New Formula 1 Car Rant ...

Greetings Formula 1 fans.

I will leave it to Internos to start a new 2009 Formula 1 season thread as he is way more qualified than I on this topic.

But I need to rant about this new car ...

I am watching the Australian GP qualifying and I have to say I have never been more disappointed with the sport.

This new car design is absolutely horrendous. They look terrible, like some cheap toy car from the 80's. They look worse than Indy cars. The car is too narrow, the front wing is waaay to big, the nose is too high, and the rear wing looks like a box. The whole thing is a disgrace.

They went from being the most beautiful cars in the world to looking like an anachronistic joke.

I mean look at it ...

This is the 2008 Ferrari F1:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/589564aa5956.jpeg[/atsimg]

And this is the 2009 version:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3251893f2732.jpeg[/atsimg]

What is that in the front, a snow plow?

Oh and by the way, these changes were supposedly made to slow the cars down. Well guess what, they're running near track record times in Australia.

I am a lifelong passionate Formula 1 fan and I am seriously considering not watching this year. I will give it a chance for a couple of races because I have been told it will improve the racing.

It better, or else I'm out.

What a shame.




[edit on 28 Mar 2009 by schrodingers dog]

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Well, i share your rant. THe problem would be that we have three opposite forces in the field:

FOM , managed by Bernie Ecclestone, whom purpose would look to be spectacle but is money;

The Teams in agreement with Concorde Agreement (but which is no longer valid)

FIA


The interests of these three entities (each one plays a lead role in F1) often end in dispute; now the biggest issue looks to be the diffusor, but Honestly Ross Brawn has lately been considered the best of the best engineer in F1, so maybe someone was sleeping while he was developing this new solution, or simply the rules are so generic that everyone feels to be free to interprete them at will: or simply Ross made his first tecnical mistake since he is in F1. All in all, the Brawn's diffusors are likely in breach of the regulations not just because they are hollow but also cause they create in fact a ground effect that Ferrari and McLaren could obtain in some hundreds ways, but they don't because of the general regulations, not just the last ones: they assumed that a ground effect shouldn't be obtained and avoided to give to their diffusors both the shape and the holes. All in all this is a huge problem because

If they ban these diffusors then Brown GP, Toyota and Williams have to rebuild all the rear side of the car, including important parts of the gear, including the new calculations needed for the distribution of the weights.

If they don't ban these diffusors then all the others team have to rebuild all the rear side of the car, including important pats of the gear, because now they are suffering a gap between a 3/10 and 7/10 a lap just because of that difference of ground effect.

All these problems were to be avoided, not discussed during the next FIA council, we can't start watching a world championship knowing that the result can be changed by some council. They say that their purpose is to spare money, but they introduced Keers which needs so much research (and money) that many teams won't use it until the half of the season. It is not this way that they spare money, it is not this way that they improve the show.


[edit on 28/3/2009 by internos]

Doh! I have been so busy this year that I actually forgot about the season starting and am so ashamed at myself now

From the above pics I actually like the look of the new car, it has that 80's old school look that I always loved back when Senna was king.

What was the reasoning going back to slicks? I thought the entire purpose for treaded tires was to decrease speed?

edit to say; I went and looked at race galleries from the 1st two GP's and those front wings are horrid! (although the rest of the car looks nice

[edit on 15-4-2009 by Anjin]