Present F1 cars and reliability

[Josti]

Jarno Trulli argues that perfect reliability is bad for F1 - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/92703)

Jarno has an opinion again, but I happen to find it an excellent point this time.

"Between 10 and 15 years ago, when I started racing (in F1), a driver knew how he'd start a race, but wouldn't know how he would finish it. In fact, he didn't even know whether he would finish it. Nowadays, instead, reliability has become ordinary: cars have four wheels and are reliable."

That's the thing that strikes me too. That dramatic element, the unexpected, is imo such a miss in present f1. What's your opinion? It's weird, if not impossible to do something about this, but should they?

[foxystoat]

Yes let them have as many engines as they like & rev them as high as they want. All this dumbing down to save money means GP2 cars are nearly as fast now. If they want to rev to 22000rpm plus but risk blowing up let them have a go !

[Rollo]

I think that it's bad for the development of engines to limit the amount of revs they can run to.

Part of the point of winding up an engine as hard as you possibly can is to extract more and more power out of the engine. By getting more power out of a smaller engine it inadvertently drives the chase for increased efficiencies.
Also, it's only really by testing something to the point where something does break that designers learn where the new boundaries lie. By staying well inside the boundaries, there is little need to push harder in this aspect.

[555-04Q2]

For once Jarno is right :up:

It is rediculous how reliable the cars are today. I miss the big old plumes of smoke when an engine lets go :(

[Mark]

Yep. Used to be you weren't sure until the car crossed the line that they would make it to the end of the race.

The engine freeze has always been stupid anyway, as has the rev limit.

[steveaki13]

It seems strange but I too wish there were more retirements.

Undo this cost saving and let engines rev as high as they want, and let drivers use as many as they like.

Also they always say now since Parc Ferme rules began in around 2003, realiability has been a lot better. Let teams tinker with the cars to risk a better set up and pay through maybe less realiability.

[steveaki13]

On a similar note I was watching a 1990 GP yesterday and in the 1st 10 laps 2 retired through a collision, 2 had mechanical failures and we had 1 retire through a spin. As well as that 4 drivers spun and rejoined.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that todays cars are not as difficult to drive as back then, leading me to think that as well as more stable cars today, maybe these fuel rules, engine regs and aero issues mean the drivers are never on edge and pushing the limit as in years past. All of which is a shame.

It may make me a bad person, but I preferred the days when it was more unpredictable, and Minardi's could occasionally finish 5th. Those odd days were magic.

I find all 24 cars finishing as a sign of many just crusing round looking after the car.