FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[texasmr2]

[myownalias]

I've never been a fan of success ballast, you're basically rewarding those who fail!

That being said; when you have one team running away with the championship like Brawn did last year and Ferrari did during the Schumacher era it makes perfect sense.

[grant977]

Success ballast is the stupidist thing I have ever heard next to the FIA charging the driver with more points a higher fee. What kind of fool would ever want to punish succcess. I you cannot build a fast enough car get out. The FIA needs to lessen all rules and let the teams off the lease if you want more excitement. Enough of all this cost/green measures. Lets let the teams build the fasters car they can. Only restrictions should be an open cockpit, 4 wheels, and rear wheel drive. Make the engine whatever you want turbine, electric, gas, deisel, whatever. Competition is how things move forward not punishing the winner so the looser can bring him down to their level. Good God.

[bud]

I've never been a fan of success ballast, you're basically rewarding those who fail!

That being said; when you have one team running away with the championship like Brawn did last year and Ferrari did during the Schumacher era it makes perfect sense.

While it might be boring for the fans the teams that have a margin got there via hard work and deserve it.

[Jabberwocky]

would the ballast be assigned to the car or the driver?

[FIAarri]

Success ballast is the stupidist thing I have ever heard next to the FIA charging the driver with more points a higher fee. What kind of fool would ever want to punish succcess. I you cannot build a fast enough car get out. The FIA needs to lessen all rules and let the teams off the lease if you want more excitement. Enough of all this cost/green measures. Lets let the teams build the fasters car they can. Only restrictions should be an open cockpit, 4 wheels, and rear wheel drive. Make the engine whatever you want turbine, electric, gas, deisel, whatever. Competition is how things move forward not punishing the winner so the looser can bring him down to their level. Good God.

East tiger

[Fodda]

Success ballast works well in other formulae... As does single make entries and all manner of other rules. But I'm not so interested in those other race series and would prefer not to have their rules pulled over. F1 is F1, DTM is DTM and NASCAR is... well... I've not posted enough yet to start being rude.

[Gaz]

don't think it would work in F1, it would be a huge handi cap in most circuits.

[madbrad]

I generally don't like artificial means of affecting pace and natural race order, like Success Ballast and stuff like mandatory yellows, even having to run both tires is a bit dubious, if I wantd to be an anal purist.

[Frosty]

I don't like this idea. A big reduction in aero is what's needed along with allowing engine development under a budget cap.

[kerc]

I vote for a banana peel dropper above the diffuser.

[Fodda]

Aaaahhh The Wacky Races school of F1. Like it... Like it.

[kerc]

We can also link KERS with mushrooms on the track. These mushrooms would have an impact sensor, so when they're hit, they would send a signal to the car's computer and automatically trigger KERS for 3-5 seconds, without warning.

Should be cool.

[IceManpjn]

My problem with the mentality behind penalizing success is that it feels fake to me. If we're racing and I'm generally outperforming on the track, so someone decides to have me drag a wagon full of bricks behind me and then suddenly you beat me, it isn't really that you beat me as much as the bricks beating me. In a way I could see it if my car has a clear advantage over yours, but if it's more about me simply outdriving you then allowing you to beat me by weighting me down and holding me back is just unfair and fake.

Are we going to do this on a per-team basis or per-driver? I mean, you can look at a team and see one driver pretty consistently outperforming the other, so are we going to be penalizing Lewis more than Jenson, Rosberg more than Schumacher, or Alonso more than Massa, or are we going to just be penalizing both cars on a team equally regardless of individual performance? It would really seem pretty fake to me if Massa starts beating Alonso not by being a better driver but because we penalized Alonso by filling his car full of bricks for being too good. That wouldn't really be Massa beating Alonso but the bricks beating Alonso.

You know what we could do is just start scripting races and have them filmed like episodes of a television series, if we're going to start being fake about it. This way, things can be as exciting as the writers want it to be.

[myownalias]

I would have to be each driver that would have to carry the relevant amount of ballast as team mates don't always finish line astern. In the past slower teams could get an advantage by fuelling lighter and having a different strategy but that part of F1 is gone so everyone is basically the same weight. In the past I would have said ballast was a stupid idea but with the refuelling ban I think it could have legitimate uses to improve racing and the spectacle of F1. IceManpjn, you mention it feels fake but isn't the new moveable rear wing the same thing; if a driver happens to be following another car, he would get the advantage of having less drag allowing him to overtake while the driver in front is helpless as he watches his opponent breeze past him, that's just as fake in my opinion!