Quote:
Originally Posted by bathurst77
Somehow I think that if they lower the minimum weight rule by a few % every year but maintain the same safety and spending rules, the geniuses in the F1 factories will find a way.
|
I don't know how I missed the first part about reducing weight over time in my initial response. I think that is a good idea. If the rules (and required components on the cars) can remain relatively stable, then I can see that they can have a schedule to reduce minimum weight over time as teams are able to optimize. With the new aero formula, as I mentioned teams initially had problems with being overweight. But I expect that is not an issue today. The point being over time they have been able to drop the weight. They do it so they can get underweight and then strategically place ballast in the locations that are optimal for performance as they bring the car back up to minimum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taxi645
And it's not just the higher kinetic energy that a heavier car carries due to weight it's also because of the higher density. A lighter car will loose more speed just moving through the air on it's way to a barrier just because of it's lower density. An extreme example is a feather compared to cannon ball. If you release both from a moving object the feather will loose speed much more quickly. Why? Because due to it's low density the force of the drag has to reduce much less kinetic energy (In a vacuum if you drop a feather and a cannonball they will fall just as fast).
|
First, let me say I am personally in favor of smaller lighter cars.
As to the feather and bowling ball, your logic is accurate, however I think it generally not a significant factor. It's easy to make the point (and you do say it is an extreme example) when you compare a feather that may weight 0.0082 grams and a large bowling ball 7.26kg. The correct comparison (if we use relative 2013 to 2023 car weights) is a 5.85kg vs 7.26kg bowling ball. Given the distance between a long straight and crash barriers (150-200m?) how much MORE deceleration will happen on that smaller bowling ball vs. the larger bowling ball? Measurable? Absolutely! Will the ball still smash into the barrier very hard if it left the circuit at 350+ kph? For sure. KE would be high for both. I wouldn't want to be inside EITHER of those bowling balls.
I am not making a statement one way or another as to the safety of heavy vs lighter cars. In general, I think there is some validity to the argument that big heavy cars might create some unsafe situations. And you could clearly go too far in the other direction. My point is that if we don't like heavy cars, then focus on the real problem with them,
which is not to try to ride on the coattails of "safety", but rather that they are big lumbering chunks vs. the nimble things we and the drivers want to have.
If you make this about "safety" then that could be solved in another way (add more safety features to the car which make it even heavier!) Fans, pundits, drivers, etc. are not helping by playing the "safety card" here. It is just grasping at straws.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taxi645
Keep in mind that under the cost budget, nothing can really become expensive. The only thing it could do is switch resources from one area to the other. To us fans, what difference does it make?
|
That is actually an excellent point to make. That regardless of what the teams have to do the budgets are fixed. So nothing is more or less expensive. But it completely misses the point. Its not that teams have to spend more, but rather (as you say) they have to move money around.
They have to spend in areas that don't want to spend in.
So lets say a new spec required closed cockpits next year. If you were anyone but Red Bull, you would be screwed because you will have to spend a large chunk of your budget to address a totally new chassis and the R&D cost of a closed cockpit chassis.
Teams who are behind RBR would much rather spend their fixed budget on catching up to those faster than them.
It's not about the cost,
it's about the pain and lost development opportunities. And as to us fans, would it make a difference? If we are unhappy about a team creating and maintaining dominance and other teams not having a way to engineer their way out of their poor performance, then yes, we would notice and care.
Richard