From: jeff@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Jeff Freymueller)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport
Subject: Re: Drivers' Championships and technology (was: Aus GP Stuff)
Date: 12 Nov 1992 01:29:54 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <1992Nov11.015014.19547@wes.on.ca> tomh@wes.on.ca (Tom Haapanen) writes:
>danjones@pyrps5.eng.pyramid.com (Dan Jones) writes:
>> So at what point, between where F1 is today and Dave's [automated
>> technology] F1, does the World Championship of Drivers become bogus?
>> Or has the point already been reached?
>
[ Points about technology/engineering having been taken to the limit
for the entire history of F1 deleted ]

>Howeverstraying only slightly from the topi cat hand, what we *have* seen
>is what might be called excessive domination by a team in the past five or
>so years.  Indeed, a Drivers' Championship is a little less so when the
>only way to win is to drive a McLaren-Honda in '89 or a Williams-Renault
>in '92.  Certainly Mansell is an excellent driver, but how many drivers had
>a realistic chance to win even a single race?  Not more than ten, even if
>both Williams pilots dropped out.
>

I'll count them (opinion): Mansell, Patrese, Senna, Berger, Schumacher,
Brundle. Nobody else unless at least the top 5 here dropped out. I'll
bet the Loti couldn't stay with Brundle if victory was on the line, although
they sometimes could for 5th place.

My complaint with F1 is that domination by one team has been the norm
rather than the exception over the last 10 years. 1984/5 McLaren-TAG,
1987 Williams-Honda, 1988/9 McLaren-Honda, 1992 Williams-Renault. Only
1986 (McLaren and Williams), 1990 (McLaren and Ferrari), and 1991 (McLaren
and Williams) have seen anything like two teams with semi-equal cars.
The change occurred at the start of the "turbo era", which I put in 1984
since that was the first year you NEEDED a turbo to have a chance.

Tom Haapanen again:
>Now, I admit this is not good, but I claim that "technology" or "enginee-
>ring" is not evil in itself, but the way it is distributed can cause
>problems.  If a team can buy an off-the-shelf traction controller from
>Bosch (akin to Magnetti Marelli ignitions, Lockheed brakes and X-Trac
>transmissions) and a Bilstein active suspension kit, those technologies
>don't cause problems.  They only cause disparities when it costs $50M
>to research, design, test and implement such new technologies.  I predict
>that active suspensions, semiauto gearboxes and traction control will be
>relatively commonplace (and *relatively* inexpensive on the F1 scale) in
>the space of five years.
>

But in five years those things will no longer be the difference - the
difference will be in other areas (maybe electronic braking control?). And
the teams with $100M research budgets will have the advantages in those new
areas. There's no way to stop that aside from banning certain technologies,
in my opinion.

Tom Haapanen again:
>But what could be done to limit the advantage enjoyed by a single team?
>It'd be very difficult limiting the amount of engineering and/or techno-
>logy going into a car -- I'm sure we don't want spending limits!  The
>engine advantage (such as enjoyed by Honda from 1986 to about 1990) could
>be easier to deal with: we could require an engine manufacturer to
>supply up to N teams with customer engines, where N is the number of
>Constructors' Championships they've won in the past five years.  Hey,
>FISA already does this kind of thing for tires...
>

I like this idea a lot. I see three ingredients for success in F1 today:
(1) money, (2) engine deal, (3) technical competence, in that order.
McLaren and Williams have the first two, and this year showed who had more
of (3)! Ligier have the first two, and Lotus (for example) only the last
one. OK, Ligier is so bad they could spend $100M and still finish behind
Lotus. Spending limits wouldn't work even if they tried to have them, so
the best idea is to equalize the engines somewhat. I would prefer a scheme
which mandates that an engine manufacturer must be prepared to support
25% of the field, or some such figure, like the 50% tire rule. My goal would
be at least three teams, optionally more. The exclusive engine deal has
been a killer of competition (which is exactly what both the team and
engine manufacturer want from it).

Tom Haapanen again:
>For new technology, though, there are really only three things you can do:
>
>    1. Nothing.  This is what FISA does now, and we've seen what the
>       effects are.  Not a disaster, but prone to domination, and VERY
>       prone to VERY large development budgets.
>    
>    2. Ban it.  I doubt that this is a desirable direction in general. 
>       Sure, IndyCars do it this way, but that doesn't mean it'll work
>       for F1.  Maybe you'd could say "no full-auto transmissions" but
>       I doubt anything more would get by FOC...  :)
>    

I would go for banning active and reactive suspension systems if we ban
anything. The semi-auto transmissions are common (by next year), and also
do not give the advantage that a computerized suspension does. Failure at
speed is also less catastrophic.

>    3. Try to minimize its effects.  I'm not quite sure what the tools
>       that could be used here are.  FISA's move to narrower tyres for 
>       1993 tries to limit the advantage you gain from a better engine.
>
I wonder what the tire rule will really do. I for one will not bet against
lap times being lower next year, and I doubt the gap between fast teams
and slow teams will close much if at all.

>I'm not proposing anything ... more like just venting some feelings from
>the past year.  I'd be happy to see a constructive discussion arise from
>this, though: maybe we could try to get fisa.org on the net!  :)
>
>[ \tom haapanen  |  "only auto racing, bullfighting and mountain climbing are ]
>[ tomh@wes.on.ca |   sports -- all others are only games" -- ernest hemingway ]
>[ waterloo engineering software |     "to thine own self be true" -- polonius ]

I hope such a discussion will arise!

Jeff