Vepe wrote:To make better races: Lower rear wing, lower nose, reduce the bathplug electronic stuff to bare minimum, gravel traps, not getting penalized for every little touch or going too fast under SC, Ecclestone out, use other tracks than Tilkedromes.
How not to make better races: Listening to mister Bernie Ecclestone
Well, there is talk of modifying the regulations to reduce the height of the nose, so that wish might be coming true as soon as next year. The FIA has already introduced new nose cone heights this year, and it seems that they want to decrease the nose height for 2012 on safety grounds (because it makes it harder for the front of the car to ride over the tyres of another car in the way that, for example, Liuzzi's car rode over the top of Schumacher's car in Abu Dhabi).
As for the lower rear wings, well, that would seem to go against the advice of the OWG; lower rear wings lead to greater disturbance and wake formation behind the cars. Aesthetically, they may be more pleasing, but for the short term at least they are likely to stay.
The electronic gadgets have actually been on the wane for a few years now - traction control has gone, along with adjustable engine braking, two way telemetry and a number of other electronic devices. Besides, in many instances I suspect that the electronic devices would be, if possible, replaced with hydraulic or mechanical substitutes - the cars in the 1980's, for example, still has electronically adjustable engine maps, adjustable roll bars and other trick devices like hydraulically controlled active suspension (at least in a crude form on the Lotus turbo cars).
As for gravel traps, they haven't all gone away - as Hamilton nearly demonstrated to his cost in the Belgian GP. There are likely to still be gravel traps in the future, but the FIA is currently on a drive to have them replaced in certain key locations on certain tracks on safety ground. Unpopular they may be, but tracks like Paul Ricard and Yas Marina are trying out new surface coatings to punish the drivers for going off line. they might not have worked with the ultra durable Bridgestone tyres, but given that the Pirelli's definitely wear a lot quicker, going off the track may be more problematic in 2011.
Penalisation for collisions and going too fast under the safety car - I agree that the stewards were quick to hand out penalties last year, and for the past few years. However, in other years they were criticised for being too lax, so it isn't always easy to find the right balance. Meanwhile, the recent attempts to rein the drivers in behind the safety car was because in the past the drivers often ignored the warnings from race control about slowing down, and the marshalls were unhappy about it.
Ecclestone is a contentious topic - he has done exactly what he was asked to do, which was to monetize the sport massively, to entice the manufacturers into the sport and make Formula 1 the biggest motorsport event around the world. That he has done in a way that has won him few friends, and using techniques which are now beginning to bite back, and bite hard - but, on the other hand, he has been, in some ways, a necessary counterweight to the ambitions of the teams. What insights we've had into his character seem to show a much more complicated man than the public persona he puts on suggests - and few will deny that he's changed the face of the sport forever, for both good and bad.
As for Tilke, in many ways I sympathise with him as he does get a harsh press in some ways. After all, the design of the track is often dictated by other limitations - from topography to FOM's requirements for lines of sight and the FIA's recommendations on circuit design to other developments (see the tracks in Korea and Abu Dhabi, where the tracks were fitted around already planned commercial centres, or Valencia and Singapore, where the urban environment and local government effectively dictated where he could set up a track).
And it isn't as if there have been any real competitive outfits either that could offer to do the job any better - for example, the concept design for Singapore by the rival bidder, Apex Circuit Design Ltd., is almost the same to Tilke's design. Some of his designs do seem to be overly convoluted - but a number of them are fairly popular with the drivers as being a lot better to drive on than watch (Istanbul Park, for example).
The other issue is whether the lack of overtaking is just down to the circuit - after all, there are several traditional circuits on the calendar which have not produced great races recently, like Monza, say. It doesn't help that Tilke's designs have been mostly used in the current era of highly aero sensitive cars, along with the much higher amount of marbles and other detritus being thrown up by the tyres in recent years, making moving off the racing line increasingly unattractive. It's not to say that his tracks have no faults - they do - but to blame all of the ills of modern Formula 1 on his doorstep looks like a gross oversimplification of the situation to me.
Now, let's see if anybody actually makes it this far without falling asleep halfway...
