Be Excellent To Each Other

That's not their choice, it's the FIA's and it's already ruled out.

I'd like to say, just for some perspective, that his blog was "good", occasionally "very good" but it was never "excellent". It just appeared that way compared to the annoying stats driven smugness that was his commentary. That's assuming he actually wrote the damn thing, but it's true, he was a reasonably good writer and a shockingly bad on more ways than I care to count commentator because it was deeply apparent that though he loved F1 he simply didn't understand in any shape or form what it meant to be a F1 driver in F1 today - he used to come out with some hand bitingly inept and naive observations which just made him appear the worst kind of bar stool bore with a mike. I won't miss him, Steve Rider and Rider's umbrella/mike stand (Blundell) one bit.

I don't mean the one on the ITV site.

I mean his real one.

I agree with Dudley. Lots.

Well, no disrespect guys, but he can keep his blog and you can keep reading and enjoying it. Maybe he'll get a column in the national press off the back of this.

I'm just glad he's off my TV.

When i went to to see the touring cars at Silverstone, the traffic was fucking mental as well. SO I overtook the 5 miles of traffic jam, and went to the front of the queue.

Well F1's insistence they didn't need independents has finally come home to roost.

Honda are about to announce their exit, effective immediately, Toyota have admitted their looking at doing the same.

We'll quite likely lose STR at the end of next year if nothing changes, Force India is at the whim of a bloke whose money mostly comes from an airline and a country with its own issues right now. Red Bull is at the whim of a bloke and people's insistence on paying £1 a can for pop, Williams are not in the best shape and are owned by a couple of old blokes, Renault have pulled out before and most of their budget is coming from a bank, BMW have large financial sponsors and make expensive end vehicles....

Hopefully this pushes them to allow customer chassis, force all manufacturer teams to sell at least one set of last years to a team for an FIA set price and stop rapid rule changes in the name of cost cutting when everyone knows the one thing that pushes up costs is rule changes.

The way to cut costs is not to stifle innovation, like they're trying to do, but to simply force that innovation to be passed down, benefiting the grid and society but still allowing a moment of inspiration in a single years design to win a championship.

Dream all you like, but you know that Mr Spanky will just go off on another power trip and change the rules to something worse than what was before. And then change them again in a years time just for kicks.

Just wish he'd stop trying to make all the teams 'equal'.

Indeed, F1 as a meritocracy is becoming more and more remote.

Ok, here's the patented Dudley plan.

Customer cars are allowed.

Any constructor must sell a complete year old package to at least 1 other team if requested, at an FIA mandated price.

Teams are allowed to enter 1- as many cars as they damn well wish.

Teams may enter part time, for as little as 1 race if they wish, full time teams are also allowed wildcard entries.

Part time teams do not get TV money, Full time customer teams DO get a baseline amount but will not score Constructor's points. While customers will get a fair share this is designed to encourage proper constructors.

26 cars will be allowed to start races, an infinate number of entries will be allowed but any proper constructor will be guaranteed a starting spot for its top 2 cars (which they can choose if they've entered more). For instance if this was implemented for 2009, the 16 real constructor entries expected would be guaranteed 16 of the 26 grid slots (but not the top 16) whereas STR and any wildcard entries would have to qualify on time if too many turn up.

Part time and 3rd car entries can run any damn livery they like. If Ferrari can get a cars budget from Coca Cola for a US grand prix then they can run it. If Carlin can put together budget from Sky TV to run a customer Williams and a British driver at that round only then they're welcome.

Points extended downwards, ideally to 20th place out of 26. Everyone will have something to race for. The requirement to do 90% to score points will remain. There may need to be some form of qualifying pace requirement, maybe 107% in Q1.

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This way Constructors can remain constructors. There are both sporting and financial benefits to doing so. With the obligation only to supply year old machinery it'll be rare for too many customer machines to win but they will be pretty competitive at times and a bizarre race will see them do at least as well as Aguri were doing in 2007. With a baseline amount of TV money if they do full time or the ability to do only the races they can afford if they have to be part timers, running a customer team will be financially viable and if we get to the stage of pre-qualifying, TV rights for that session will be offered for free if the main broadcaster does not wish to show it so everyone gets sponsorship exposure.

Part time entries will get more companies into F1, local teams may be able to organise deals to run a customer car at one race only, with local sponsors for whom worldwide exposure could be prohibitively expensive. A GP2 team could do so at the end of the season on behalf of one of their drivers who wants to make a bid for a proper drive. Who wouldn't have liked to see an ISport run McLaren driven by Bruno Senna sat somewhere in midgrid back in Brazil this year?

It'd benefit venues too, How many tickets could Fuji have sold on the back of throwing some money at DAMS to run Kobayashi and Satooooooo in a couple of 07 Toyotas at the Japanese Grand Prix this year?

It allows teams to evaluate drivers better. McLaren were pretty sure they wanted Lewis but how much easier would it have been and how much would every fan have loved to see a 3rd McLaren at Silverstone in 2006 with him making his debut on home soil? Less pressure for a home driver, he knows the circuit and he's in a year old car so limited expectation. He gets to acclimatise, the team can give their new guy valuable experience. How excellent would it be in 2009 if DC returned one last time at Silverstone in a Wings Of Life liveried Red Bull to right the wrongs of his exit in Brazil and to see the old circuit off? How much publicity could you generate if the BBC followed him every inch of the way for a documentary shown outside the race program?

The year old clause means that while it's still of benefit to make your own car you're not keeping anything secret too long, Prodrive will have your McLaren soon enough. One moment of tech genius can still win a championship but it won't keep you ahead forever. This squashes the field naturally but will also reduce budgets the proper way, by making spending more an exercise in diminishing returns. Yes you've got twice what Renault spend, but that'll earn you a lot less on them than it did previously. You'll never stop Ferrari spending half a billion but you can certainly stop it mattering as much without ever losing the tech credentials of Formula one.

Constructors benefit, Customer Teams benefit, Tracks benefit, Countries benefit, Spectators get larger, more fluid grids and new excitement and intrigue at every round and more importantly no-one has to freeze development on a fucking thing. F1 can remain the high tech series it should be but also remain the spectacle we'd love it to be.

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But no they'll probably freeze development on the driver's fucking water bottles instead.

Excellent, well thought-out plan

that plan will never work! it's way too sensible

Well: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 779168.stm



Yay!



Boo!

christ, that's a lot of regulations. Why don't they just give them all a '91 Nova and let them mod it?

This would be excellent news if we still had any independant teams. As it is we have only Williams that isn't a manufacturer or a billionaire's plaything.

They've also missed that the rev limiter is a massive overtaking issue, there's very few better ways to stop slipstreaming working in F1 than a rev limiter.

Still, the most foul of the new regs have been chucked out thankfully.

Am I being listened to?

Over in MotoGP, the regulations for their new "Moto2" class to replace the 250ccs in 2010 have been announced.

And look what's there?



In many ways, MotoGP is a lot like what I'm asking for in F1 already. For instance 125cc team Onde 2000 have found the cash to enter a single, privately run Ducati. It'll be an awesome entry that'll be able to occasionally challenge the big boys. If they'd had to run 2, or even build their own bike they'd never have been able to do it.

Here's how it actually reads in the regs.

For what it's worth, this is not news to anyone that follows F1 remotely closely.

Its the "other general help" bit that is most interesting.

$80 million is probably the entire budget for a team at the lower reaches of the grid.

It would have run Minardi for both 2004 and 2005, with some change.

Estimated budgets this year:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2008/11/09/4 ... t-in-2008/

Yeah, they are odd-looking, but I expect we'll get used to them quickly enough.

Very, the rear wing shape is largely regulation defined, they'll all be narrower and taller, just as the front is much wider and flatter and the lucky dip bag of wings is gone from the sides.

Those mirrors look weird.

Big Shot

They're not too bad from that angle.

And a comparison showing just how less busy it is than the F1 08...

They need to take that number 1 off the front.

That's a picture from the launch of last year's car...

Deliberate though, the smaller rear should create less turbulence, the large front shouldn't care and so, theoretically, they should be able to follow a little closer, which is a good portion of the reason overtaking is so hard.

OK, I have some uber res images of said car.

http://files.enterspace.co.uk/beex/F1/f60launch.rar

It's a shame that we keep on having to look at the *spit* Ferrari, though. The shape is growing on me, already.

Well, Toyota is Thursday and McLaren Friday so not long to wait.

After that Williams and Renault are Monday, BMW Tuesday, Red Bull is Feb 9th, Force India we won't see till March thanks to them having to wait on the McLaren deal, Honda will wait on a buyer and Toro Rosso will of course be the Red Bull with a better paint job.

Still no guns though. Maybe next year.

When I glanced briefly at those images I thought how similar it seemed to starting a shooting game with a weedy craft (2009 cars appearance) and then as it gets powered up it becomes chunkier with more wings and larger aggressive appendages and vents and bits.

Crackdown springs to mind, with the vehicles upgrading.

Could Ecclestone be any more partisan? I would've thought someone in his position should be a bit more impartial than this.

Cunt.

Bumping this up
Hamilton fastest in Free Practice 3
Hoping for anything but a Red Bull on pole

Monza today. McLaren looking good.

McLaren did look good but I don't think button could do anything about Alonso, maybe if they had waited & let Alonso come in for pits first Button could have built up a lead & done a Vettel & pit later in the race. Make the championship tighter for the last 5 races.

I wish I has space to get a steering wheel for this.

I like the setup Hamilton had in the show build up - would love that in my living room

Ferrari is my favorite car for the formula 1 racing.

What is your second favouritest?

That Ferrari is a few seasons old now, though.