Standing Restart Rule is Live: Discuss

[TenEightyOne]

So, how will this be implemented? Will they keep lapping as they do know, and when the safety car goes in they will go to their start position?

I presume it'll be like a red-flag restart with the cars on the grid in their running order.

I like the idea of this as a spectacle and I think people will quickly get used to it. My worry is that we'll be much more likely to see failures during restarts, the consequences of coming up on a stalled car are horrible as we used to see quite regularly. Don't want to go back there.

 

[Dennisch]

But with that scenario they will have to scramble the crew onto the starting grid. I can't see that happening let's say 3 times in a race.

Stupid rule. Stupid FIA.

 

[DK]

They keep coming up with these ideas that make it seem as if Vince McMahon filled in for Jean Todt.

Here's an idea - reduce dependence on aerodynamic grip at the front. It makes the loss of downforce due to dirty air less severe.

 

[BlacqueJacques]

How will cars perform being heated up at the grid more than once; will there be more false starts? Just some questions that come to mind on the idea of re-starts.

 

[VRracingfan]

It's another ridiculous idea by Formula One to spice up the show which wasn't needed at all. Get rid of DRS, get rid of double points, get rid of artificial spark blocks and get rid of this rule too. Free up the engine regulations, reduce the downforce, give the cars bigger and more durable tyres, redistribute the amount of prize money and stop Bernie running away with half of it, go to some better circuits (and stop ripping them all off too), bring back gravel traps and then let the drivers race.
Nothing exciting has come from artificially trying to spice things up. You'll always get bad races in a season, just let them race fairly and you should get an enticing competition most of the time.

Edit: I have slightly changed my mind on gravel traps. They should be used when possible but at certain times they can be more dangerous than tarmac (Burti at Spa 2001). Tungsten should be used if gravel traps aren't suitable for a particular area where there is a possibility of drivers abusing track limits. Drivers should be punished for breaking rules in regards to track limits. Thanks for likes by the way, it's nice to know that a lot of other people are also getting sick of the direction F1 is heading in.

 

[Furinkazen]

Genuinely the most retarded (hope that word isn't against AUP) idea I have heard in a long time. F1 has had some half decent events this year but gimmicks are killing it. It's like an international NASCAR now (and I say that as a follower of both for many years)

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

It's a stupid rule just like many other rules in that past couple years...

 

[aarror]

Why oh why couldn't Ari Vatanen have won the FIA presidential race? (Oh wait, He was forced to withdraw leaving Todt with no competition)

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I'll give it a shot, see how it goes but I am a bit sceptical. I'd be on board with a modified version of restart procedure V8 Supercars were using earlier this season, which had the cars travelling at 80(?)kph in double file and the leader couldn't accelerate until they reached a designated acceleration zone just before the start/finish line. Only I'd have the train of cars travelling in single file, rather than double.

 

[Ninners]

I don't really understand the upside of this rule.

 

[spacecowboy73]

Get rid of DRS, get rid of double points, get rid of artificial spark blocks and get rid of this rule too. Free up the engine regulations, reduce the downforce, give the cars bigger and more durable tyres, redistribute the amount of prize money and stop Bernie running away with half of it, go to some better circuits (and stop ripping them all off too), bring back gravel traps and then let the drivers race.

Is this too much to ask for? This is what I would like to see as well. 👍

It's kind of sad to me that they finally have some new power plants to experiment with but once the season starts most of the engine can't be changed so the grid gets locked in to a pecking order as we're seeing this year, and Renault saying don't expect any big improvement until next season.

 

[spacecowboy73]

I'll give it a shot, see how it goes but I am a bit sceptical. I'd be on board with a modified version of restart procedure V8 Supercars were using earlier this season, which had the cars travelling at 80(?)kph in double file and the leader couldn't accelerate until they reached a designated acceleration zone just before the start/finish line. Only I'd have the train of cars travelling in single file, rather than double.

That's what Indycar is using this season, singe file as well.

 

[FormulaKimball]

I vote for "stupid idea" as well. Why? Besides the obvious (unnecessarily reintroducing a dangerous element to the race that is good enough only appearing at the START), let's just say when I'm watching a race with any series, if there are frequent yellow flags and especially yellows that breed more yellows (e.g. NASCAR) or really stupid crashes that take out half the field (e.g. IndyCar) I'm extremely likely to bellow "this is Bull:censored:" and switch off the race. Please don't do that to F1... it has endured enough artificial crap already that places one of your feet out the door...

If they go back to grid restarts I think they should also be allowed to use a spare car

 

[Gerarghini]

Doesn't this defeat the point of the safety car? If the drivers have to just drive back to their grid starts then where does the safety car come in?

This doesn't sound like a good idea. Someone's gonna dive bomb the first corner with a 50/50 chance of a clear or a crash.

 

[evilserpentman]

This is a daft idea. But, something tells me they drank some of NASCAR's kool-aid and decided that they needed to inject some simpleton forms of excitement. Forgive me for being a little callous, but it seems that these changes are designed to bring in non-motorsports fans or the general American motorsports fan (which, yes, I'm saying NASCAR).

Here's the thing though, if they wanted to do this, use the V8 Supercar formula. Whilst yes, in the V8SC it doesn't really work because of how small the tracks are, that's not a problem for most F1 circuits which could easily have side-by-side restarts.

But honestly, I'm hoping we're just in a dip, which F1 has been in before (eg the turbo monsters got too fast, the V10s got too fast).

At the end of the day, at least F1 doesn't have the Chase.

 

[mikeerfol]

https://twitter.com/tgruener/statuses/494049865669042177/

Phew!

 

[prisonermonkeys]

I'll believe that when I see it. Bernie might carry a lot of clout, but he has no power to change the regulations directly - after all, he vehemently opposed the new engines, but failed to get the regulations canned.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Ignore. Failed to read the entire thread.

 

[DQuaN]

The thread title is a little misleading. It suggest that the rule is in place now.

 

[TenEightyOne]

As @prisonermonkeys said, just because Bernie's said it doesn't mean it's going to happen.

Bernie hates not being talked about and always manages to keep the ball visibly in the air whether he's got any real news or not.

My worry is still safety. Currently there are very unlikely to be cars that take an F1 standing-start with gearboxes or engines that teams know might be about to expire.

Can you say the same after 50 laps of Monza?

Here's Schumacher and Burti at the start of a race, Schumacher loses shifts and Burti doesn't see him until it's too late.

Later in the same season Burti had his massive 180-mph head-on smash at Blanchimont, Spa. Ironically I saw last week that he was reunited with the helmet that saved his life, the next story down was a #keepfightingmichael article

 

[zed300]

The temps under the engine covers will sky rocket while waiting for the tailenders to get into position.
Tyre deg and temp plummets are contributers too.
All the point scorers before a restart could potentially all have DNF's due to this. Hardly entertaining.

Or are they all stopping on the grid, like a red flag situation, allowing the teams onto the track to care for the cars and change tyres.

None of this seems fair in any form.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Or are they all stopping on the grid, like a red flag situation, allowing the teams onto the track to care for the cars and change tyres.

I think they'll roll around behind the safety car and the roll onto the grid for the restart in their race positions. I doubt it'll be a full-stop engine-off mechanics-on-grid red flag situation, it would just take too long.

Hopefully at the same time they'll figure out a more effective way to get lapped cars to the back of the pack. I can understand why they do it the way they do (it's distance-related) but it just seems really clumsy.

 

[ukfan758]

Did FOM/FIA hire Brian France from NASCAR to make all of these changes? Seriously, the sport is becoming more and more gimmicky by the day. Get rid of the standing start restarts; get rid of the double points; get rid of the artificial spark machines; get rid of DRS; quit building tilkedromes; quit going to venues/countries that have little to absolutely no interest in F1 (aka India, Abu Dhabi, Azerbaijan, etc) while refusing to go places like France, Argentina, South Africa, Portugal, Denmark, etc; quit butchering tracks by completely or partially reconfiguring them (Mexico f1 track, Red Bull Ring, Spa (butchered bus stop chicane) Silverstone, Hockingheimring) when the tracks configurations could have been saved just by adding bigger run off areas; quit banning and condemning innovation (FRIC, double DRS (though I hate DRS, it was innovation with the double part), 2014 wings banned next year, etc.); allow the teams to spend as much as they want; reduce the entry cost of F1; allow all innovation; bring back the 90's-2000's style chassis; get rid of fuel flow limits and fuel tank sizes regs; allow refueling (it's 2014, many racing series have refueling, it's very safe now); get rid of these gimmicky Pirelli tires; let 100% of the prize money go to the teams, not Bernie; quit forcing tracks to pay outrageous fees to hold an F1 race (high fees make high ticket prizes, which most likely causes low attendance); quit crying safety for EVERY damn thing (something's are ok, other things are just ridiculous) ; replace Charlie Whiting, who waits 2 minutes to deploy a safety car after someone has flipped (Bahrain 2014) but yet deploys one instantly for Sutil's minor crash at the US GP last year; quit making F1 a pay tv sport, put it back on free to air/network tv like BBC, ITV, 7, 9, NBC, ABC, CBS, CBC; finally, quit blocking F1 Youtube videos (FOM is so stupid, they think it "harms their image", it actually improves it, by exposing F1 to more people). Sorry for the long rant, it had to be done after seeing that approval.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Or they could, you know, actually fix the problem - force the teams to stop spending $200 million a year (and stop them from pretending that $2 million in savings is "cost cutting").

Why do you think all of these controversial changes get approved? It's because there id less wheel-to-wheel racing. The FIA and FOM recognise the need for change, but the teams vehemently oppose any rules, be they sporting or technical, that might rob them of any advantage they already have.

The problem isn't the organisers; it's the competitors. Look at Mercedes - they were said to be spending $7 million to develop their FRIC system. For a team like Marussia or Caterham, that's more than 10% of their annual budget being spent on a system that MIGHT have been worth two tenths of a second.

 

[mustafur]

Or they could, you know, actually fix the problem - force the teams to stop spending $200 million a year (and stop them from pretending that $2 million in savings is "cost cutting").

Why do you think all of these controversial changes get approved? It's because there id less wheel-to-wheel racing. The FIA and FOM recognise the need for change, but the teams vehemently oppose any rules, be they sporting or technical, that might rob them of any advantage they already have.

The problem isn't the organisers; it's the competitors. Look at Mercedes - they were said to be spending $7 million to develop their FRIC system. For a team like Marussia or Caterham, that's more than 10% of their annual budget being spent on a system that MIGHT have been worth two tenths of a second.

Its not going to happen when they only give the Wealthy teams the voice, imo all teams shouldn't have a voice or if so limited badly as they are only going to act on self interest at the expense of others.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

imo all teams shouldn't have a voice or if so limited badly as they are only going to act on self interest at the expense of others.

They did have a voice. The big teams simply pressured them into voting in favour of changes they wanted - usually by offering to forgive debt on engine and gearbox deals - because they knew that they had the numbers to force changes in the sport. Why else do you think the FIA cut small teams out of the Strategy Working Group? They wanted to reduce the bargaining power of the bigger teams by cutting out the smaller ones who were only being bullied into agreeing to the changes.

 

[ukfan758]

Or they could, you know, actually fix the problem - force the teams to stop spending $200 million a year (and stop them from pretending that $2 million in savings is "cost cutting").

Why do you think all of these controversial changes get approved? It's because there id less wheel-to-wheel racing. The FIA and FOM recognise the need for change, but the teams vehemently oppose any rules, be they sporting or technical, that might rob them of any advantage they already have.

The problem isn't the organisers; it's the competitors. Look at Mercedes - they were said to be spending $7 million to develop their FRIC system. For a team like Marussia or Caterham, that's more than 10% of their annual budget being spent on a system that MIGHT have been worth two tenths of a second.

Well the teams who don't have the money can get out, OR you can drastically reduce the entry fee just to go into F1 (doesn't the entry fee cost more than all of the prize money for the last place team?). Thus, the backmarkers would have a lot more available funds to use. It's sad how people who are successful are supposed to be punished. We need to quit being so worried about other people's money.

 

[FormulaKimball]

I don't know how accurate this was, but it was an interesting read. Mainly to see that an F1 team's budget is largely taken up by staff costs (including drivers) and the engine costs. 50% to engines, and anywhere from 25-40% on staff salaries. So imagine the monumental hit to the one part of teams' budgets that costs the most... generally I've read that going back to the V6 turbos increased engine costs by 50%. If your budget is 200million *pounds* and half of that is engines, holy crap...

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...t-1-money-money-money-the-fuel-of-formula-one

That's the thing that was cool about the previous turbo era - you didn't HAVE to run one if you didn't want to, you could have an equivalent NA engine (3.0l vs. 1.5l for turbo). So the backmarker teams with a lot less money could try to be competitive using something else that cost less and might be more relevant to them as a manufacturer. To me this is a big part of looking at F1 history as "the good ol' days", that even as recently as 1994 you were still allowed to use several engine layouts (V8, V10, V12) as long as they were 3.5l.

I agree with the comments in here that these silly rule changes fool no one - trying to "spice up the show" with hollow BS when they're so busy squashing every tech advance that could actually improve anything, or making the few things they allow so arbitrary (e.g. DRS) when it would have been cooler to let people use them however and whenever they like. How cool would it be if you could reduce drag (and not only at the rear) anywhere that suited the circuit? We'd all get to watch wings constantly popping open and closed.

When we keep having our attention drawn toward race control and the stewards and the bozos at the FIA rather than the drivers and their cars, no wonder people find it boring or contrary to the sporting interest.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Well the teams who don't have the money can get out, OR you can drastically reduce the entry fee just to go into F1 (doesn't the entry fee cost more than all of the prize money for the last place team?). Thus, the backmarkers would have a lot more available funds to use. It's sad how people who are successful are supposed to be punished. We need to quit being so worried about other people's money.

That's not a long-term solution. Giving the teams more money does nothing except delay the problem - in a few years, we'll be back here having the same discussion. The teams need to be spending less, not more.

Also, the entry fee is scaled to points scored. In the case of a new team like Haas, it's considerably higher, but it's treated like a bond - a guarantee that they will be around for several years (it's to stop teams who clearly shouldn't be there from getting on the grid). They get it back after that time is up.

 

[ShiftingGears]

It would be a stUpid idea. Bunching the cars up under current Safety Car regulations already increases the chances of an accident (and subsequent safety car) enough already. THe problem with F1 is that these ideas are prioritised over improving F1s online presence, merchandising or keeping a free-to-air presence.