Brazilian GP (may contain spoilers)

[fitfan]

Originally Posted by macdady2424

Looks like they're gonna take strategy out of it next year too. No more re-fueling. All cars start the race with a full tank to go to the end. Man I hate these rules they come up with every year.

i am very pro for no refueling. it was a stupid thing to return to F1. they are sprint races ...no nead for refueling, focus on efficency - more engineering biased and driver discipline biased.

adds more DRIVER strategy, conserve tires? changing car balance thoughout the race? pit for tires? or no stop?

it will make the start less frantic, as drivers will have a more strategic race to unfold.

i would even say realse any and all kers regulations - let the teams figure the more efficent wayto get the car to the end....


congrats to Button!! well done would have liked to see rubens win in his homeland too... but... oh well.

[macdady2424]

Originally Posted by fitfan

i am very pro for no refueling. it was a stupid thing to return to F1. they are sprint races ...no nead for refueling, focus on efficency - more engineering biased and driver discipline biased.

adds more DRIVER strategy, conserve tires? changing car balance thoughout the race? pit for tires? or no stop?

it will make the start less frantic, as drivers will have a more strategic race to unfold.

i would even say realse any and all kers regulations - let the teams figure the more efficent wayto get the car to the end....


congrats to Button!! well done would have liked to see rubens win in his homeland too... but... oh well.

I'm all for the advancement of technology in the cars. I say they should be able to do what ever they want to their cars, guess it's the engineer in me. To make it more fair, maybe just cap the overall budget of the teams, that way they can do what ever they want to a certain degree. As far as the fueling goes, refueling may have added danger to the sport, but it also added excitement. It added more strategy to think about and chances for teams (crew) to become part of and affect the race out come (more chances to mess up or not). Just my thoughts!

And wow JB! He finally woke up and started racing with some big ones.

[ZJChaser]

excellent race all around today. Button drove for the championship! Vettel, Hammilton, and Button all charged hard from the back. There were great battles passes asd crashes.

I agree that removing refueling will put more on drivers but I also think that refueling adds a lot of excitement. And lets be serious, excitement brings fans and popularity that the sport needs. I'm happy to see KERS gone next year as well.

[flyscotUSA]

Great F1 season.

A new team, owned and lead by the maestro Ross Brawn, driven by two drivers who's careers were all but written off, comes in at the last moment and scoops the drivers and constructors championship. You could not have scripted this.

This penultimate race conjured up another thriller with bad weather, crashes, drivers (almost) fighting, excellent passing, pit stop screw ups and a fire-red Ferrari (love the comment about Kimi being his own cake candle... but only after knowing he was OK).

Well done JB, time to go back on Top Gear and at JC.

Can't wait to see the new teams coming in next year and the chance for a visit to Montreal again.

[Green Hornet]

Originally Posted by flyscotUSA

Great F1 season.

Can't wait to see the new teams coming in next year and the chance for a visit to Montreal again.

+1

We need to keep our fingers crossed. Montreal is not a done deal yet

[fitfan]

Originally Posted by macdady2424

I'm all for the advancement of technology in the cars. I say they should be able to do what ever they want to their cars, guess it's the engineer in me. To make it more fair, maybe just cap the overall budget of the teams, that way they can do what ever they want to a certain degree. As far as the fueling goes, refueling may have added danger to the sport, but it also added excitement. It added more strategy to think about and chances for teams (crew) to become part of and affect the race out come (more chances to mess up or not). Just my thoughts!

And wow JB! He finally woke up and started racing with some big ones.

good point about that it puts the pit team into the race spotlight... agree... i think the no refueling will put the thrill back into qualifying though- where now qualifying is just a fuel strategy - pole is not allways the "fastest" car/driver.

[MickOpalak]

Everyone knows that the reason Brawn won it all is because of the Krypton Green on their cars and uniforms.

[paulhastings]

Removing refueling AGAIN is a good thing. It will enhance qualifying for true speed and certainly bring out some different strategies for the race. It will be fun to see how different chassis and drivers handle tire wear. It was alway's fun to watch Prost, Senna, Mansell and their different styles handle tire wear. Prost was alway's so smooth and easy on the car yet super quick! He would keep a quick pace and it seemed others would just over drive their tires and drop off pace dramatically.

It was an interesting season this year but, I question the motives for some of the rules. The entire diffuser situation is still puzzling and really did write the story for the season. For Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, etc.. to all miss an interpretation window with more then one team finding a way with the sporting regulations is odd. I am having a difficult time thinking that a few manufacturers just viewed the rules with more clarity and liberal interpretation.

Originally Posted by fitfan

good point about that it puts the pit team into the race spotlight... agree... i think the no refueling will put the thrill back into qualifying though- where now qualifying is just a fuel strategy - pole is not allways the "fastest" car/driver.

[fitfan]

Originally Posted by paulhastings

Removing refueling AGAIN is a good thing. It will enhance qualifying for true speed and certainly bring out some different strategies for the race. It will be fun to see how different chassis and drivers handle tire wear. It was alway's fun to watch Prost, Senna, Mansell and their different styles handle tire wear. Prost was alway's so smooth and easy on the car yet super quick! He would keep a quick pace and it seemed others would just over drive their tires and drop off pace dramatically.

It was an interesting season this year but, I question the motives for some of the rules. The entire diffuser situation is still puzzling and really did write the story for the season. For Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, etc.. to all miss an interpretation window with more then one team finding a way with the sporting regulations is odd. I am having a difficult time thinking that a few manufacturers just viewed the rules with more clarity and liberal interpretation.

nah! to the diffuser conspiracy... it would seem that the season disproved the diffuser myth. brawn just showed up with a better developed car. all the other teams did catch up (and surpass), and didn't need to re-interprete the diffuser regulation get on pace with the brawn.

totaly agree about the full fuel to end of race! thats real drama - now, its just all out pace, pit, repeate, pass in the pits... how lame. no re-fueling will put the race back into the drivers hands where (imo) it should be. in fact...if you look at all the stupid rules F1 is laden with now - they are in repsonse to allowing re-fueling. (trying to slow the cars down, yet letting them run light fuel loads and fresh tires? ...duh!) i still also say more mechnical grip, use aero rules to monkey with technical pace, and 1 engine/tranny a weekend. what you see is what you get. not "we used up our engines early in the season so now we qualify pole and take a penalty to 10th"

[spf4000]

I dunno, the refueling created a lot of strategy in terms of teams who go with more stops/lighter/faster vs. less stops/heavier/slower. The two types of tire compounds did make a difference in the speeds of cars, and it was also interesting to see some teams prefer one type of compound (i.e. Ferrari preferring the softer compound vs. MacLaren liking the harder compound). This was more evident this year when they skipped compounds to make the differences more extreme.

Without refueling, I think we will see more races that are processional, since tire choices will be identical, fuel/weight being the same, and no pitting except to change tires (most likely only going to happen if they puncture a tire).

KERS could have been a good idea, but the logic was flawed, where they only allowed it to be used for such a short amount of time per lap. A better idea would have been to allow KERS to be used for X amount of time per race. Then, drivers/teams would have been able to choose when to really use the KERS to help them overtake several spots in the race.

They could still do this without KERS--allow teams to bump up revs to 20500~21000 (What teams got their engines up to back in 2006) for a set amount of time during a race. While drivers could use the extra revs for defensive purposes, doing so would make them waste their ability to use it to pass as well, as it would be much more effective when you're in a draft situation. So it adds a strategic element.

Champ car has a similar rule, but instead of a 20 times per race limit, simply limit the total amount of time the extra rev mode is used. Having a "recharge blackout period" after the extra revs are deactivated like in Champ car would also give a nice opportunity for the guy who just got passed to pass back.

Champ car's HP difference during this is only 20HP or so, which really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. If there's a good 2500~3000 rev difference, however, then we're talking about some serious power. We saw what an extra 80HP can do in terms of acceleration. Just think what would happen with an extra 150HP with no weight penalty of the KERS unit.