do you think this current junk represents progress? try to look at it deeper than just my favourite drivers going to win so the current rules are brilliant. Melbourne 2015 will be a critical race for viewer numbers, the threat of another season of these Mercedes 1-2s being 1-2 seconds a lap faster than everyone else will be enough for a lot of people, especially outside the UK.
I think a major rule change after 1 season would be bad, it'll just as likely allow someone to get it very right again. The others will catch up but that doesn't mean nothing should be done. A basic choice of soft, meds and hard tyres should be produced, and then remove the both compounds rule and make teams commit to two compounds to take with them 4 weeks in advance. Forcing teams to use different compounds is both pointless and against F1's current vision. It hardly promotes efficiency when you have to use a tyre you don't want to use. I also agree with the minimum seat+driver rule. This is not a sport of jockies, fine make cars lighter but don't give us unrealistically tiny drivers as well. Talent before weight
From a technology point of view, of course it's progress. Why go back to antiquated non-turbo V8's which have no real use anymore in the real world. Why do you call turbo's junk? Hybrid systems, energy recovery are the way forward. I fully expect the others to catch up, just like all the teams did after the last major rule change in 2009 when Brawn got the edge on everyone but were hauled in, and the following year as Mercedes they were nowhere. It's brand new regs, they will take a while to settle down. What F1 doesn't need is further knee-jerk reactions. So they change the rules AGAIN and one team then dominates because of that. Do you have another rule change then!? Why is everyone so against Mercedes winning? 4 seasons of RBR domination seems to be a distant memory already. The last 9 races last year were dire because just one driver was winning. At least this year it's 2 drivers so there is an actual battle happening. There have been few seasons where one team hasn't had the edge over all the others. If all you want is close racing, go and watch NASCAR (you will get your big V8's, no turbo 'junk', etc or BTCC (sorry they have turbo's). F1 is more than just about overtaking ffs.
funny, blown exhausts represented technological "progress" along with other elements which made the cars multiple seconds faster last year, yet i see few complaints about those being banned and the cars being much slower. Doesn't take a genius to figure out why; because when people say "progress" what they actually seem to mean is "the result is more like the one i want" The reasons why people are against Mercedes being far more dominant than Red Bull ever were would probably be completely lost on you, as they already seem to be.
So in your view 'progress' simply means faster? I'll ignore the last comment as I can't be bothered with it as you clearly have an agenda on that particular point.
you were the one who used the term "technological progress", why go back to less technically advanced Aero? oh yeah it's because those encouraging such a thing also have an "agenda", as i said, getting the result to be more like the one they want. Hence why you feel the need to be so defensive about this season.
Aero had to be clipped as the speeds were getting too high again. They've been doing that for years, so from that point of view F1 has gone backwards since 1982 when ground effect was banned. If you actually read any of my posts on this forum, rather than assuming I am mindlessly in favour of one driver, you will see that I am not a fan of the dominance at all. I just don't see why the rules need to be changed again after barely 7 races because one team has a short-term advantage. If it is still just one team dominating next year then maybe it needs to be looked at, but RBR, Ferrari etc should be able to catch up. What do you want them to do? Ban Mercedes half way through the season!? F1 has never deliberately handicapped a team part way through a season simply because it has a massive advantage, so they're not going to start now. It's not touring cars. 'Technology' is not just about aero (in my view), it's the whole car, so that includes small capacity turbo engines, hybrid etc etc etc. It's only Ferrari who really kick off when a team is dominating and it's not them.
You can't keep making the cars faster and faster, it's not sustainable. Tracks would need larger and larger run off areas (which is both expensive/impossible and ruins the experience for fans), and collisions between cars become more dangerous. F1 only needs to be the fastest racing series in the world, and the most technologically advanced, there's no point pushing for unnecessary speed - that can be left to dragsters. The problem F1 has (for me) is that no large manufacturers want to invest in an aero-dominated sport (because the research costs are wasted), but when they made engines a bigger factor, they "froze development" to keep costs down. If the manufacturers want an engine-dominated series, I don't see why there's a need to freeze development. So long as the FIA prevent the constructors passing huge R&D costs onto customer teams (by capping cost of an engine contract), I don't see why it's not possible. If I was in charge then: -Allow greater engine development during the season (with appropriate safeguards in place) -Increase proportion of grip coming from mechanical not aerodynamic devices. If tyres are larger and therefore providing more grip, individual aero variations will make less of an impact. This should hopefully also make overtaking easier -Redistribute prize money so that every team receives a healthy amount, with a smaller performance related bonus -Scrap the ludicrous entry fee for new teams, that £20m or so must put some outfits off. -Encourage greater technical link-up between established and "new" teams, so that it's easier for new teams to at least get to the back of the pack. -As others have said, proper wet tyres. If an increased ride height is required to help this, so be it. -Definitely agree with minimum driver+seat weight
i wouldn't call having the same advantage for a whole season "short-term". The whole point is there is nothing they can do, are people not supposed to have a problem with that all of a sudden? this is nothing like 2009. It's obvious what the result would be this season, as soon as it was rumoured Mercedes would have a significantly better engine. One dominant team being replaced by an even more dominant one isn't what i would classify that as "progress", especially when taking into consideration what other sacrifices have been made.
This would have the biggest difference, but even then would take a few years for the full effects to be felt. Everything else is just tweaking rules here, there and everywhere, with no real idea of whether it will make the racing better or closer. It was supposed to do that this year.
So what is the quick solution to resolve the problem of domination this year, or what should they have done about it before the season when it looked like Mercedes had a car/engine advantage? And you keep using the word 'progress'. What do you actually define as progress?
don't be silly, i just tried to make suggestions relevant to the topic, you were the one who started talking about "progress". Again you don't get it, the whole point was unregulated power and a major engine shake up was obviously going to cause one team to have a significant advantage, i predicted it last year, especially after looking at the other rule changes. If i could see it why couldn't they? just straight up very poorly implemented rule changes, which mean people now have to wait for the season to end before there's any chance of another team or driver challenging Mercedes, and then another year again if there's no improvement come Melbourne 2015, this is nothing like 2009, or Red Bulls dominance, and it's certainly no better in my opinion.
No one is saying it is any better. But another change in rules may not change anything. For the most part, if the rules are stable for a period, all the teams catch up as their is only a finite amount of development that can be done with a set of regs. Okay, every so often the regs have to change to ensure speeds don't get out of control. The regs haven now changed a team has an advantage that they are unlikely to hold forever. If the regs are changed again, then another team could come in and take over. It isn't unregulated power, that shows a poor understanding of the rules. Power is massively regulated with fuel flow, rev limits, boost limits etc which all teams have to abide by (unless you are RBR) . Why would one team clearly have an advantage when at least 2 or 3 other teams would have the same engine? History shows a team will dominate at times. Currently it's Mercedes turn. McLaren, Ferrari, Williams and RBR have all had their periods in the past when they were all but uncatchable in one or more seasons. It just happens.
"it may be one team, but at least BOTH of their drivers are fighting each other. That cannot be said for the Ferrari or RBR years when it was just one driver walking away with everything." "Why is everyone so against Mercedes winning? 4 seasons of RBR domination seems to be a distant memory already. The last 9 races last year were dire because just one driver was winning. At least this year it's 2 drivers so there is an actual battle happening." Literally just from this topic, you seem pretty desperate to make out it's somehow better.
So you'd rather it was just one driver doing all the winning!? It is better than last year (well, at least the 2nd half of last year), but I have not said it is good for one team to dominate. When did you ever see the two RBR's fighting it out race after race? I don't see why everyone thinks changing the rules AGAIN so quickly will make any difference. If another team then spots an advantage then we're back to square one again. If RBR or Ferrari got the march on everyone else, would you still whinge like you are?
I think there were enough people whinging about Red Bull, now there just seems to be a load of people who don't even want to hear about fictional rule changes, which is all i listed.
During other periods of dominance, we weren't discussing knee-jerk rule changes that I recall... It's always been down to the other teams to do the catching up. I can understand the plugging of loop holes or removal of certain aids to balance the field, but what Ferrari are looking for are an out and out scrapping of the current format. If the current Mercedes dominance continues, I can entirely understand why there would be a need to see what can be done to level the field again, but we can't just call time on these cars after 7 races. That would be lunacy. In reality, you could change the regs a million times, and this current Ferrari would still be slipping behind as they have been doing for years.
