Christian Horner made an interesting point about the future of Formula 1 during last Friday’s team principals’ press conference for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
“F1 is effectively at a crossroads with the new regulations, which theoretically come in 2021 and there will probably be an eight- to ten-year life on [the next generation] engines, so what we are looking at actually is the sport’s relevance pretty much up to 2030,” said Red Bull Racing’s chief. “Now, by 2030 how many people are actually going to be driving [road] cars?
“Are they going to be autonomous? Are they going to be electric? The world is changing so fast in that sector.
“So Formula 1 has some serious questions that it needs to answer today in the choice it makes for the engine for the future. What is its primary purpose? Is it technology or is it a sport and entertainment, and man and machine at the absolute limit?”
This got me thinking about whether F1 still needs cutting-edge automotive tech to remain the pinnacle of racing.
The existential topic of whether F1 should be first a sport or a technical test bed is one that F1 has long been angsting over, and probably longer than it even recognises. And its solutions to combine the two have thus far not been met entirely with success. So will F1 be able to maintain its technology DNA while entertaining as a sport in the face of an ever-more demanding clientele? As cars become electric, efficient and effortless, how can F1 reconcile that with loud, expensive and physically challenging?
At the dawn of the World Championship in 1950, the ethos was simple: make cars fast, go racing, see who was the best. This drew the crowds, who marvelled at those wonderful men and women in their driving machines. But as the technology developed, so did the speeds and the engineering wizardry. In tandem, the regulations became ever-more complex to contain dangerous velocity and police the economic arms race.
At some point in the 1990s, though, ‘the show’, or an obsession to ensure that F1 delivered one, became a pressing need. Multimedia audiences were maturing and were being offered ever-more alternative and intelligent choices to spend their most valuable time. So over the past decade, the FIA and the sport’s promoters have wrestled to make F1 fit a template of ecological relevance, safety, entertainment and cutting-edge technology; some of these aims are diametrically at odds.
But anyone who bore witness to the 1992 Williams FW14B (a technological marvel and runaway winner of its time) being demonstrated at Silverstone this weekend cannot deny that it sounded significantly more exciting than the current crop of cars - which are, let’s not forget, the fastest the world has ever seen.
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Is F1 really the "pinnacle of motor racing"?
Is F1 really the "pinnacle of motor racing"? I ask because F1 currently is a bunch of quick aero heavy cars that pit man against race track, and horrible tracks at that these days, but are so far apart that you'd be hard pushed to call it a race. I'd call it high level competitive driving, pretty much a time trial, but there are many other series that offer a much higher quality of actual motor racing. The reality is that F1 in its current state is a bit of a geek fest, and that makes it extremely boring, except for the aforementioned geeks.
Virtual F1.........?
Could be that we won't need actual Cars, Drivers etc, it could be all on a screen where the virtual Cars are run by different computer guys just like we have in some of the computer games we play now.
As much as I would want to
As much as I would want to see a return to V10 and V12 engines for the that astonishing shriek I think there needs to be some relevance for road cars (or at least a marketing link) if manufacturers are going to dig deep for a new racing engine. Turbos sound different but they needn't sound crap. There's great YouTube footage of the 1986 British Grand Prix qualifying session at Brands Hatch, arguably F1's most spectacular year before boost was regulated. The engines sounded brutal and gave spectacular performance.
A qualifying engine back then was £60k (£120k in today's money) which is peanuts when considering how much is spent on the current motors. All the current engine rules do is add complexity and cost at the expense of a decent noise. I'd advocate a strictly policed cost cap and an open rule book, have more freedom to innovate but you've only got £xxx amount to spend. More teams would join, there would be more differentiation, more noise and excitement and all for less money. Front aero needs pegging back significantly and further investigation into underfloor aero to allow closer racing.
Moustaches would also be encouraged.
Re: Bomb
For several years now I've contended that the best way forward for F1 is to have a set cost and allow the teams to do whatever they like so long as they do it within that set cost. Petrol or diesel, turbo or normally aspirated, open or closed wheel, two- or four-wheel drive, open or closed cockpit... Anything they choose, if the price is right. Smaller teams who can't win the title could, if they wished, forget consistency across the range of circuits and design a car to specifically be fast on a certain type of track, and maybe cause the odd upset and get themselves a moment of glory.