It seems every year the FIA apply a few rule changes here and there...and it's always for the worse. Racing keeps getting duller and duller.
So, the question is...what season was the last great one, regarding the rules?
Wouldn't it be better reverting to 1999 or 2000, when the great Schumi-Mika battles took place?

The chaos began in 1998 with the introduction of the narrow track cars and the grooved tyres.

Aside from the subjective nature of your post here are a few things about Human Nature to ponder, it is scientifically recognized that our brains have the ability to self heal when subjected to trauma, suppression of memory especially bad has been long known and recently confirmed as a trauma response of the brain, hence the term "Time heals old wounds" however; it is also recognized that for the most part the human condition is a happy one regardless, left and right side of the frontal lobes of the brain deal with happy and sad thoughts, and recent mapping suggests left side is dominant in most people.

It is quantifiable and known that the brain when it stores a memory it may get altered slightly with each recall and thus over time change, usually becoming an ever better memory of the actual events that occurred. This may be a side function of the way we deal with bad memories or just a very nice function of the brain, hence the term "It was better in the old days"

The only way to start a discussion with any credibility on the subject of how racing was so much better in the past is to use unchangeable facts, mostly statistics, passing, lead changes etc etc to first provide a solid basis for a supposition then a launching pad from which to make some conclusions that are not tainted from our inability to recall exact recollections of the past. It is certainly ok to desire for the glory days, but one must always be careful of what they wish for and be cognizant or the saying or fact in this case "It will never be quite the same" because our altered memory tricks us into a more marvelous rendition of the past than actually occurred.

Agree.
Then, after in 2002 Ferrari trashed the competitors, it became panic. And never stopped. Somewhere at that time it dawned to Bernie that constant rule changes is a magnificent tool to manipulate the championships.

2way telemetry, active suspension, mess started then ... early 90s

It became pretty clear in 2003 when the FIA did all the could to stop Ferrari.
I remember when testing was free and Schumi would test a new part at Maranello a few hours from a race, get on a private jet and show up in time at the venue.
Or when you'd have a tester running a car in Silverstone trying setup changes for McLaren to use in another circuit that same day.
The budget cap only brought back the Andrea Modas and the like.

Revert to 1997, the last proper championship in context with your question!

Perhaps, yes, but the overtaking stats were already going downhill from a couple years before, even before the introduction of refuelling in 1994, so it's not a direct cause-and-effect thing from the rules.

This is the target.

Now I'd like to see specialists comment on it. Why then and not now.

If the moderators feel this ought to belong in another topic, please merge it. But my reason for posting it is that I would expect specific comments on this movie that highlight the shortcomings of today.

Simples ... ground effect cars, they didn't care about wake

Even if they agree on the right action, it will take 2 years to see it

I waited 2 years for the OWG solution and then Brawn sabotaged it. He should never have been trusted to head it up.

The raft of craphole go-cart circuits we have now dont help either. The difference between the old Hockenheim and the stain on F1 that is the current excuse is illustrative!

Because the Williams was faster over the lap but the Renault had more straight line speed. Hence why Jones couldn't make a pass stick after pulling out the slip stream.

This is something that will not happen today because they almost all have the same power, and if you ever did get a run from a slip stream you could keep the momentum. Similar power means the other car getting passed wouldn't be able to out power the passer and stay in front.

Edit: We did actually see this a few times last year with KERS cars protecting their spot.

Yep. See the size and simplicity of those wings? Especially the fronts....

Now, why oh why oh why did the members of the TWG not figure out that big wide, multi-planed front wings with highly sensitive, multi-faceted end-plates were going to cause huge sensitivity to airflow from the car in front? How did they miss that?

Didn't we see that a little with Webber and Button on Sunday, the Red Bull was fastest through the corners, but the Mclaren kept ahead with better straightline speed.

It was 1998, the move to the narrower car still irks me to this day. I could handle grooves but the narrow track just looks wrong. I am a big beleiver in the look and sound of the cars, it adds a lot to the excitement. In 12 years we went from the car JV drove to the world championship to these wheezing, whining "euro diesel" sized engines, a narrow track and these ABSURD wings where the back is smaller than the front.

It's just not cricket.

+1

the current cars are eyesores

IMHO it all started in 1994, but I do remember that 1997 was probably the best of the modern era years. I still think the downhill plunge was taken with the re-introduction of re-fueling, and the geniouses that the FIA are they went on and destroyed it in 1998 after such an exciting 1997 LOL

Until the late 90's, most of the rule changes that people have mentioned were made to slow the cars down to similar levels of years gone by, and for safety reasons.
So banning active suspension, CVT, pit to car telemetry, turbos, and forcing smaller engines, grooved tyres, narrow track, aero rules etc.. with high sided cockpits, monocoque crash testing and so forth, were just to help safety and to counter the inevitable engineers progress.

Somewhere after that, the disease set in with 'spicing up the show' for that sake alone, with uncountable changes to qualifying with silly park ferme conditions, killing sunday morning warmup and so forth to try for more grid randomness, mandatory tyre compound usage, and other pointless garbage. Thats my objection.

"What to do, what to do..."

Personally I thought 2007 and 2008 were the most dramatic Formula 1 seasons ever. Stop changing the rules and lets have some stability and it will all come together. Every time there is a change one or two teams get a head start, it's the same every time. Leave it be, PLEASE!

Lock the thread, there's nothing more to add.

I'd be happy to go back to 1997 regs - but it seems its all down to aero.

I dont have as much a problem with the rules designed to slow the cars down a little but I do have a problem with all the recent changes dictated by Mosely and the FIA in the guise of "saving money" and "spicing up the show". They have backfired on all counts. By limiting engine numbers and banning refueling - the racing is neutered.

Im still willing to wait and see how the next few races go - but if all are as dismal as Bahrain - we are in for a snoozer of a season.

Man that's a great battle. That was the closest F1 cars get to racing on an oval. Jones was a fighter, shame his car let him down shortly after getting ahead of Prost.

The Ostkurve was a real ballsy corner back then too. I think that was the last race before they killed that corner with a chicane.

The rules have been changed too frequently in the last 15 years (Mosely years). The flood gates were really opened after Ferrari dominated in 2002. I still think back to that race in Austria... if Barrichello had have been allowed to win, the rules from 2003 (particularly the sporting rules such as qualifying methods and parc ferme rules), would not have been implemented. That one single action on the last lap created such an uproar from fans, that the FIA thought they had to act in order to justify their own jobs in office. I'm not blaming Ferrari for the state of F1 today, i am blaming the powers that be and how they reacted to the events of that race. A beast was woken at the FIA that day and it realised it could make any crappy rule changes it liked at any time.

I've been watching F1 every race since 1995 and drivers have always complained about how hard it is to overtake. I remember some pretty boring races back then, way worse than what we saw in Bahrain. Spain 1999 takes the cake. I do think its worse now though, you can actually see how much F1 cars struggle to stay close to the car in front. I don't know how to fix it, but i'd bet my house that it will involve more meddling.

Quoted for truth.

The chaos really started during the 90s. The problem was that Max Mosley just didnt know what he wanted, so he stood for traction control, launch control, automatic gearbox, driving aids, so things like that were allowed, a year later he changed his mind and wanted all the driving aids banned, a year after, another opinion change again and F1 in rules limbo with no direction or understanding what it is or what it wants. The confusion started from the very top. You would see Max and the FIA changing there opinion on the same fundamental rules from Season to Season.

The same confusion and back and forth was put into any area of F1, the Qualifieng format, the Race Weekend format, the engine specification etc. it became clear the rule makers of F1 had no vision or plan but one thing they had for certain and that was the urge to change anything all the time.

The chaos came with the introduction of Max Mosley back in 1993.

Cars right now look a lot like they did in 1997. High noses, wide® and low wings, slick tyres, and little to no aero appendages in random places. So, in the absence of standardization of everything, I fail to grasp how going back to 1997 rules would make things any better.

In fact, I would argue that going back to rules of ANY era would make not a slightest bit of difference in the outcome. The 1970s cars had crude wings that were little disturbed by downforce not because of regulations - but because aero departments of the teams had miniscule budgets and inept staff compared to what we have today. As a general matter, they just sucked. They were a few geniuses sprinkled here and there, like Chaplan, Brabham, et. al., but they had few backup resourses and so usually went for the jugular, producing sometimes spectacular success and sometimes spectacular failure. No-one had the resources to refine the cars to the Nth degree that they are today. Performance, therefore, was both somewhat unpredictable and rather inconsistent. Inconsistency of performance helps overtaking.

Also, drivers weren't such fitness buffs, got tired by the end of the race and made a few cock-ups now and again, which also helped overtaking.

These days, there is a great deal of convergence of aero and mechanical solutions, a great deal of refinement, and a great deal of consistency. There is little to no room for innovations that will upend the field for any length of time - with enough money and manpower competitors catch up, and catch up quickly. So you basically get cars that qualify in front, and because their performance is so ridiculously consitent, successfully defend that posision in the race. They are also driven by drivers who don't drink nearly enough (Kimi's exceptionalism notwithstanding) and are so fit that even 2 hrs of 5g loads in 40 degree heat of Malaysia troubles them only a little.

Well said. People forget too easily. They forget that we used to be lucky to have 4 cars finishing on the same lap let, that the performance gap between a top 6 and top 10 car in qualifying was measured in seconds. In so many ways F1 is better than ever. People only seems to remember the few glory moments of the sport and filter out all the duller moments. Yes something needs to be done to allow cars to follow one another closely .... but I am excited more than any other year as things are so close, we have at least 8 drivers who could win the championship this year, and even more who can win races.

Still sounds more exciting, that is the difference, I rather see 10 cars make it in the race, than 20 cruising over the finish line, if it meant more exciting veiwing.

Even Whitmarsh asking for Bridgestone to produce weaker tyres, would bore the heck out of the sport, how much slower is he asking for the cars to go, but that is all they would do with the ban on no refuelling!

Are we talking about looks or the possiblity to overtake?

Of course, I prefer wide-track cars. But was there really so much overtaking back in 1997, or is it just that our memories play tricks on us and we liked the wide-track cars?

Because 2009....: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3c_a9qR65k&NR=1

Since 1978 we've had Ballestre and then Mosley in charge. The sport has never been properly managed.

That's why just because it's obvious that the cars have too much aero and have got too fast (as distinct from too powerful) for the circuits that doesn't mean anything sensible has been done about it.

Let's hope Todt makes a better fist of it. Starting with not having the aero guys (fox) in charge of the overtaking policy (chickens).

Agree. When "sophisticated" aero grip came in, the actual racing started going downhill...

2000 was the last good year were most races had something going on. Since then it has went downhill steadly.

I think the problems started in 1994 when after the drivers' death FIA could justify- and even the audience wanted it- more control, more rule change to help "safety". Now I can imagine suddenly there were many employees (track designers, incompetent stewards, technical "genius" folks- none of them were interested in the complete picture) inside FIA whose job was to do "something". And they did - they did it for safety, later did it to prove that they were still needed, later did it to try to "stop" or "help" Ferrari domination. They managed to change so many variables that now none knows how to go back to the original ideas, to racing.


I'm sure more artificial inputs like "Mandatory pit stop" will not help.

Oh, I how I hate the fact that they managed to destroy my home GP- Hungaroring- the first version was a brilliant place for overtaking and battles... now it's a BOring.

the crap started with:

1) introduction of automatic gearboxes. drivers did not need to use feet + hand to shift gears... so fewer mistakes. NO OVERTAKING

2) dominance by non-turbo engines. drivers used to use more power at the beginning of races.. overtalking folks... and later on they were overtaken because they had to manage lower mileage. Note: dont confuse Turbo with KERS. Using Turbo gave power increase at cost of fuel consumption

3) carbon disk brakes.. has been repeated over years now.. this is a rule change that would be most easy to implement. 6 races from now.. all cars need to run steel disc brakes... longer braking distance...

But I do think that (1) is often overlooked... drivers simply do not make gearchanging mistakes anymore.... driving a car is not physically demanding as it was:
- drivers do not have to carry out 1000+ footmotions with both feet, and 1000+ right hand movements
- drivers are spoiled with powersteering, no more fatigue to the extend that they start making mistakes
- some drivers were also less efficient with gears and therefore losing gears... that gave some interesting situations as well.

I say:
1) lets go back to conventional gearboxes from 2011... spectators wont see differences if a car has semi auto or conventional gearbox.
2) impose a rule that removes power steering midway the 2010 season and replace carbon brakes by steel brakes.
3) change the regulations for turbo engines in a way that it becomes interesting to run this engine again, performance wise... (2012)

and lets stop theorizing about aerodynamics and tires for a moment.

A solution could be:

• wider cars, bigger and softer tyres for mechanical grip
• more power than grip
• no wings or at least smaller ones to lessen aerodynamic grip
• possibly a re-introduction of ground effect (flat bottom, venturi tunnels, large® diffuser?)
• and no car-to-pit telemetry to make the driver work stuff out himself

If the FIA provided mandatory front and rear wings to all teams, they could control speeds and passing potential.

JT's F1 Commissioner will be a step in the right direction.

Simple solution: spec aero. Allow teams to use 1997 Williams or Ferrari
aero and freeze aero development.

Let's look at the actual evidence:



The rule changes in the early 90s appear to be the onset of the [sharp] decline.

Let's look at the rule changes from the early 90s on:

1993

Rear wing height reduced from 1m to 0.95m (possible increase in wake affect for following car)
Wheel width reduced from 18" to 15" (less mechanical grip)

1994

Banning of driver aids and banning of active suspension (cars more on edge)
Downforce reduced mid-season after the deaths of Roland and Ayrton (done in a very knee-jerk way with possible negative impact on overtaking)

1995

Engine size reduced from 3.5 to 3.0 litres (more reliance on aerodynamics)
Rear wing height reduced again from 0.95m to 0.85m (possibly more wake for following car)

1996

Not much happened

1997

Not much happened

1998

Reduction from 2.0m width to 1.8m width (less mechanical grip)
Grooved tyres mandated (less mechanical grip)

1999

Extra groove added to front tyre (less mechanical grip)

2000

Not much

2001

Front wing height increased (less ground effect and more sensitive to following car)

2002

Not much

2003

Not much

2004

Rear wing reduced from 3 elements to 2 elements

2005

Front wing height increased again
Rear wing moved forward
Diffuser reduced in size
Banning of tyre stops

2006

Engine size reduced from 3.0 to 2.4 Litre
Reintroduction of tyre changes

2007

19,000rpm rev limit + homologated engines
Control tyres

2008

Banning of driver aids

2009

Front wing made wider and lower (less affected by the car in front)
Rear wing made narrower and taller (give off less wake)
Diffuser made smaller but steeper (less effective)
Double diffusers created (arguable change)
18,000rpm rev limit
Slick tyres reintroduced


Take from those changes what you will when corresponding with the graph.

Has to be one of the greatest post ever written, and who took control over F1 in 1993, you have got it Max Mosley.

Indeed. That's the result of putting lawyers in the motorsport presidency.
Also Bernie power over it didn't help - and he still reigns today...

Bring back Balestre.

If you went back and checked the rule changes you would see that most of them had to be pushed through under the guise of safety because thats the only way to get rule changes because the teams just refused to agree on any other changes.

I'm not sure that this helps us here. First, I am not sure this takes into account that there were less and less cars starting, from 26 down to 20 (which is quite a lot, knowing that the slower teams and drivers also make more mistakes, thus probably causing disproportionately more passes. Second, in Bahrain we also had passes at the end of the field. Glock, Kova, Hulkenberg, etc. But apparently this doesn't count, people want passes at the front of the field.

What we need would be lead changes by overtaking. Does anybody have such a statistic?

I guess 1993 was also the year Senna died, so you can see why so many rule changes where pushed through under health and safety, but pushed through again because the rule changes previously to that ruined the point of racing.

But I do remember in the late 1990's Max Mosley forever bleating on about health and safety.

Like a poster said with the laywers (Max Mosley) introduced in F1, Bernie, also Senna's death, the behind the scenes fighting with the Fia and McLaren, along with the support for Ferari's dominance for a time, you can see how overtaking has become redundant in F1.

If we reintroduce a tirewar, then all those problems would be gone.

Also we need more power from the engines. Even Daniel Ricciardo said on his first test that those cars have too much grip for their current 750 bhp levels.

I think all this tyre and engine conservation was about the idea of the sport being enviromentally friendly and cost effective, as well as helpful to smaller teams, but really it is wasting the whole essence of the sport.

The whole ethos of the sport needs to change, and they need to get their priorties straight which is to bring back good agressive racing.

I would prefer to wait till the drivers settling down and getting used to the new rules before I complain, there are too many ego's out there with too many scores to settle for the season to carry on like the way it started. I would like to wait to see what F1 is like when the DDD's are gone too, I think we will get good racing back again then.

Got to say I think that graph tells the story of the relience on aero, rather than rule changes.