I can’t quite hear them from my house in Brunswick. But they’re quite distinctly audible from the University of Melbourne, over 5 kilometres away and the other side of the CBD. The annual festival of the 120 decibel mosquito, otherwise known as the Formula One Grand Prix, is about to delight its attendees and annoy the heck out of most other Melburnians. Count me in the second category. We have one of the world’s great racetracks a couple of hours down the road at Phillip Island, with the beautiful ocean backdrop, a challenging, exciting layout, and great views for spectators. Why we spend $50 million a year running Formula One cars round the access roads of a pleasant inner-suburban park instead remains one of life’s great mysteries.
While the noise will remain, Formula One has undergone some fairly drastic changes since its last visit. The endless supply of cash, from car manufacturers, various developing-world tycoons, and, notably, the now-nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland, has shrunk considerably. Most dramatically, Honda ended its involvement in Formula One early this year. Consequently, the powers-that-be – and, whatever the organizational charts say, most of that power resides in the hands of Bernie Ecclestone – have changed the rules again to reduce costs and (hopefully) spice up the racing, in the hope that enough racing fans will continue to watch to pay the bills.
Mark Webber’s team, Red Bull, has made a nifty promotional video which explains the major changes:
Sebastian Vettel Explains 2009 F1 Rule Changes – Amazing videos are here
Essentially, the changed aerodynamic doodads reduce the amount of force pushing the car down on to the road, particularly at the rear. To partially compensate, the tyres are bigger, and don’t have grooves on them any more. The upshot of all this should be that Formula One cars don’t go round corners quite as fast, but, more importantly, they are less affected by the disturbance of the airflow made by cars in front of them. This should, theoretically, make overtaking easier. It remains to be seen how much effect this has – it’s been very difficult to overtake in Formula One since aerodynamics became key in the late 1970s. But it’s a nice idea, if it makes races like Monaco less of a procession.
Meanwhile, there has been an enforced halt on engine development, and engines now have to last three races instead of two. Both of these measures are supposed to reduce costs. By compensation, however, it’s now legal to run hybrid Formula One cars, which, like the Toyota Prius, capture energy when the car is slowing with a generator, and can use it to run an electric motor when the driver wants full power. This, however, is less technically interesting that it sounds, because the regulations restrict the maximum power that the electric motor is allowed to produce, and the length of time it can operate per lap. There’s not going to be a great deal of technical competition in the hybrid systems.
Another major change to the way Formula One works – the way the Drivers’ Championship was to be decided, has been abandoned at the last minute. In the past, drivers have been awarded points based on their finishing position after every race, with the winner getting 10 points , the second-place finisher 8, third getting 6, and so on down to their eighth placegetter receiving a single point. The Championship was awarded to the driver with the most points at the end of the season. The perceived problem with this scheme is that it encouraged conservative driving – why risk overtaking from second place, and potentially losing 8 points, when there’s only a two-point gain for winning? So, again, the powers-that-be proposed a change. The winner of the Championship would simply be the driver who wins the most races each season. This sounds appealing, but has a number of problems, most notably that the championship would often be decided far earlier in the season than presently. After howls of protest from the teams and drivers, the change has been postponed for a year. Frankly, they might be better off consulting some statisticians, economists, and perhaps even some experts in voting systems to put together a points system; no matter what they choose, the resulting system will never fully overcome the contradictory nature of many of the goals that such a system is lumbered with.
More than that, however, Formula One faces a conundrum that nobody in the sport seems prepared to openly admit. Formula One has always had the twin appeal of the best drivers in the world, battling it out in the most technologically advanced racing vehicles in the world. Allowing technological free rein, however, has meant that the small differences in driving ability are often dwarfed by the differences between the cars. But the current situation – where technological advances in the cars have been so heavily restricted – removes any pretence that Formula One is technologically innovative, still less that it has any remote relevance to the cars you and I actually drive.
While I certainly wouldn’t bother actually showing up at the track, I’ll probably watch the television coverage and hope for some exciting racing, not to mention hoping that Mark Webber (who is, incidentally, far more talented than is generally appreciated in Australia) has some atypically good luck. But perhaps it’s time for Formula One to drop the pretence of technical innovation entirely, give the drivers relatively low-cost, identical vehicles, and turn the event into a pure competition of the drivers rather than the wind tunnel testers.
Dinosaurs racing around in circles! Consider what happened to the last lot!
If you are comforted by knowing others share similar misery, you might reflect that not only do Gold Coasters have to put up with the Indy nonsense closing half the coastal strip for a week every year but here in the Northern Rivers we are to have a bloody international rally for the best part of a fortnight, excluding locals from a good chunk of Kingscliff and tearing up various national parks and small hinterland villages. All without any semblance of community consultation.
Ridiculous.
Tried and failed (see A1 grand prix).
Formula 1 was doomed as soon as the de-industrialisation of the west commenced in the 1960s. You can’t be nationalistic about your favourite driver when he’s aboard some Japanese branded car with italian engine built in the UK, or your favourite Italian made and built car is only ever driven by Germans.
In fact, I’d make the statement that any motor racing series that isn’t heavily grounded in some parochial and nationalistic aspect of country of origin is doomed to fail. Group A touring cars being the perfect model for failure, NASCAR being the perfect model for success.
MotoGP? Technically interesting, with such different bikes in competition, and compelling drama with the different personalities of the riders.
Maybe rallying too MH – my thesis clearly needs some work
At least it’s Melbourne Mosquitoes not Summergnats.
Yes, rallying can be good, although it’s a bit of a trainspotters sport and needs a lot of attention to follow.
There is something about legitimacy and authenticity in motorsport. F1 faces a legitimacy crisis, as Dr Merkel suggests, yet other forms, like “V8 Supercars” are wholly contrived but still retain an appeal.
Robert as for your point about racetracks I’m sure the rev heads would probably rather go to Phillip Island where they can stand on elevations and actually see the track – but they will go wherever the race is held.
The beautiful people sitting in the sponsor’s tent won’t make the journey to Sanddown though, let alone Phillip island. That is why they have to ruin Albert park for two months a year.
Helen wrote:
Awlright! SHOW US YER MOZZIE BITES!
I was living in Glenelg when the F1 circus arrived in Adelaide. I heard the first engine start up 15 kms away. Left town the next day.
Instead of limiting engine size, why don’t they limit the amount of fuel each car is allowed to consume in a race? That’d redirect the technical innovation towards fuel economy instead of simply performance
While I’m whining, we have jetboat racing about 5 km from where I live. It happens a couple of times a year. You can hear them quite clearly if the wind is in the right direction.
They go round and round a kind of moat doing time trials. Once an hour or so one flips over and the crowd excitement is intense. Otherwise they go round and round while a hyperactive commentator tried to convince everyone it’s exciting. Round and round they go. Round and round. Round and round … All the time making the most god-awful racket.
The guys wearing flanno in big 4WDs with rottweilers in the back just adore it.
Oh my goodness. Another opportunity to post this.
I’ve attended the race on a roughly bi-annual basis since 99. Last time, we stayed in St Kilda and actually spent a lot of time away from the track during the day as it was easy to come and go. What struck me as worse than the F1 cars was the FA-18s flying low over St Kilda, where the sound reverberated off every building, much loader than they appear when flying over the open space of Albert Park.
My uncle lives in Kent Town, which is within pain-threshold of where the F1 used to run and the V8 races still do. He generally spends the week in a cottage he owns near Bendigo.
Some dimmer-witted South Australians were heartbroken when Jeff Kennett “stole” our Grand Pricks – I’m one of the many who was delighted, and only wish that someone would steal the V8 Supercars as well.
Some interesting points discussing the different racing categories around the world.
The driver talent in A1GP is pretty obviously second and third-rate, particularly at the tail end of the field. You see more unprompted trips into the gravel traps on an A1GP telecast than the amateur club racing on Speedweek on SBS. Even amongst the more traditional motorsport nations, the A1GP drivers aren’t the best in those countries, or anywhere close to it.
If the F1 drivers were racing in A1GP and the stupid nationalistic aspects of it were removed, it’d be an entirely different kettle of fish. In fact, it’d be pretty much like a road course version of Indycar racing, which is pretty popular in the US (though not as popular as NASCAR).
Colin’s proposal for technical innovation is actually a pretty good one. The only problem is that the costs would rapidly spiral out of control, and nobody’s figured out how to make a salary cap work in F1, where so much of the expenditure can be hidden in engineering work which can then mysteriously appear in an email attachment.
This is what MotoGP has done over the last several years – from 25lt to 22 to now 20.
An opportunity to post this
Another way to sort it out would be to fix the courses. Instead of crash barriers just have walls to protect the spectators. That would give them an incentive to innovate in areas that matter to street drivers – safety and crashworthiness. Combine it with something to drop the speeds back to less than 200kph… perhaps give them a max CdA (which would affect fuel economy and downforce)
Moz: history suggests that drivers would still participate and would take crazy risks to win.
Until Jackie Stewart started kicking up a fuss, F1 drivers died in crashes on a regular basis.
This is one of those occasions when NSW Premier Rees scores. Actually twice in a week if you throw in the obscenity of Vic taxpayers contributing to Tiger Woods $3m golfing appearance fee. Brumby is looking distinctly tawdry from this north or the border perspective.
This is the same Premier Rees that has given the ok for a round of the V8 supercars to be based around the Olympic stadium?
Ah yes thewetmale forgot about that one. And it will mean chopping down an avenue of Araucaria cunninghamii (Hoop pines) that are just reaching a stage of significant growth. A plague on both men.
“This is the same Premier Rees that has given the ok for a round of the V8 supercars to be based around the Olympic stadium?”
He did say he’d rather have Brian Eno in town for three weeks than Tiger Woods for three days. Rees wins.
d
I’d been wondering why the rent on my St Kilda West apartment was so reasonable. Little sister has chosen a bad weekend to visit.
And it’s Townsville now on the V8 circuit. The locals were never asked, but an inner city park is being transformed into a permanent V8 race facility to be used for only 3 days a year, then mothballed for the other 362. Total cost? close to $50 million for the first 5 years – includes $1m per day subsidy from the Council and State Govt. The track includes a bridge over Ross Ck, cost believed to be $3m, which will include a pedestrian path for all year use – wow!! Residents have been assured that there will be NO NOISE. Council sponsored a Gold Coast restauranteur to come to Townsville to tell the local hotels and bars how to screw $$s out of race fans, on the assurance that for most it’s just an excuse for a 3-day party of noise and booze. 120 extra police are reportedly coming to help manage the crowds. Claims of an economic bonanza are repeatedly hyped but no actual evidence or accounting estimates have ever been published (all commercial in confidence, of course). Aaaarrgh!
Heh heh. Old and busted: monorails. New Hotness: Inner city motor racing.
I live in West St Kilda too. Lucky I’m deaf.
There is an upside future possibility. When the mosquitoes are powered
http://www.gizmag.com/nanoscale-supercapacitor/11297/
thus, they will be substatially quieter. And so will every thing else.
This technology is really big. Add that to the CSIRO’s (possible) printable solar panels, and the future starts to look entirely different. Peak Oil? Who cares!!
Bil: I hope this isn’t another EEStor…
Interesting stuff BilB.
Can I have one of these for my birthday?
http://www.gizmag.com/the-bmw-alpina-d3-bi-turbo/11300/
Of course we’ve only just discovered that Victorian taxpayers are paying almost $50M a year to that odd little corrupt shitstain bernie ecclestone. Let alone the cost every year of creating and removing a full track (which keeps a mate of mine fully employed for a large part of the year, so it’s not all bad).
The twelfth man (I think, or some other satirical Australian group in the late 80s) had it right, with their impersonation of one of the famous commentator “the cars are going round and round and round, and it’s sooo f*cking boring”.
me personally, I don’t know why motorbikes aren’t a lot more interesting for petrolheads – they’re much closer to real world tech, they overtake and have comprehensible tactics, they’re not controlled by an evil man, the riders have personalities and are very brave/mad.
“He did say he’d rather have Brian Eno in town for three weeks than Tiger Woods for three days. Rees wins.”
OMFG!!!WTF???!!
Okay, it’s official. NSW politics has turned the corner.
As do I, Robert. The difference here is that this group have announced the basis of their technology whereas EEstor kept it all under wraps. Here is hoping. Electric aircraft, my pasion area, are taking off (ha ha) even with the current technology, let alone massive improvements such as this promises. The future is looking pretty exciting if only 1 tenth of the tech advances work out. Everything is, however, pointing to an all electric (ha ha again but that time it was Carbonsink) future. So to labour the point even further, the foot dragging on alternatives is very distressing to anyone who adds these things together.
The CPRS was an attempt to offer a uniform approach to carbon emissions. But that attempt to cover all bases, I believe, will be the downfall of Australia’s contribution to the GWAE (abatement effort). I have very recently developed a passion for
http://images.google.com.au/images?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4ADBR_enAU212AU215&q=maldives+images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=MznIScOvEo6CkQXw7IzmAg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
and am right behind their new president in his declaration to become carbon neutral. That is REAL leadership. He will no doubt fail in many ways, but only on timing, not on final result.
to keep in touch with how they are progressing
http://www.maldiveschronicle.com/water-supply-stoppage-faulty-distribution/
I am facinated!!