FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[Jabberwocky]

I suppose if you want to remove aero or make it useful to humanity, then maybe touring cars is the way forward.

Maybe saying at x speed you need to produce y amount of down force. This would mean engineers would work on reducing drag.

using phone, so beware of predictive text errors.

[kerc]

I've always thought that something that could help in lowering costs somewhat is to have a standard wheel type.

[darwin dali]

Exotic? Hm, back to aluminum bodywork , eh?

[Jabberwocky]

I think Scotty mean banning MMC's etc.

using phone, so beware of predictive text errors.

[myownalias]

I have no faith that all 12 teams can come to an agreement; I say this because the big teams want to have the bigger slice of the pie, even before scoring a point and the minnows will always be minnows because they don't get a big enough slice of the pie. And now the FIA/FOM want more money from the teams to enter the sport. Then of course there is the history of this proposed budget cap; teams won't agree and because they have all the power, no teams, no F1, the teams will more than likely get want they want. At this point I believe they should just let teams spend whatever they want and be done with it, instead of going around in ever decreasing circles.

[scotty]

Exotic? Hm, back to aluminum bodywork , eh?

No, i have no problem with lightweight technology. But things like the clutch, there is no need for them to be carbon fibre - it is a part the size of a fist, gets used a handful of times before expiring, and costs £10k just to manufacture. Over the season i'd guess that a team could easily spend £300k+ on clutches alone, and what the hell is the need for that?? Another example, when McLaren made their Octopus exhaust, they had to use some INSANELY expensive material (i forget the name) for heat shielding. Again, utterly needless in the grand scheme of things - and those parts never even raced!

But it really is a tough one to implement, because the line of what is necessary (depending on your viewpoint) is somewhat blurred. Is F1 an appropriate test bed for advanced materials research? In some cases yes, but in others, i don't see how (such as the aforementioned McLaren exhausts). In other words some material research becomes very useful in the grand scheme, some just a money pit. But it should be addressed at least on some level, in my view.

Aerodynamics is the worst offender though. I dread to think how much has been spent on double DRS systems (just for a handful of races), f-ducts and what have you.