RIP....

[Fat_Santa54]

F1 as we know it is comming to an end.

the article
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/28193858/

This just had me all up in arms, and sad. I mean they are destroying what the sport is, its starting to look mroe and more like this thing we have in the states called Indy car, Everyone usuing the exact same car, everyone has to tell everyone what they are usuing, It's really gotten boring. F1 has always been (in my eyes) the best racing sport there is, It just seemed to be in a leauge of its own, most of F1 is won in the shop, everyone has different cars and different parts, and it makes it interesting, you never know which team might pull a win out of no where,.

Listen to the drivers in F1 talk, they will always say they did great work on the car, and had a great setup this race, as apposed to indy car wich is the exact same every time "Well we just got lucky and the car was running great, lucy for us the other dude behind me with the exact same honda civiv was a few seconds slower than me...."

and it seems the main reason to this downsizing if you will of F1 is to "save money in a failing economy" Excuse me, since when did the FIA pay for gas? last I cheacked ferrari pays for evey cost of their team, parts, fuel, tires, shiping, ect,ect. And if they dont its probably because a company pays them to use their parts... why? BECAUSE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WATCH EVERY RACE AND COMPANIES WASTE MILLIONS ON ADVERTISING, and "a possibilty of no refuling" that would ruin the race, your whole strategdy is based on when you pit. Now, it would be one thing for say all the sponsors to pull out due to the economy and then teams be forced to downsize, but from what I've read it seems like the FIA is making the dicisions for them, God let compaines choose how they waste their money, if they cant use it on a $10 million sticker, im sure they can waste it on furinature or something.

Well RIP, the list of good sports in this world keeps getting smaller and smaller.

but hey at leas the face of their sport isnt a girl who can only win 1 race in her carrer and do horrible at every road course(the real races)....

[Giland]

I was reading an article the other day about F1 and they said the cost of engine research alone is almost double the cost of running a whole indy team for a year. Ferraris budget is something like $300 million a year for F1 racing.
Plus they had that big Ferrari/McLaren controversy not to long ago.
Sketchy on the details, but IIRC, an engineer that went to work for McLaren got a hold of the complete specs for the Ferrari F1 and passed them around to other engineers.

Personally, I like more structure for the cars. Then you find out who is the better driver, not who has the most money to spend on R&D.

[driver5]

- A doubling of engine life, with each driver limited to a maximum of eight engines over the season. Teams will also be allowed four engines for testing. Engines will be limited to 18,000 revolutions per minute.

Effective, but rev limits make em sound lame. I miss 21k

- Cheaper engines for independent teams, costing about half as much as in 2008.

Effective, but where's the money going to come from? Pay for half as much... get half as much.

- During the season, teams will only be able to test their cars at Grand Prix weekends during scheduled practices.

Not very effective. F1 team's simulation budgets and laboratory testing budgets dwarf their on track testing budgets. Only thing it will do is widen the gap between the top teams and independents, because the top teams will funnel their track budget into better simulation.

- Limits on the use of wind tunnels, which are employed to improve cars' aerodynamics.

Wind tunnels are only used to prove what CFD tells the engineers. Effective but pointless.

- Teams' factories to close for six weeks per year.

Ineffective. 6 weeks of downtime means that work will have to be made up the rest of the year, which means more staff. Good for keeping families together though.

- Reduced manpower for teams during race weekends.

Riiiight.... that'll happen.... Each tire costs more that each worker makes in a weekend. Ineffective and pointless.

Changes to be introduced after next season will be even more radical, as the FIA seeks to ensure the sport's long-term survival. Races could even be shortened to save money, and refueling will be banned from 2010 - which could dramatically alter the spectacle for fans.

Good god... they want to *completely* remove passing?? And charge $90 for a half hour race?? wtfover.

From 2010, independent teams will be supplied with engines for less than $6.6 million per team per season. The engines will come either from an independent supplier or from the teams that manufacture their own engines. If an independent supplier is chosen, the deal will be signed no later than next week, the FIA said.
If such a reform proves practical, all teams will use the same transmission.

Same transmission is a bad bad idea. That's a structural member of the car, and is a place where significant differences in handling are able to be made up.

Race weekends will look radically different with the ban on refueling and a ban on warmers used to heat up tires for better grip.

I'm sorry, didn't we learn from Alex Zanardi's wreck that tire warmers are a *good* idea?

Market research will be conducted before a decision on whether to make races shorter.

Let's only hope.

[Fat_Santa54]

^ Agree with you 100%, If they want to give some money to smaller teams I'm all for it, get some more competition,  many of these F1 teams have their own private test tracks, so the FIA can say ferrari cant drive their own car on their own track and cant work on their own car in that factory that they own with the workers they employee? I've been to the Monico race and it was amazing, But i wouldnt pay the outrageous ticket price for a 30 mintue race with no pit stops.

I really dont know why the FIA is doing all this, F1 still brings in a boatload of money with almost no cost to teh FIA themselves, eveything is for the most part privatley funded and people still pay to see it.

[driver5]

my guess: they're saying all this to stay in the headlines. If they look like they're going to "make progress" then it might draw some people who are on the fence to watch it. But who knows... I'd hate to see F1 become another NASCAR. Tilkefied tracks are bad enough, we don't need templated cars and orchestrated pit stops.

I'd love to see a USGP at Road America. Laguna, Miller, Road Atlanta would all be close behind. Or maybe another iceberg gp in downtown *laff*

[Sergeant First Class Keenan]

F1 died with Senna. Some teams spend the GDP of small countries. 3 on track passes a year. I rather watch paint dry.