F1: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

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I know many will disagree but ive always thought this thing was beautiful

fw26.jpg
 
I know many will disagree but ive always thought this thing was beautiful

fw26.jpg

I was sad that that design didn't work. Not because it was particularly attractive, but because it was different.

I think that this might be the best-looking grand prix car of all time:

maserati.jpg
 
The Good.
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Scuderia Toro Rosso STR02
Maybe slightly predictable from me, but with good reason. It looks the biz.

jordan_f1_01.jpg

Every Jordan, 196 onwards.
They're all stunners.

sauber.jpg

Sauber C21.
As above. I was gutted when Sauber and Petronas parted corporate ways, the white and blue BMW livery does nothing for me.


The Bad.
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Honda RA107
Looks the bomb. Unfortunately, it bombed. Hmm...

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Ferrari (In general)
Almost singlehandedly made F1 boring. Warming to them slightly with the Iceman, a lovely marroon paint change and a bit of an underdog status.

The Ugly.

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BAR Supertec 001
Oh dear.

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Lola T93/30
Her name was Lola, she was a right mess. Wait, that's not right...

The interesting.
Chevron_B41_1979.JPG

Chevron B41.
See if you can work out why.

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Audi RSF1.
If it existed.
 
They really should should keep it up.

Okay, no more double entendres from me or I'll ge tthe Mod-Stick waved in my direction.

Yeah. Dual sponsorship with Durex and Viagra and the drivers could hold their heads up high. Olivier Panis could come out of retirement to drive it. He knows how to burn rubber and should quickly find a good rhythm. I worry though that this kind of exposure would make the drivers two tents, and if they fail, the results would cry like a baby.

I'll get my coat.
 
The Cars:
Good - The earliest cars. Smooth, clean uncluttered lines. Uncomplicated.
Bad - The latest designs. Fussy wings splitters and diffusers everywhere disrupting the airflow.
Ugly - Early experiments in aero. Squashed / Cheese wedge / triple decker wings = yuck.

The Drivers:
Good - New blood coming in and mixing things up.
Bad - No hopers that stick around for years at the back / midfield.
Ugly - World champions resorting to underhand tactics in an attempt to retain the title.

The Tracks:
Good - Flowing circuits with some history, and some memorable turns.
Bad - Mickey mouse redesigns in an attempt to slow the cars down.
Ugly - Wide, flat carparks surrounded by grandstands.

The Rest:
Good - Improvements to safety.
Bad - Too much meddling with the rules. They seem to be rewritten every year.
Ugly - Unreliable team members trading secrets for personal gain.
 
Bad - The latest designs. Fussy wings splitters and diffusers everywhere disrupting the airflow.

It's supposed to prevent further disruption in the airflow :confused:

Ugly - Early experiments in aero. Squashed / Cheese wedge / triple decker wings = yuck.

Agree - for example those vacuum-like front wings.

But mid-age experiments weren't the most beautiful either. Mid-'90s raised-noseconers were completely terrible. They looked like a ships' front.
 
Any F1 car that comes out after sweeping/kneejerk rules changes can almost be guaranteed to be fugly.
 
:eek:

Though the graphics look as anchient as the '50s.

Take the Hesketh I linked to below for another Penthouse car.



EDIT: Found an example of early-aero uglyness:

Brabham BT44
800px-Brabham_BT44_front.jpg


Tyrrell 006
800px-Tyrrell_006.jpg


Hesketh 308E
800px-Hesketh_308E.jpg
 
Wait, the biggest whinger in the history of F1 is in the good and the most successful driver ever is in the bad? :ill:

I dunno why do you call Stewart "whinger", I have a looooong memory of F1 races and I don't seem to recall hearing him complain of anything. (if you're talking about recent events, you might aswell call him halfwit, or whatever Mosley has called him, but as a race driver and a multi- champion, that definition just doesn't apply).

As for Schumacher, true he is the most successful driver in history ... the reason I vote for him as bad is very well depicted in the photo I posted.

I'd like to post another photo of a "different" car. The Brabham BT52 / BMW, with the looks of a rocket :crazy:

Brabham_BT52_BMW_F1-TC0003-large.gif
 
The very ugly

mika95.gif


And I'm protecting your eyes by only showing you half of it...
 
Good finds mnm_bmx. + rep for that. As for that last car, I have no idea why a driver would put up with having that thing in his way...

[edit] I have to spread it around.
 
*Prays for Audi to enter F1*

Too bad the new eco-friendly F1 won't be biodiesel... maybe they could have a F1D series for diesel powered cars...

I too would love to see Audi in F1. Is AWD against the rules? Probably too much weight and not enough room for the diff up front, but that could really make things interesting. I loved watching the Audis in the IMSA GTO races totally dominating. Really showed what AWD could do for on-road performance. Maybe the R10 will do the same for diesel, at least here in the USA where most people think diesel is for trucks.

I thing that is enough off topic comments for now
 
You actually rep'ed mnm_bmx? :lol:
Well whats wrong with that? I mean come on, am I really "that bad"? :guilty:

Why bad? I can see ugly - the lower one indeed is among the worst-looking ones ever. But bad?

And the Tyrrell P34 is just neverendingly cool

Well its hard to explain, both bad and ugly had the same meaning to me. Bad looking and ugly looking is what i meant. But really, the bad cars may look ugly but they did perform. As for the ugly, well its just downright ugly.... :lol:
 
Too bad the new eco-friendly F1 won't be biodiesel... maybe they could have a F1D series for diesel powered cars...

I too would love to see Audi in F1. Is AWD against the rules? Probably too much weight and not enough room for the diff up front, but that could really make things interesting. I loved watching the Audis in the IMSA GTO races totally dominating. Really showed what AWD could do for on-road performance. Maybe the R10 will do the same for diesel, at least here in the USA where most people think diesel is for trucks

Current plans, if I'm not mistaken, are to have Turbocharged 1.x-litre Biodiesel-fueled V6s by 201x?

All-wheel drive is illegal, for very obvious reasons. In fact, even adding a differential-coupling to the front wheels in an attempt to increase traction under braking is forbidden (That's what Audi did in some small touring-car series which outlawed AWD). AWD basically deletes the need for traction-control. Even wet launches would be a breeze :indiff:

Physically, there's no problem with adding a 4WD system to an F1 car. It's the most advances motorsport in the world - if it's possible anywhere, it's possible there. It may be heavy, but Formula 1 cars are already built to weigh much below the minimum weight - some of the lightest weigh around 400-450KG without ballast! As such, while a system may cause problems with the handling (poorer control over the CoG), the benefits of an incredibly tractable car out of corners outweighs those problems.

If I'm not mistaken, attempts to toy around with 4WD go back to the '70s (yes, even before the Group B era), and I believe a Lotus once had a basic 4WD system, which was outlawed shortly after.
 
There were many attempts at 4WD in F1, but none of the cars ever really worked. In fact during one of Lotus’s attempts I believe Hill used the words “death trap” and refused to drive it again. But I digress…
 
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