Also Emilio Botin, the chairman of Santander, who could be seen at every single race and was very keen on sponsoring Alonso, has died. A very sad start to the day for Ferrari fans.
Seems Luca was pushed after a disagreement with the Fiat Boss (and new Ferrari chairman) Marchionne. Marchionne wanted to sell more Ferrari cars where as Montezemelo wanted them to be more unique and rare. Also it seems Ferrari has become more American than Italian these days
Everything wrong with the world economy in a single sentence. While I don't wish to speculate it seems likely Mattiacci will get promoted again to lead Ferrari's expansion/relocation into America. (I wonder if this is one reason why they negotiated a deal with Haas F1, incidentally). Thus, Ferrari will have to rebuild. It's possible they might bring back Brawn as team principal - he would be a good choice to "steady the ship" - but I think the main thing to draw will be that the parent company will now be calling the shots whereas they used to take a more hands off approach. If Ferrari want their respect that they'll have to earn it the hard way.
Well its happened! FIA goes ahead with Formula 1 team radio clampdown Good luck enforcing that please log in to view this image
So the pit radio will only be good for what? Race engineer: "So erm cant talk about tyres so.... How is the wife and kids? Going anywhere nice in the winter?" EDIT: that of course is code for how are your tyres? They could probably use some more heat
How are they going to allow teams to still discuss pit strategies and safety issues, but not discuss the performance of the car, and therefore tyres? Engineer: "Just a friendly reminder that cold tyres lead to locking up and more accidents. It's important that we remind you about safety issues" How are they going to handle things like engine modes too? "It's unsafe to run an engine to it's maximum for a whole race, as it could blow and cause a fire. Perhaps you should consider saving the engine to prevent an accident." Absolute joke of a rule change. If you can't enforce a ban on team orders, how on earth can you enforce a ban on "information that is related to the performance of the car or driver"?
"Just a friendly message, you should have a look at the apex earlier in turn 12, it's really rather nice.... anywhoooo, I'll leave the driving to you" "My favourite button on the steering wheel is the engine one. In unrelated news my favourite number is six"
It's important to stress that the intention is a good one. For instance, a lot of cars now have software on them that literally tells the driver, in the form of beeps, when to press and let go of the throttle when they're in lift and coast mode. To say nothing of how many times race engineers say over the pit radio to shift the brake biases and so on. Not their job. I think Kimi had the right idea back in Abu Dhabi a couple of years ago. But however noble the intention, the approach is ridiculous, completely unenforcable, and also potentially dangerous. The image the FIA/FOM whoever have was clearly the likes of Prost, who used to be so in sync with his car he could tell when his engine wouldn't make it to the end of the race. But if you stuck Prost in one of the modern F1 cars he wouldn't have a clue because in keeping on the cutting edge F1 cars are so much more complicated these days - that's the sole reason some of the software exists. Richard Hammond's trip around the Silverstone short circuit for Top Gear a few years ago showed that off excellently. I suppose it's making F1 into what the videogames make it look like - but F1 isn't that simple. The fact that it has been done "for the fans" also leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Who these fans are they keep trying to please I have no idea because I don't remember anyone asking me. I'd say a better way to please the fans would be to stop changing **** in a desperate attempt to find the magic button that will bring the ratings figures back to where they used to be, because it isn't going to happen and it reflects badly on F1 when the news is full of people saying "the racing's crap but we're trying to make it better".
It depends how they enforce it tbh, a return to pit boards would be great, drivers having to manage their own race by how the car feels beneath them is the part of the art of racing. I think the only radio messages that should be allowed are safety warnings, and they should be given only by race control. Edit, I wonder if the real reason is so we don't have to hear the drivers whining and moaning about the others. It can't be good for the image of the sport when drivers come over the radio crying and whinging like a bunch of spoiled sissies.
That's probably the easiest way to enforce it, but would still struggle when the issue relates to individual cars. If a team have telemetry readings way off the scale and need to get a driver to stop ASAP, the time it takes to ask race control to tell the driver could be important. It's not that uncommon to have teams tell drivers to stop the car. Or there's problems that worsen over time, like perhaps brakes running hot. If the driver doesn't have the data he doesn't know to manage the temperatures, and they could exceed their temperature range and fail spectacularly and dangerously. Telling the driver to alter the brake balance to prevent a failure has both safety and performance implications, and I don't think you could convey the message easily via pit board. Hadn't heard of beeps to help the driver with lift and coast, that is going a bit far. Blips to tell them when to change gear have been around for years though.
This is the problem, the FIA want the drivers to be able to adapt themselves - which I think is a good idea - but then surely the drivers need access to the data to make informed decisions, otherwise it's likely to be dangerous.
Also, this means we've had about three races of the new, less restricted racing the stewards wanted after Austria before we're back to what some will call "overregulation". I think that could well be a new record for backtracking.
So you either have to give drivers every sensor reading available, and run the risk of further distracting drivers if they have to frequently scan through and check numerous variables (that'll be fun around Monte Carlo!), or allow teams to transmit the relevant data to drivers. And if you go with the second route, how is it any different to a radio message telling them what to do?
They should simply reduce radio traffic to safety information only. Or maybe only allow a certain amount of radio time per race, say 2 minutes of total transmitting time, therefore the team has to judge what information to relay to the driver so as to make sure they don't just waffle down the radio as they do now? The drivers can also learn to read their pit boards again.
Or maybe the fans should be able to tweet in and get their vote as to what to say to the drivers over the radio!?
