Formula 1 racing is struggling this season. The new hybrid engines are finicky. Normally, racing should be on the edge of failure, but the new ones are more like the edge of functioning. Most of the time, they're broken. And for most of the teams, the irritation is getting to the point that two of the three leading teams are threatening to dump the entire series entirely, one of those being Ferrari. You can't have Formula 1 without Ferrari. Red Bull (Renault racing) is also struggling and their chief driver Sebastian Vettel was 4 time world champion in the prior series car. In this he struggles to finish. When world champion race drivers can't rely on their car to actually finish a race? You have serious problems. Teams are going through engines and taking penalties for changing them. The cars lack sufficient front grip for passing in most of the places they like to pass, and the tires are unreliable and finicky for their operating temperatures too, to make up for this. They don't wear well when they're working, either. This formula sucks. There was a sign posted opposite the pits at Monza this morning: "Formula 1 Is Dead." And these are Italian fans.
Guys, you gotta fix this. Over two thirds of the teams are threatening to dump the formula and take their teams and money elsewhere, probably to American Le Mans or possibly start a new series. What they should do is put their collective foot down and dump this car. It sucks. It is a disaster. My Dad, who has been watching formula one for most of his life, suggested a really simple solution.
Offer two engine choices.
- V6 turbo, 2.5 liters.
- 3.0 Liter V8 normally aspirated.
That's it. Give them back the wings. No more ERS/KERS, no more electric motors and batteries. Let the drivers be 20 pounds heavier. Driver weight is an actual rule, btw. They are stick thin and just this side of actual starvation. Most doctors would put them on IV nutrition and hospitalize them, based on how they look. Their blood tests are probably showing all sorts of dangerous chemistry and organ failure happens in starvation like this. Did you know that? It is true.
Anyway, those two engine choices, more front and rear wing. I don't care if this is like the older cars. The older cars were better and with more downforce they can pass in more places and that's more interesting than watching the drivers skid off the track because the stupid cars have about 500 pounds of battery onboard, which overheats, causing the rear brakes to fail since those are actually shifting energy to the battery, which then causes the front brakes to overcompensate and skid instead of stopping and has caused most of the crashes under braking this season. A hundred million dollars worth of damage and its life threatening too. Eventually it is going to kill a driver. So get rid of it.
Racing is NOT regular car driving. This is important. With this latest hybrid mess, the series organizers said this would relate more to modern driving but it really doesn't. All it does is show how horrible electric cars are, and how unreliable and dangerous they are. Let Formula 1 be actual race cars. If there were no gasoline for my car anymore I would ride my bicycle to the track and camp overnight to watch it. That's how much I like racing. If there were no fuel coming out of the ground we'd synthesize the gasoline for the race by converting it from coal or cracking it from algal biodiesel. Whatever. These are things that can be done.
In 1911, before WW1, people used to ride on horsedrawn carts to the race track to watch those newfangled automobiles and see those barnstormer fabric wing airplanes, and wing walker acrobats. Warren't that the finest show? Indeed!
So yes, stop pretending that Formula 1 should have squat to do with a Prius Hybrid and turn them back into the fastest cars again. Right now, Indycars are 20 mph faster than Formula 1, and that's just embarrassing.
Dump the hybrids, Bernie. Get back to regular engines.
Dump the batteries. Get back to racing.
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