation of how to make overtaking easier, which appears to be going in the opposite direction of the new rules floated.

So what does Villeneuve say? Well, he believes the fun will be taken out of Formula One, that the cars will be far too slow and this will allow less skilled drivers to compete easier.

“the way to tackle the “dirty air” problem is to take the emphasis a car’s grip away from the aerodynamics and back to the tyres. A contemporary Formula One car gets the majority of its grip from the wings. Therefore, it loses a massive percentage of its grip when running in dirty air. If downforce was cut dramatically, the percentage of grip coming from the wings would be less. So, when running in dirty air, the total percentage of grip loss would be much less as tyres are unaffected by dirty air.”

Here’s a bit before the 2009 changes with shows the benefit of leaving the rules alone.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2009/01/16/how-the-f1-rules-changes-for-2009-are-meant-to-improve-racing-part-13/

Over the last three years the rules that govern F1 have remained remarkably stable. In recent times the slowest car on the track (usually a Force India) has often been within 1.5s of the fastest.

Although the end of 2009 became much more compeditive as the teams who were cheated out of the Double Diffuser technology as the rules were set up to go without by the people who went ahead and did it, caught up and overtook the eventual champions who were too far ahead by that time.

So, if we’re such an expert, what would we do.

– If there needs to change – agree to changes that are unable to be changed for an agreeable period, and make it for a long time – min 10 years.

– Reduce aero dependency. One plane front and rear wings. No extra. Simples. Should make the car a pain in the arse to hold onto and much easier to overtake so DRS won’t be required.

– Tyre war. Throws in another variable and opportunity for a change in order. As there are fewer variable in engines these days, i.e. Mercedes/Ferrari or bust, a variable between two teams with Mercedes but on different tyres. Allow companies to dictate how aggressive they want to be, with the risk if they last 4 laps they look hopeless.

– Mixed up grids. But not a gimmick. One lap Q3 similar to 2003 era allows for showcasing of skill, maximum exposure and reward for cars that make Q3, the one lap formula punishes the small and big mistakes so can shake up the grid. Plus it is surely better than trying to keep up with all 10 cars on the track with 15 seconds of each other. Keep Q1 and Q2 but use the Q2 times as the cutoff and order for Q3. Fastest in Q3 can choose to go first or last giving them the advantage and reward in times of rain. Worthwhile for more than a mere trimming of the midfield which Q2 currently is.

– Improve the circuits. The bastardisation of the final corner of Barcelona shows all that is wrong with F1 track design. Sure the idea may be good in theory, but as the Simpsons point out Communism is good in theory. If something doesn’t work – change it back. Tracks should remain safe but there has to be more punishment for mistakes. 3 km of run off area on the outside of all corners leads drivers to going flat out knowing there’s not much margin of error if they get it wrong.

–  Or remove all regs, but have a generous salary cap and allow for open slather for everything. Making the grid full of exciting ideas, and may lead to the next 6 wheeler, Lotus 79, 80’s style Turbo engine, Carbon Fibre chassis, active ride suspension and semi automatic gearbox. Fancy curved front wing endplates and viking/anteater noses and enforced FIA tech like KERS and DRS aside there has been bugger all new technology for a long time.

– Remove the engine and tyre restrictions for Friday practice turning them into mini test sessions. This will make them more worth watching, and will give time over to possible innovations and allowing for more freedom to explore. Rather than clenching up tighter than a fish’s arse because you only have x sets of tyres for the weekend and 4 engines for the year, and you’re afraid your Renault engine will explode if you sneeze and change into third gear at the same time. Not open slather as budgets still need to be maintained, but maybe allow for a testing rubber and engine for one of the two session, as long as a rookie/understudy driver is used.

– Check out the NASCAR all stars race and see that’s the level fans want. They don’t want the same bland chiched PR polished and approved responses, they want something different, they want to be involved, not just following an Instagram account. Whilst NASCAR isn’t the series for us given the racing sends us dizzy and the use of the safety car is more frustrating than trying to set a rugby union scrum, their drivers and use of them is far superior to anything in F1. Which is the opposite of F1 whose drivers think they are far too superior to do anything more than sponsored events and a few autographs.

Our answers may not any better, but some would be easily implemented. Either that or leave it alone and allow these teams to catch up.