2253 replies to this topic

[Dr. Jimmmah!]

I don't know about you guys...but I really like this. It's opening F1 back up to technical freedom, with the only restraint being cost. Lately F1 has been more of a spec series, but this is really exciting IMO and makes the sport more sustainable. I've always said that a budget cap is the way to go, although I think 40million is a bit thin.

40mil pound sterling = $59.4M USD

[Dr. Jimmmah!]

http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/74954

FIA increases minimum car weight

By Pablo Elizalde Thursday, April 30th 2009, 14:34 GMT

The weight of Formula 1 cars will be increased from the 2010 season under new technical regulations, the FIA announced on Thursday.

The ruling body said the minimum weight for cars from next season will be 620kg, rather than the current 605kg.

The move is aimed at not putting heavier drivers at a disadvantage due to the introduction of KERS, which has hindered taller drivers like BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica.

Pole Kubica has raced with KERS just once this year, as the increased weight did not allow him to play with ballast and thus improve his car's balance.

But the technical rules published by the FIA on Thursday moved to solved that, increasing the cars' minimum weight by 15kg.

cubicle and webbo get to play w/ kers in '10.

[HighTachPres]

damn that's power when the rules are changed basically for 1 driver

[kngrsll]

damn that's power when the rules are changed basically for 1 driver

what happened to abandoning KERS?

[Nacho]

I would say the early 90s? And it was a cake walk for McLaren and Williams...

Esp the Williams cars, when they had TC, paddle-shift, ground-effects, and active suspension. McLaren also had a massively dominant car in the MP/4-4 where Prost & Senna batteled it out. I think the car won all but 1 race...

You have to ask yourself: Was that really all the car?



I don't like refueling ban, split on the cost caps and am fine with the weight increase.

[_R_]

I don't like refueling ban, split on the cost caps and am fine with the weight increase.

going to go ahead and agree with everything right there...

refueling ban i don't think is going to accomplish much right now, couple seasons back they tried the whole 1 set of tires per race rule to cut costs and that lasted a whole season...

the costs caps i'm happy for because i hope it brings in new teams to size up the grid, but i still think it's a tad low... 50 - 60M would sound more reasonable honestly...

the weight increase: whatever

[_R_]

what happened to abandoning KERS?

that's all flavor flav apparently...

[Robert]

If it:

a.) brings in more (north and south american -hopefully asian) teams
b.) opens the door back a little for technology
c.) reduces the slide toward a spec series
d.) produces crazy shit during the race (ex: no tire warmers)
e.) gives a bit more leverage for bringing back a US track
f.) stabilizes F1 as we've known it until Bernie croaks

I'm all for it.

[marone]

banning refuelling sucks, races are done and won because of it!

the only thing newbs care or know about f1 is that you can re tyre and refuel a car in under 8 seconds.

without stops there is no need for strategies/ stratgists (Ross Brawn).

[kngrsll]

banning refuelling sucks, races are done and won because of it!

the only thing newbs care or know about f1 is that you can re tyre and refuel a car in under 8 seconds.

without stops there is no need for strategies/ stratgists (Ross Brawn).

i think you will still have to use 2 sets of tires miniumum

[_R_]

So reading this morning, apparently another rule that the capped teams get is that the KERS system will have double the output than the non-capped teams...

the more i keep reading the rules, the less i'm liking this idea... it's almost becoming like LeMans where multiple classes will be on the same grid.. like LMP1 vs LMP2 or GT1 vs GT2 classes....

[DrDickAction]

http://www.f1technical.net/news/12314

Analysis: 2010 Formula One regulations

The World Motor Sport Council has just introduced its new set of rules to further economise Formula One. The budget cap will finally make its entrance in 2010 and any team opting for the solution will benefit of more technical freedom.

Refuelling banned
First of all, the council has confirmed that refuelling will be banned as of 2010. There have been talks about this change for a while, mostly because it will have a considerable impact for the car's designs. At some circuits fuel consumption is currently as high as 3l per lap, requiring next year's cars to have fuel tanks of approximately 180l, maybe even more. To put this in perspective, most teams currently have tanks of about 90l.

The change will remove the need to transport the 20 heavy refuelling rigs to each race venue, while on the sportive side we may again see drivers having to save fuel at some point during the race. It may even come to situations as in the late 80's where drivers just ran out of fuel towards the end of a race.

Increased weight limit
Due to the pressure of BMW Sauber who want to reduce the disadvantage heavier drivers have now, the minimum weight has been increased from 605kg to 620kg.

Safety measures for the front wing
In the margin of changes, the new rules also stipulate an extended area where bodywork components must have a minimum radius to prevent damage to an opponent's tyre in case of a collision:

3.4.2 In order to prevent tyre damage to other cars, the top, forward and outer edges of the lateral extremities of any bodywork more than 450mm ahead of the front wheel centre line and more than 750mm from the car centre line must be at least 10mm thick with a radius of at least 5mm.

More strict KERS regulations
As of 2010, the KERS may not be activated when a car is travelling at more than 300km/h. This change will effectively eliminate the possibility to use KERS for additional top speed but instead allow its use to more quickly attain than top speed.

In addition to that, homologated sensors on the system will be required. The position of the KERS storage device - whether it is a flywheel or a battery pack - will have to be located ahead of the front of the engine and behind the driver. It is believed that all current KERS cars nearly comply to this regulation already.

5.2.5 All KERS energy storage devices must be situated between the front face of the engine and the driver's back when viewed in lateral projection. When establishing the front face of the engine, no parts of the fuel, oil, water or electrical systems will be considered.
5.2.6 Cars must be fitted with homologated sensors which provide all necessary signals to the SDR in order to verify the requirements above are being respected.

Budget capped regulation set
With the start of 2010, an additional regulation formula will be introduced that will put teams on a budget limit of £45 million. In exchange these will receive more technical freedom.

More power from the engine
One of these particularities is the removal of the 18000rpm limit. Whether this will prove interesting is something else, as the teams will be using the same standardised engines as all other competitors. Because these have been designed to last long enough to manage a full season with 8 engines, reliability may be severely compromised if teams choose to run them at higher speeds.

Apart from this worry, increased speed will also come with increased fuel consumption. The teams willing to run their engines at higher rpm consistently will have to build larger fuel tanks and be slower at the beginning of the race due to their higher fuel ballast.

Moveable aerodynamics
Budget controlled teams will be allowed to have their front wing adjusted by 10°, a surplus of 4° over the teams that choose to go with the conventional rule set. They will also be allowed to adjust the front wing's incidence any time they find it appropriate - and not limited to twice a lap.

The rear wing will also be adjustable and can greatly help to boost a car on high speed sections of a circuit.

3.18.2 The incidence of the upper section described in Article 3.10.2 (if two sections are used) may be varied whilst the car is in motion, provided any such change maintains compliance with all of the bodywork dimensional regulations.

Alteration of the incidence of this section may only be commanded by direct driver input and controlled using the control electronics specified in Article 8.2.

This Article applies only to Cost-Regulated Teams.

Doubled KERS power
Perhaps the most interesting benefit for these teams will be the double power allowed from their KERS devices. The cars will be allowed to release twice the energy - in and out - with KERS. Hence, with the same KERS system, they can use the additional 60hp for up to 12s per lap. Or, alternatively, the system can be adapted to have 120hp available during 6s.

5.2.3 The maximum power, in or out, of any KERS must not exceed 60kW.
Energy released from the KERS may not exceed 400kJ in any one lap.
Measurements will be taken at the connection to the drivetrain.
For Cost-Regulated Teams only the following will apply :
- the power in is unrestricted ;
- the power out is limited to 120kW ;
- the energy released per lap is limited to 800kJ ;
- measurements will be taken at any FIA approved point in the drivetrain.

Four wheel drive
On top of that, cost regulated teams will be allowed four wheel drive. For those teams, article 9.1 of the technical regulations that states "No transmission system may permit more than two wheels to be driven." has been scrapped from the rulebook.

While there is an extensive range of possibilities to exploit this change, it is most likely that teams will add a motor-generator for their KERS systems to the front wheels, allowing to charge the KERS device with brake energy from the front wheels too, whereas this is currently not allowed. As a direct consequence, the front wheels are also allowed to be powered by KERS.

Complete testing freedom
Currently teams are not allowed any in-season testing. However, it will be up to the budget-limited teams when they test in 2010, as long as they don't exceed their limited yearly budget.

Full scale windtunnel testing
The cost-reducing regulation that allows teams only to run 50% scale models in their wind tunnels will be removed for teams complying with the budget limitation.

I'm actually pretty excited about most of the technical changes...we'll see how the 2 tier system goes....I can't imagine the cars would be that close together in terms of speed, but one can hope

[tefnut]

whoa, 4WD? it's been decades
http://en.wikipedia...._in_Formula_One
ibNissanGTR/MitsubishiEVO/SubaruWRX-F1team

[tefnut]

also I think constantly adjustable aero could be the coolest thing ever but having it automatically computer-controlled would make it more useful

it's just be awesome to be seeing cars with constantly adjusting bodywork as they take corners and go onto straights

they could probably use a variety of KERS for that, as you step on the brakes that kinetic energy is converted to actuate aero, increasing braking/cornering efficiency

[_R_]

I'm liking this less and less....

if I were Ferrari, bin this years car, dump a shit ton of money into next years development, sign up for the $40M cap, and show up with a fucking awd tron light cycle transformer of a car next season and destroy both teirs

[Skyliner]

Some decent pictures.

[mads]

needs more TC and active suspensions

[Skyliner]

http://drop.io/formula1fanatic
Lots of pictures.

[mads]

[Dr. Jimmmah!]

how about in .mov?

 RBR.mov   705.59KB   13 downloads

[DrDickAction]

how about in .mov?

 RBR.mov   705.59KB   13 downloads

fapfapfapfapfap

[_R_]

The Brawn team will not receive the commercial revenue owed to a competitor named Honda in 2009, Bernie Ecclestone has confirmed.

Amid Flavio Briatore's recent rant about Ross Brawn and the Brackley-based team, the Renault boss - also in charge of FOTA's commercial arm - said he will be proposing to the F1 teams alliance that millions in Honda prize money not be released to its new guise.

The Independent newspaper claims that the funds in dispute amount to 20m pounds sterling.

New teams are usually not immediately eligible for F1 commercial revenue, but before the Brawn buyout was finalised, it was reported that the current teams were happy that Honda's new owners could receive the 2009 income.

Subsequently, however, the FIA ruled that Brawn was in fact not simply Honda's renamed guise, but an entirely new entry.

To the Independent, Ecclestone reportedly revealed that the Honda money "will not be paid to Brawn" and actually might not "be paid out at all."

"We can keep it," said the F1 chief executive, referring to a scenario where the other teams do not unanimously agree what to do with the disputed money.

In the same interview, 78-year-old Ecclestone revealed that he opposed the application to change Honda's official team name to Brawn GP.

The Briton said it is "not a good name, doesn't mean anything to the public."

lame...

[vietlol]

wooo go flavio

[yonson]

wooo DIAF flavio

[Nacho]

Awww, the widdle teams getting their asses handed to them are butthurt.