Quote:
Originally Posted by chillibowl
What’s the current break down between permanent purpose built tracks, temporary tracks, street circuits, and hybrid street circuits with some permanent bits?
If there is an even mix I suppose this isn’t really a concern, but at what point does the selection of tracks start affecting the build direction/philosophy of car design?
I guess my question is, and more so for teams that perennially filter out to the bottom, is there an incentive now to focus your resources and build a car towards just being really good at specific tracks or rather just optimized for a select few tracks?
Last year p7 to p10 were just separated by 16pts.  |
To answer your basic question:
is there an incentive now to focus your resources and build a car towards just being really good at specific tracks or rather just optimized for a select few tracks?
I would say 'No'.
My primary reason is that the real focus of the present and future regulation is to serve the acceptance of F1 by focusing on sustainability which is the current catchphrase of the movement of climate change rhetoric. Everything needs to be 'sustainable' or more sustainable than it is/was.
Power units have become turbo charged and we've seen hybridization come in to enable F1 to get more power from less fuel, implying that F1 is more climate conscious than it was and that 'we're doing our share'.
Chassis design is secondary to the power unit insofar as design constraints have been around keeping the space to ensure everything fits in the space available, that weight is appropriate to safety and strength concerns, and that F1 still desires high cornering speeds so downforce needs to be sustained at a high level.
The present aero underbody enhanced ideas, although abandoned for real reasons in the early 80's, have been allowed back in, and what we have seen are some of the earlier problems raise their heads again.
The idea that you would build a car that would be maximized at some tracks but not be suitable for winning at others is not attractive as long as there is one basic chassis per team across a season. If you were allowed to create specialized cars that could be alternated per circuit then that could be a factor, but the cost would be prohibitive, and probably be regulated out completely.
One chassis that could be altered according to the track is more of a possibility but not desirable when the most important factors of getting as much downforce as possible requires the longest allowable wheelbase.
There is no justification for a short wheelbase slow corner turn-able car at anywhere other than Monaco, and that circuit is more likely to be turfed out as unsuitable, than it is to create multiple suspension/body variations on a common tub.
A short corner car like that might be a little quicker at Monaco but is less likely to be an advantage at say, Azerbaijan where aero plays a bigger part.
You cannot justify the expense and the whole question becomes problematic If a team can't get one design optimized who is going to try getting two or three variations optimized?