Quote:
Originally Posted by Teretonga
with all due respect Richard, I don't agree with this for the reasons that teams can buy gearbox/suspension/engines from another team legally.
The only 'technology' that actually seems to differentiate the teams is intellectual aerodynamic understanding.
And that is creating differences measured in tenths of a second between the ten teams over a 3-4 mile distance, less on some circuits.
The relative differences are very small in terms of overall time and speed, and in my opinion, aerodynamic understanding should not be the sole issue deciding whether championships are won or lost.
That is why I don't regard the current regulations and millions spent on development as particularly useful.
We need a ruleset that will actually focus more on mechanical knowledge in roadholding/handling engineering.
It would be far more useful.
One of the problems is that we want 'close racing' and 'overtaking' so the rule makers fiddle with creating a formula that creates artificially close racing and overtaking because appearance means more than anything substantial....
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I assume you are referring to my comments as to why if they only allow 10 teams that they should consider NOT allowing someone to own more than one team?
I struggle to understand the link between that opinion and your comments? They feel like two unrelated topics.
Per the regulations components fit into four categories...
* Listed Team Component (LTC)
* Standard Supply Component (SSC)
* Transferable Component (TRC)
* Open Source Component (OSC)
The secret sauce for teams exist in the LTC items. I am not worried about the other items. So for LTC, aero is listed as LTC. That is an example of what I am talking about. The regulations are pretty strict about transfer or replication of a teams LTC designs. However you can't stop people from knowing what they know. For example if I am an aerodynamicist working along side Newey, and assuming he doesn't keep secrets from me, I expect it would be quite the education! If I am to leave to go to another team, RBR is going to require gardening leave for me. In the hopes that by the time I can take my new knowledge elsewhere, that it is stale. That is how LTC knowledge passes around in a legitimate way. They are not taking a "design" with them, but there is a technical concept that defines the secret sauce. They are taking knowledge of how it works with them. Common ownership creates unhealthy squishiness in how easily this can happen.
That is more of what I was trying to cover. To your comments...
Previous regulations seems to be overly power unit focuses. So Mercedes got it right and dominated for a long time. The pendulum has swung to an aero focuses solution. Red Bull Racing got it right so they are dominating. So you say that aero knowledge should not be the deciding factor. What if I say I agree? But you say the rules should reward mechanical design and elevate "roadholding/handling engineering". What happens when history repeats itself and some team figures out some new trick, others can't replicate and then dominate in the new "suspension era"? You might argue... Well suspension design is well understood and there are no big tricks left. I personally think that a big part of Red Bull Racing's dominance is how the have made their aero solution work in coordination with excellent mechanical solutions. For example look at how well Red Bull is able to manage tire degradation to a level that other teams struggle with. That is likely as much a mechanical solution as it is an aero one. It could be that Red Bull Racing is laugh up their sleeve as teams focus heavily on trying to replicate their aero solutions when maybe the secret is elsewhere! Red Bull changed their aero concept for this year and are still dominating! I could be wrong, but imagine if this is right?
As to those creating the technical regulations creating artificial ways to generate close racing and passing. Do we really think it's an easy job to generate the close racing and lack of dominance we as fans want? Fans clearly think it is easy. People toss out ideas like "no aero" and then someone will show simulated car performance and it is not pretty (very slow lap times, poor cornering, etc.). People talk about reducing the car weight, but the cars are saddled with heavy power units driven by manufacture "road relevancy" requirements, pressure from tire suppliers for more commonality with other series for tires and a never ending set of safety improvements which are fantastic, but also bring weight. Not to mention, I really think teams like the idea of lighter cars in general, but are hesitant to commit to doing it because it becomes another area in which they must develop, but may not be a differentiator in the end. They want to keep the areas of potential development as small as possible so as they know where to devote limited funding resources. I mean if they were to ditch the complex power units and go with a high performance ICE solution (which I would love to see) they could make a smaller and lighter car, but it will never be as small and as light as decades past for safety reasons.
Richard