Formula 1 Discussion - And favourite driver?

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Electromobility in general has the issue of absurdly long recharging periods, so a couple companies were spitballing the idea of swapping batteries for e-cars on the road, just to be about as quick as pumping gas. FE could attempt such a system for racing and see how it goes.
IIRC it was the Renault-Nissan alliance doing stuff with swappable batteries about a decade ago, but for whatever reason it didn't work out. If FE really wants to break away from its reputation as a boring and irrelevant virtue signalling exercise, FIA or whoever it is that runs it should push for stuff that will improve range and/or recharging times, with a view to said innovations eventually trickling down to road cars. Kinda like what F1 kinda-sorta does (or did once upon a time).
 
IIRC it was the Renault-Nissan alliance doing stuff with swappable batteries about a decade ago, but for whatever reason it didn't work out. If FE really wants to break away from its reputation as a boring and irrelevant virtue signalling exercise, FIA or whoever it is that runs it should push for stuff that will improve range and/or recharging times, with a view to said innovations eventually trickling down to road cars. Kinda like what F1 kinda-sorta does (or did once upon a time).
The as of now unattainable holy grail of e-mobility is being able to recharge a battery in about the same time it takes to pump gas at a regular gas-station. That's for a regular road car were refueling takes a few minutes though. F1 cars used to be refueld within a couple seconds thanks to high-performance pumps, I doubt I'll see batteries being able to do that in my lifetime tbh. A pitstop to recharge a battery that takes a couple minutes would be rather lackluster, so swapping batteries might be a better idea I think.
Man, wouldn't it be cool if you could recharge FE cars via induction, possibly even while driving through the pitlane?

But I agree, FE needs to spearhead technologies like better batteries, better recharging times, better performance, better materials to make lighter cars and so on... or just give up on the virtue signalling completely and just try to make the sport more fun to watch.
 
IIRC it was the Renault-Nissan alliance doing stuff with swappable batteries about a decade ago, but for whatever reason it didn't work out. If FE really wants to break away from its reputation as a boring and irrelevant virtue signalling exercise, FIA or whoever it is that runs it should push for stuff that will improve range and/or recharging times, with a view to said innovations eventually trickling down to road cars. Kinda like what F1 kinda-sorta does (or did once upon a time).
I don't really know much about batteries except that they suck compared to fuel. Maybe some EV companies have proprietary shit in theirs that doesn't work out with that arrangement?
Thankfully (for Merc), I doubt that's what Hamilton has in mind, though. He wants to be a "brand ambassador", whatever the fuck that is. I guess basically a black Marlboro Man for Mercedes... and maybe his own shitty clothes line or cologne or something.
Not sure how well that'll work out. Sportsball appeals to people in a way motorsports doesn't (arguably can't) - anyone with a ball and some free space, even just street when no cars are passing, can play, not so much for racing.
 
But I agree, FE needs to spearhead technologies like better batteries, better recharging times, better performance, better materials to make lighter cars and so on... or just give up on the virtue signalling completely and just try to make the sport more fun to watch.

To be fair the sport often looks more fun to watch espcially when FE drivers drive like they sit in bumper cars insead of open wheelers (which they aren't as the tyres are within some form of chassis). The most funny part is how they actually charge the batteries for the race weekend: they burn a form of Methanol mix to power generators which in turn charge the batteries. So they don't emite Co2 (you know the bad gas) but something else.
 
To be fair the sport often looks more fun to watch espcially when FE drivers drive like they sit in bumper cars insead of open wheelers (which they aren't as the tyres are within some form of chassis). The most funny part is how they actually charge the batteries for the race weekend: they burn a form of Methanol mix to power generators which in turn charge the batteries. So they don't emite Co2 (you know the bad gas) but something else.

I think it's kind of precious how they always run unconventional layouts at race tracks to hide the fact that even a GT3 car would run circles around an FE car.
 
I think it's kind of precious how they always run unconventional layouts at race tracks to hide the fact that even a GT3 car would run circles around an FE car.
There's a video where a street-legal sportscar a supercar and an F1 car do a race over one lap, with the sportscar and the supercar getting a headstarts...


I'd love to see something like this with F1 and FE cars. I think the FE car could even out-accelerate an F1 car at the start and in slow corners, but the F1 car has an edge literally everywhere else. Even at a similar straightline speed, the F1 car is set up to haul ass through a corner with its massive downforce, while FE is trying to disturb the air as little as possible (ie: no downforce whatsoever), so the F1 car would get away with braking much later and going around the corner much quicker.

Monaco is a track that's more to the strength of FE, I'd say, cause there's not many flat out fast corners and long straights, but the tracklayout is similar in both FE and F1 so we can have a look at a few pieces of data:

2021:
Formula EFormula 1
Course length3.318km3.337km
Race length (laps/distance)26 laps/86.268km78 laps/260.286km
Fastest lap (Qualifying)1:31.3171:10.346
Fastest lap (Race)1:34.4281:12.909

2022 used the exact same layout as F1:
Formula EFormula 1
Course length3.337km3.337km
Race length (laps/distance)30 laps/100.110km64 laps/213.568km
Fastest lap (Qualifying)1:29.8391:11.376
Fastest lap (Race)1:32.7071:14.693

Imagine a direct comparison on a track like Baku with that murderously long straight, I bet the difference on that single straight alone would come to 5 seconds.

Now, that alone doesn't make for good racing, FE is much slower than F1 and that's not gonna change for some time. Unless 100kg of battery contain about as much energy as 100l of fuel, we won't be seeing much competition between the two sports performance-wise... but speed alone doesn't equal good racing.

FE isn't troubled due to being slower than F1, it is troubled cause the sport is virtue signalling bullshit with shitty mechanics that make DRS look good. A race with a "fan boost" simply isn't a sport. It's a game.
 
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Formula E has been crippled by gimmicks since it's inception. It didn't help that it became the goto for drivers who failed in everything else they touched.

When it was first announced I thought could be interesting then I heard about the down with da kidz social media voting and decided it wasn't worth my time because it's not about racing in the slightes.

Now they have the knock out championship style qualifying that has already caused controversy. At one event two drivers set identical times so the one that set it second ended up with an awful grid slot. The controversy being that the driver order in the head to heads is set so the one going 1st would always get an advantage in that regard.

Throw in rhe zoomer bait voting, the need to drive through some dumb zone and the fact a race had to be ended early last season otherwise no one would have been able to finish and the whole thing is a giant joke.

It fails in it's most basic goal of driving the tech too since as has been said they can't develop most of the gubbins that goes into making an electric car work.

Formula 1 engines are already 2-3 times as thermally efficient as any road car engine and with the increase in ethanol content that is also getting cleaner. There are transferable technologies in that area to real world. There is a push to totally renewable fuels and they've even floated exploring hydrogen.

TLDR FE is failing to be a decent racing series, a technology driver or an ambassador for electric. There is no way in which is succeeds at anything (other than a tax write off, but that's a different matter).
 
Formula E has been crippled by gimmicks since it's inception. It didn't help that it became the goto for drivers who failed in everything else they touched.
There is a comparison to be made with women's sports and men declaring themselves trannies...

Also, FE really is best summed up by an old Simpson's joke that sadly, is absolutely spot on:
 
There is a comparison to be made with women's sports and men declaring themselves trannies...
Just look at the list of champions

Screenshot_20220606-154520.png

It's a who's who of drivers who failed their way out of better series (hell one had to deliberately crash in F1 to try and keep their seat). Only de Vries isn't some cast off and that's only because Toto had no where to put his pet driver after he won GP2 (seriously listen to toto speaking about de Vries, that shit feels like Susie should be side eyeing Toto's messages with him).

Mercedes clearly see not point to it since they're selling up and shipping out (selling to McLaren) and they ain't the only manufacturer team sounding less than certain about continued involvement.

It's a pity because there are many ways you could make an electric series interesting but the guy who started FE got the exclusivity of FIA electric racing and made this with it.
 
Just look at the list of champions

View attachment 3358587

It's a who's who of drivers who failed their way out of better series (hell one had to deliberately crash in F1 to try and keep their seat). Only de Vries isn't some cast off and that's only because Toto had no where to put his pet driver after he won GP2 (seriously listen to toto speaking about de Vries, that shit feels like Susie should be side eyeing Toto's messages with him).

Mercedes clearly see not point to it since they're selling up and shipping out (selling to McLaren) and they ain't the only manufacturer team sounding less than certain about continued involvement.

It's a pity because there are many ways you could make an electric series interesting but the guy who started FE got the exclusivity of FIA electric racing and made this with it.
As gimmicky and painful to watch as NASCAR can be, it warms my clogged, strained fat American heart to know it can always be worse.
 
As gimmicky and painful to watch as NASCAR can be, it warms my clogged, strained fat American heart to know it can always be worse.
I've tried to get into NASCAR as a new fan recently. When I was a kid I liked it but didn't really get what was going on. I just thought Jeff Gordon was cool because he had flames on his car.

I tune in to the Coca Cola 600 and start watching and realize they have "Stage Wins" and my interest immediately sunk. NASCAR gotta get their shit together and just revamp the system to back how it was in the 80s and 90s.
 
I tune in to the Coca Cola 600 and start watching and realize they have "Stage Wins" and my interest immediately sunk.
Just had to look that up since I hadn't heard of it before and couldn't come up with a possible meaning that wasn't retarded. Unfortunately one of those retarded possible meanings was entirely correct. Which moron thought that was a good idea? Just fucking race a number of laps and first across the line wins, how hard is it to not fuck that up?

Fingers crossed Liberty aren't watching NASCAR and formula E while nodding quietly thinking about the possibilities. Like "let's have a reddit AMA with the driver over the radio" or "vote for who gets DRS this lap" (I wouldn't put either past them). Though supper chatting gamer words over Lewlew's radio would be worth every penny.
 
Just had to look that up since I hadn't heard of it before and couldn't come up with a possible meaning that wasn't retarded. Unfortunately one of those retarded possible meanings was entirely correct. Which moron thought that was a good idea? Just fucking race a number of laps and first across the line wins, how hard is it to not fuck that up?

Fingers crossed Liberty aren't watching NASCAR and formula E while nodding quietly thinking about the possibilities. Like "let's have a reddit AMA with the driver over the radio" or "vote for who gets DRS this lap" (I wouldn't put either past them). Though supper chatting gamer words over Lewlew's radio would be worth every penny.
Looked it up, wasn't ... uh... disappointed (?) The way I see it, it cuts up races into chunks and essentially adds short breaks?
It's like modern racing is in a competition to come up with the most inane gimmick.

6ivgni.jpg

This stage-nonsense is like adding mandatory Safety-Car phases in F1 to bunch up the field and allow lapped cars to unlap.

With the nonsense of race stages and ... whatever the fuck FE is doing, I am actually quite happy now with Sprint Races and DRS tbh. Could be worse.

Also, I realized something about DRS: I criticized it for artificial overtaking, but I think that's not quite correct. Or rather, not correct all the time.
Simply put, DRS makes overtaking easier, but fortunately, what it doesn't do is making two cars overtake each other every lap. Ie: Car 1 overtakes car 2 thanks to DRS, next lap, they are so close that car 2 overtakes car 1, next lap, once more car 1 overtakes car 2 and so on. That would be entirely artificial overtaking.

What we usually see instead is one car passing another and then managing to gain distance. Sometimes, a car manages to counter the overtake, but ultimately, these knife-fights don't last long and one car manages to pull away. In a way, the DRS only allows easier passing, but usually, when a car isn't on equal footing (a lot of times even then) DRS isn't going to cut it. Like, a McLaren won't be overtaking a RB all of a sudden just due to DRS.

The problem with DRS is this: It means there is basically no point in overtaking anywhere else on track. DRS allows easy passing on straights, so unless the other car in front has a complete edge there and you enjoy an advantage in corners, no point in trying it elsewhere. It's rather bad for racing, cause instead of having an entire track for potential overtakes, it limits them to a few long straights, which is always less intense than an overtake in a corner.
It also leads to some fuckery, when cars deliberately allow another car to pass in front of the DRS sensor, so they can overtake them back more easily. I will admit, seeing this every now and then is kinda hilarious though, especially when it happens to Hamilton, who (I think) fell for this when battling with Magnussen. When you see one savvy driver outsmarting another one with such fuckery, it's at least something entertaining.
Kinda like faking preparations for a pitstop to make a driver of another team go for a pitstop themselves. Haven't seen that in a while, but I think Ferrari did this in the Schumacher days a few times. Mercedes as well.
 
Just had to look that up since I hadn't heard of it before and couldn't come up with a possible meaning that wasn't retarded. Unfortunately one of those retarded possible meanings was entirely correct. Which moron thought that was a good idea? Just fucking race a number of laps and first across the line wins, how hard is it to not fuck that up?

Fingers crossed Liberty aren't watching NASCAR and formula E while nodding quietly thinking about the possibilities. Like "let's have a reddit AMA with the driver over the radio" or "vote for who gets DRS this lap" (I wouldn't put either past them). Though supper chatting gamer words over Lewlew's radio would be worth every penny.
Imagine if they divided 24 Hours of Le Mans into four 6 hour races. It makes no damn sense.

Liberty is hit or miss with ideas. I like a lot of the stuff they've done, but I hate Sprints, and the new calender sucks. I would replace a lot of the new races with classic tracks like Sepang, Hockenheim, etc. The race in Miami and Vegas should be canned for Indianapolis imo. But I do think Liberty is smart enough to not fall down the NASCAR rabbit hole, the numbers tell a damning tale.

This stage-nonsense is like adding mandatory Safety-Car phases in F1 to bunch up the field and allow lapped cars to unlap.

If I recall, NASCAR does have mandatory cautions lol

Yeah I would love to get rid of DRS too, but as Max against Georgie boy in Spain showed us that the cars still really aren't capable of passing each other without it on similar tires.

There's the debate of bringing back refueling so cars are lighter and can pass but during refueling most overtakes were done in the pits rather than on track.

I'm glad I'm not the one figuring this shit out tbh
 
If I recall, NASCAR does have mandatory cautions lol

Yeah I would love to get rid of DRS too, but as Max against Georgie boy in Spain showed us that the cars still really aren't capable of passing each other without it on similar tires.

There's the debate of bringing back refueling so cars are lighter and can pass but during refueling most overtakes were done in the pits rather than on track.

I'm glad I'm not the one figuring this shit out tbh
I think making cars lighter and smaller would be a decent idea. When you consider how humongous cars have become, no wonder passing is so hard, there's hardly any room on track.

The problem is, we want a lot of raw engine power, so we need a lot of room for the engine and a lot of space for crash structures. But maybe F1 can take the new aero concept and refine it in such a way that passing becomes easier. Maybe do something with the tyres, I dunno. When we look at F1's past, we can see that there were some major changes in how cars looked.

From front-engine steel cigars on wheels, they went to what we see today, I wouldn't mind a radically different car design if it means the car has an easier time passing another car.

But as we saw last season, we can have nailbiter races even with shitty aero, as long as engine power matches up nicely. Hope the playing field will become more level in that regard.
 
My biggest gripe with DRS has always been the decimation of defensive drives. Those where the masters of the sport could stretch a set of tyres until they were practically worn through and manage to hold off the faster car behind that did pit, or drag a damaged/ailing car to the finish without going right to the back. Some of the greatest drives in the sport have been amazing masterclasses in defending your position. Though those probably wouldn't interest the idiots who think Checo's drive in Abu Dhabi was anything other than brilliant.

DRS is a product of Ferrari and Nando fans crying that he couldn't overtake a Russian in a slower car so lost the championship to Vettel.
 
DRS is a product of Ferrari and Nando fans crying that he couldn't overtake a Russian in a slower car so lost the championship to Vettel.
As a long time RBR fan seeing the RBR mechanics cheer on Petrov at the post race weigh in was the cherry on top.

Sadly I think the cars are going to remain big because of hybrid and battery tech and safety. And F1 has made it very clear they want to stay as the "cutting edge of motorsport"

I've thought that Indycar should take the leap and go ask Judd, Cosworth, Chevy and Honda to make something incredible similar to the F1 V8s of the 2010s and use them with a redesigned car. Indycar has none of the strings attached to be the most advanced motorsport. If Indycar tomorrow came out with a blurry teaser of a car screaming around IMS with that V8 (or fuck it, V10) howl, people would be incredible hyped. The chassis for Indycars are already smaller and more nimble, I think if they went for big power they could do something really special.
 
The problem with Indycar is still that it's a sport with a very tight budget compared to it's pre-split heyday when getting a hundred million from a tobacco company was a trivial phone call. Until that issue is solved, it's unlikely to see much development.
Can you imagine how glorious it would be if some weapons manifacturer picked up Indycar?
 
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