2018 F1 Car launches

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For those interested, here's Williams. Post them if you see them. I think I'm liking them despite the HALO.

 

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[little P]

R.I.P. F1.

The shopping trolley (a.k.a Hellno or halo) add on then getting rid of the grid girls along with everything else... James Hunt will no doubt be turning in his grave.

F1 has been systematically ruined by a series of stupid choices over the years, and this is just the latest in a long line. They'll seal those halos soon with a complete cockpit... I get it from a safety standpoint but motorsport has, and always will be dangerous. Things like this dilute the purity of the sport, something that has been happening more and more in the last decade.

I give up with F1 now, give me Rallycross or BTCC any day of the week instead of the little fashionista polly prissy pants drivers we have now doing glorified hotlaps in their bubble wrapped cars.

All in my humble opinion of course. What do you think of the halo and what has happened to this once great sport?

 

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It looks terrible, I agree, but I also understand why they did it, however, I focus on drivers. It seems they've been pretty close on the track and there's some rising talent out there. Racing isn't what it used to be, but it was decent in 2017 and hopefully even better this year.

 

[Brainling]

F1 cars are faster than they've ever been, with cornering speeds that are mind numbing. The G-forces put on drivers bodies today are incomparable to anything short of a fighter pilot. Formula 1 has never been about "good racing", and it never will be. People put on rose tinted glasses and forget that pretty much every era of F1 has been dominated by someone, because F1 is a technological sport. It's a sport about engineers as much as drivers and it always has been.

The whole "purity of the sport" argument holds no water with me in a sport where the only constant has been change. At one point wings were "ruining the purity of the sport". Then under body flow and resulting aerodynamics were "ruining the purity of the sport". At one point full face helmets and carbon fiber momocoques were "ruining the purity of the sport". Lest we forget that Rallycross and BTCC are both series that run full tin top carbon fiber reinforced roll cage structures that exist to, as you say "put the driver in a bubble wrapped car". It's also easy to ignore the fact that F1 cars travel significantly faster than either of those series, subjecting the drivers to significantly more dangerous crash forces. Alonso had a crash last year where he sustained 42G's of impact force. Even ten years ago that's possibly a fatal crash...which I guess is what "purists" want?

I've always found some ironic humor in the fact that most people who make arguments about danger being part of the purity of something are generally not the ones putting their body on the line to do it.

 

[little P]

Gonna have to agree to disagree here Brainling... F1 did use to be about the racing, before it became about who had the biggest budget and the most advanced tech... The drivers of today are nothing more than glorified dummies pushing buttons for the engineers compared to the drivers of yesteryear. Nothing more than drone jet pilots. I said give me BTCC and Rallycross any day because you get close racing, and the little guy can win or hit a podium on any given race weekend. It comes down to the drivers, not the machines. And you can have close racing in open wheel cars, you just have to look at the F4 support series for the BTCC as an obvious example.

F1 has been in steady decline since the last of the V10's in 2005, the final nail in the coffin was the death of the V8's in 2013.

I'm all for safety but like everything else in life, at what point is something made too safe, sucking all the thrill out of doing that (or watching others do) said thing in the first place?!

F1 has gotten faster for sure, but, to use the analogy again, I get far more enjoyment out of thrashing a 1.4 litre hot hatch round a track than I would a 500+hp beast of a car, and I enjoy watching slower cars jostling for position wheel to wheel, door to door, where driver skill and the size of his plums is the deciding factor, not who had the biggest engineering budget that month.

But hey, opinions eh. Just like assholes we all have one, and I respect yours. F1 for me died in 2013, and I don't ever seeing it hitting the heady days of Hunt/Lauda, Mansell/Piquet, Prost/Senna et al ever again. THAT was when F1 was about the "good racing" you said it has never been about. I wholeheartedly disagree. It was some of the best "good racing" the world has ever seen!

I've always found some ironic humor in the fact that most people who make arguments about danger being part of the purity of something are generally not the ones putting their body on the line to do it.

Not sure if you are referring to me here but I used to race in an amateur 600cc Kawasaki series before I ran out of money and couldn't secure a sponsor. I moved on to other things after that but still enjoy watching Moto GP and BSB, Isle of Man TT, and no, I wouldn't want it diluted like F1 has done. The danger is what makes it exciting, it's the thrill of doing it, and then watching people with far more talent do it on even faster machines. So yes, I do know the risks involved, and so does every rider/driver when they decide to get on a track with x amount of other nutters. Dilute that thrill, take away too much of the danger and you have something like where F1 is heading.

My solution rather than just criticize? Slow the cars down, reduce the risk that way. Reduce the budgets. Make it fairer for the smaller teams. Close up the gaps between the teams. Get them racing wheel to wheel again (without hitting each other all the time because these polly prissy pants drivers have forgotten how to race close together, or are incapable at the speeds the cars are doing), take away all the "easy mode" driver aids. Reduce the amount of things the drivers have to think about other than actual bloody racing (have you seen everything an F1 driver has to think about now other than driving the damn thing? Insane) so they can concentrate on, you know, racing? Not managing fuel *yawn* etc. etc. But, alas, it's all about the money and I can;t see this happening any time soon. Too much greed, too many polly prissy pants.

In the meantime, i'll be watching proper, close racing, not the glorified parade lap fest that is modern F1. Still keeping a close eye on it, hoping that it manages to turn itself around. God I hope it can.