FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[What's Burning?]

Red Bull Racing-Renault A-
Mercedes B+
Ferrari B
Lotus-Renault B+
Force India Mercedes A
McLaren-Mercedes D
STR-Ferrari B
Sauber-Ferrari C-
Williams-Renault D
Marussia-Cosworth C
Caterham-Renault D

I've gone ahead and graded the mid year performances of the individual teams, this is certainly subjective as I'm taking into account the team's history, resources, management, previous year's performance and their performance relative to their competition last year. Given all of these categories, I think the teams with the biggest delta in gains versus last year are STR-Ferrari, Force India and Mercedes.

[racechick]

I'd go with those scores good post WB!

[acosmichippo]

Force India's problem the last few years has been the development race. It'll be interesting to see if they can keep pace through the second half this year.

[andrew]

Sauber, McLaren and Williams are the only teams to have scored less points than at this stage in 2012, continuing a year long trend. All other teams are up on where they were after 9 races in 2012.

Force India's problem the last few years has been the development race. It'll be interesting to see if they can keep pace through the second half this year.

After 9 races in 2012 they were 8th in the constructors championship. This year they are 5th.

[acosmichippo]

Yeah, I'm just saying it'll be interesting to see if they can hold that place the rest of the season.

[What's Burning?]

I think development so far this year has been with one eye towards gaining speed and one eye towards making the tires work optimally. So outright development in a way is going to be skewed in that you can likely make bigger gains getting on top of the tire situation than yo can in eking out a tenth or two in the wind tunnel.

[Hammer278]

I really don't see them holding that place for very long. McLaren will get the jump on them in the next 3-4 races if not sooner. FI has always had great cars, but the team just has too many issues...it's like a messy operation with great tools to work with.

1.
Red Bull / Renault 250
2.
Mercedes 183
3.
Ferrari 180
4.
Lotus / Renault 157
5.
Force India / Mercedes 59
6.
McLaren / Mercedes 49
7.
Toro Rosso / Ferrari 24

Don't want to digress...but anyone think it might be a good time to think about 3 car teams? The delta between the top 4 and the rest is shocking...though these teams are all well funded and don't really have much financial issues/woes. Keeping these 7, we'd have 21 cars. Less pay drivers, more quality racing instead of cars being too slow to challenge anyone.

Though Redbull will own almost 1/3rd of the grid.

[Ferrari man 009]

I really don't see them holding that place for very long. McLaren will get the jump on them in the next 3-4 races if not sooner. FI has always had great cars, but the team just has too many issues...it's like a messy operation with great tools to work with.

1.
Red Bull / Renault 250
2.
Mercedes 183
3.
Ferrari 180
4.
Lotus / Renault 157
5.
Force India / Mercedes 59
6.
McLaren / Mercedes 49
7.
Toro Rosso / Ferrari 24

Don't want to digress...but anyone think it might be a good time to think about 3 car teams? The delta between the top 4 and the rest is shocking...though these teams are all well funded and don't really have much financial issues/woes. Keeping these 7, we'd have 21 cars. Less pay drivers, more quality racing instead of cars being too slow to challenge anyone.

Though Redbull will own almost 1/3rd of the grid.

I think that's very unfair on Williams and Sauber, who are usually fairly competitive, and are just having bad seasons.

[What's Burning?]

I think the hopes would be that there would be a natural contraction of talent and the subsequent racing would be better, but that's Hammer's hope, I don't necessarily see that coming to fruition, on the contrary, I think it would further lead to one team with all their drivers on the podium.

The problem with F1 today isn't a lack of teams or teams willing to delve into the sport, it's the fact that the competition is stifled by absurd restrictions, a preponderance of aero performance to the point of making everything else an unimportant afterthought. I'd rather see a variety of engine types, a variety of tire choices and a variety of car designs as long as they fit to a loose set of regulations (such as the car must fit within this space and it must have these safety regulations) and simply give the teams a certain amount of fuel and a certain liter displacement and let them go at it.

No other type of motorsports innovates the way F1 can, but it seems like all of the resources in the sport today are about how to get the air around the car and nothing else matters.

[acosmichippo]

amen.

[Ferrari man 009]

The problem with F1 today isn't a lack of teams or teams willing to delve into the sport, it's the fact that the competition is stifled by absurd restrictions, a preponderance of aero performance to the point of making everything else an unimportant afterthought. I'd rather see a variety of engine types, a variety of tire choices and a variety of car designs as long as they fit to a loose set of regulations (such as the car must fit within this space and it must have these safety regulations) and simply give the teams a certain amount of fuel and a certain liter displacement and let them go at it.

If I was in charge i'd remove about 75% of the restrictions (only leaving ones created for safety reasons) but impose a budget cap.

Personally think that would be more interesting. You could have a bigger and more expensive engine, but you'll have less money to spend on aero development and vice versa.

Would make the racing more interesting with varied car strengths/weaknesses, in my opinion!

[What's Burning?]

The problem with budget caps is that teams would cheat, plain and simple. They wouldn't be able to cheat with fuel limits.

[LewEngBridewell]

I mostly agree with the grading there WB, but I wouldn't have graded Force India quite as high as an A, given some of their horrendous pit-stops earlier this season, costing them lots of points. But other than that, yeah.... good stuff.

[andrew]

A race by race statistical analysis of the 2012 season v's 2013 season gives a good indication of who's made the greatest gains and losses.

[CookinFlat6]

Great analysis WB. Qualitatively feels spot on, except maybe Ferrari should be tied with Lotus. If it wasn't for Massa Ferrari have improved more I reckon