Bigpower

It appears there's scope for some very strange rules creeping in for the 2014 season

Has anybody else seen the 'double points for the last Grand Prix of the season' decision?

So rather than 25 points the driver who's victorious in the final GP of the 2014 season will actually be awarded 50 points.....hmmn, I'm not too sure on that one.....me thinks somebody's been sniffing the race fuel again!!


This double points decision apparently will stop a certain individual/team from running away with the championship well before the end of the season???


Surely to ensure that ^^^^^ you'd have to be a bit more specific and adopt a policy of 'All German drivers and any team with a capital 'R' and 'B' in their name are not allowed to score points from the half way point of the season onwards'

*note: I think a fair compromise is the way ahead.........just confiscate Vettel's passport and job done, you have one far more interesting F1 season!

Dumb dumb dumb. As Vettel and Brundle have both said, it devalues the other races.

Too many gimmicks, DRS, Double Points race, trick tyres, shortcuts, oil slicks, car to car rockets

They are also looking at a spending cap for the 2015 season

now I'm not too sure where I stand on that one because on the one hand it's good for the mid field teams (Williams/Force India and such like) but on the flip side there's scope for it to also hinder F1 development for the immediate future.

I don't see the bottom runners in this day and age ever really being competitive with the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari (ie. in the same way that Tyrell were back in the day) but it would potentially bring the mid to top competitive teams closer together and potentially avoid the likes of the recent championship runaway of Red Bull from early on in the season

The double points thing is the same type of rubbish idea like the "artificially wet the tracks with sprinklers" that also came from Bernie's head, yet somehow the Strategy Group agreed on it? They veto'd the "compulsary number of pit-stops" idea, so why allow this one through?

The budget cap thing will be as hard to police as the current system- there's plenty of 'creative' accounting going on at the bigger teams, especially at RedBull.

They've also decided that drivers will now choose their race number from 2-99, with 1 being reserved for the champion. An ok idea, seems to work in Moto GP and adds to the driver's 'brand' as such, but who honestly identifies drivers by the near-unreadable number on the nose/rear wing endplate? Most of the time you go by their helmet colours or whether the camera above their heads is red or yellow.

Danny@APT wrote:
Most of the time you go by their helmet colours or whether the camera above their heads is red or yellow.

I used to do that but with the likes of LH changing his helmet design more often than Katie Price changes her fella' it's become quite difficult.....so now I just read the name on the screen

jap.slapper wrote:I used to do that but with the likes of LH changing his helmet design more often than Katie Price changes her fella' it's become quite difficult.....so now I just read the name on the screen

It's certainly a ball-ache with both Lewis and Nico having near-identical 'standard' helmet colours.

Danny@APT wrote:
They've also decided that drivers will now choose their race number from 2-99, with 1 being reserved for the champion. An ok idea, seems to work in Moto GP and adds to the driver's 'brand' as such, but who honestly identifies drivers by the near-unreadable number on the nose/rear wing endplate? Most of the time you go by their helmet colours or whether the camera above their heads is red or yellow.

I think that is a good idea. The old red "5" alive worked for mansel back in the day.
Its surely got to work even more so today with teams relying more on what the drivers can bring to their teams?

http://sniffpetrol.com/2013/12/11/those ... in-full-2/

Rule changes bring an opportunity for teams/drivers to gain advantage by exploiting the interpretation not necessarily sticking within the spirit of the rule.

However the rules should not be used to penalise or undervalue teams/driver/the sport as appears to be suggested by changing the points on the last race (Vettel had the title sewn up with 3 races to go) so there is no value or benefit to be gained from this rule change.

Put simply the biggest problem as I see it is the amount of aerodynamics that are run on the cars which cause stability and wear problems for trailing cars by being in turbulent air, therefore if a car gets ahead from the start the trailing cars are disadvantaged which is then compounded by also defending against a following car thus enabling the lead car to gain further advantage.

There is little doubt that Vettel is a talented driver maybe even a great driver but in the main he has benefited from having pace off the start line which enables him to run in clean air therefore unhindered and quicker per lap than the others. ( Yes I hated last season because of his and Red Bull domination)

There was much rumour last year about traction devices fitted to Red Bull via the KERS device, not beyond the wit of man to cause the KERS motor drive to reverse and become a traction control device should the need arise but I do think that it would have been found under Scrutineering.

So what to do: change the rules to penalise Drivers/constructors that's a non-starter for me.
Rule changes that allow cars to run in less turbulent air, Rule changes to get away from the current track design which may test the diver/car combination but do nothing to add to the spectators enjoyment.

I do hope that 2014 season brings a lot more racing and a lot less procession

DI*ks

Surely the first changes should be point/s for pole position and fastest lap.
Maybe point for most laps led

Also points down to 14th place to allow lower teams to actually score points


Scott