F1 is boring me to death!!!!

I think they should go back to F-1 regs as of 1966-'68, more or less, with modern safety thingy's like fuel cells and crash/ fire protection. Carbon fibre tubs should be allowed for safety reasons and suspension mounted wings with tight rules on mounting construction , a better 1968. Body shape parimeters to preclude ground effects and side mounted radiators, a-la Lotus 72.
No Turbos. no V-10's.

6 , 8 and 12 cylinders...V or Flat.

No electronic anything, anywhere

1967 would have been a great year if Clark hadn't snuffed it in a useless F-2 race. Cosworth was coming on, and BRM was working up a V-12 as was Matra....

Not exactly Veteran F-1 races...but not $$$Millions either!

J.C.

 

[David Morton]

I would like to be associated with all of your comments. They were indeed much better rules in those periods.
ps we run a Meade 105 here.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

I disagree guys, F1 has always been at the sharp end of technology and in my view should remain that way.
I do agree that current F1 is over regulated and I think all regulations other than those created to make the cars safer should be abolished. Back to Formula Libre. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/1poke.gif

 

[roaldin]

Re' 67 would have been a great year: correction, Clark died 7/4/1968.
I was going to make some sort of funny comment about the mix up but I hold the man in too high a respect.
F1 has never been the same.

Tim.

 

[David Morton]

One report coming back from Bahrein is putting an estimated value per race lap on each car. Sure, I know it would vary immensly between teams but any thoughts guys?
Some wild estimates going around are from £3000 upwards. My 'wild' estimate is approximately £75,000 per car. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[David Morton]

Sunday papers quoting bookmakers odds
9-4 Schumacher and Raikkonen
2-1 Alonso
Weber 50-1
Sato 300-1
1,000 - 1 Speed,Albers,Ide

 

[DavidTC]

David
I know who my money is on; interesting to see who has the insight after next weekend !.
Regards
David
PS NUFC now looking a 'reasonable' bet for the cup.

 

[David Morton]

David,
I must find time to go to a match in Newcastle. I hail from Durham - would that mean I should support a different team?
David M

 

[DavidTC]

David
Durham City is mostly Black&White BUT there has been considerable Red&White support as well,this paradoxically gets bigger if you go West as well as East !.Unless you are a season ticket holder you will be paying approaching GP ticket prices to see a game; after all the Toon still pack in over 52,000 each home game ;(the second largest in the premiership).Incidentally with heavily raked stadia there has generally been a problem in maintaining the growth of the turf; witness the terrible state of Man Utd and Chelsea pitches. Newcastle seem to have cracked this with a regular dose of the correct wavelength artificial light.
David

 

[David Morton]

Is the artificial light at St. James filtered through N/Brown Ale ? I've been told that a regular dose of that sorts most 'ailments'.
You've frightened me off re: prices. When I flew Norwich around I always sat in the directors box. Really posh.

 

[DavidTC]

Yes; but they didn't have players on £ 70K a week. I doubt whether any of the premiership players have discovered GT 40's yet; even the new ones.'Broon' is of course a great drink appreciated the world over BUT now brewed in Gateshead. It's apperently great as a high potassium feed for tomatoes BUT you need to drink it first !.
Regards
David

 

[David Morton]

Interesting snippet about engines ahead of the first Gp. These V8 engines experience 'acoustic offset' meaning with increased temperatures the RPM s for maximum power increases by 300 rpm/ every 10°C rise. Variable intake trumpets are now banned as part of the new engine rules meaning teams have to have very accurate forecast ambient Temp/prevailing(T/p) so as to select the most appropriate length of trumpets. Variable trumpets, (previously allowed) the teams to adapt to wider range of temperatures but now the fixed variety have to be tuned precisely to the T/p to get optimum performance.

 

[Tony Hunt]

Saw the Bahrain practice this morning - great stuff!
The new format may be rather contrived, but it produced a nail-biting result.
Let's see whether Renault were sandbagging with extra fuel, and, most importantly, whether young Jensen can get off his butt and start winning races.
Tomorrow's race looks promising.

 

[DavidTC]

Tony
I agree; the new format is much more interesting than that from last season. It is also interesting that with 200hp less the cars are still pretty quick. Alonso looked reasonable competetive BUT what about their 2nd driver ?; at least the Ferrari drivers were pushing one another.
Should be an interesting race; my money remains where it has been since the new car designs were revealed.Honda also look reasonable BUT Jenson is really the F1 equivalent of Tim Henman.
David

 

[Ken Mason]

I thought the new qualifying format was brilliant! Poor old Raikkonen though... he doesn't get the breaks does he? I was a bit disappointed by the noise of the new, smaller V8s - thought they'd be really shreiking pulling 20 grand down the straights but they didn't sound that different to me...
One thought though, as a motorcycle racing fan, why do the one litre grand prix four stroke motorbikes not rev as high as the grand prix cars? The Honda V5 only pulls around 16 thousand revs... you would have thought a one litre screamer in a motorbike would rev its nuts off compared with the Formula One cars but its the other way round. And don't I remember in the sixties the Honda 250cc six at the Isle of Man TT was hitting 20 grand??? I thought revs mean power- maybe someone can enlighten me....

 

Any qualifying format would be better than the procession of the last few years. This morning's was so good the race may be an anti-climax!
I don't think the deigners of the format anticipated the effect of the final session though, it ought to be shorter, whereas the other two sessions were a bit too short.
The second seesion shows the true pace and the Renaults were comfortable, I bet on them. Schumey is, he always says, not interested in records but it looks like they were fuelled to get Sennas record - we'll see tomorrow.
Jense looks committed whereas as (nice guy though he is) Rubens looks a step behind, with Massa closer to Schumacher maybe Rubens is not so hot?
Lots of questions - lets be glad the season finally got under way /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[David Morton]

Seems that the Ferrari rear wing may be the subject of an appeal by other teams. Reason - Too much flexing - though Charlie Whiting (FIA) declared it legal yesterday.

 

[DavidTC]

Yes
But talking about flexing, what was wrong with one of the Renault wing mirrors ?. A manufacturing/installation error ?. Since the rear wings are subject to a static load test difficult to see how an appeal by other teams would be successful against the red team. Sounds more like sour grapes to me.
David

 

[David Morton]

David,
Any thoughts/guesses on fuel loads in the Ferrari?
My guess is both they and Honda will need to fuel again
at around L10 - L14 then go for a long middle stint on their only one set of remaining new tyres. But - it's only a guesstimate. Another windy day in store but not quite as high as today.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Let the games begin.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banana.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banana.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bash.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beerchug.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beerchug.gif