She was probably my main reason for hating on him, cant stand her or what it made him. Now it turns out he's different to who i thought he was and we share something in common. He's ruled by his emotions and he isn't the confident guy many think he is, its a show, he blames himself for stuff all the time. You can guess his mental state based on his helmet design. I see something I didn't before, really warming up to him. Age and wisdom does great things.

Will find this documentary thanks Philip

 

I couldn't except maybe James Hunt he was a hot head who also enjoyed life beyond F1. Nor for Vettel or Alonso. All those guys are like machines with a single minded purpose.

I can respect them but never feel any support for them.

 

A few interesting rule changes announced but the one that grabbed my attention was 'double points for the last race'.

Are they running out of ideas??

 

Shit for drivers, good for spectators.

 

I can't believe they did that; very artificial. And Vettel still would have won 2013 before the last race.

I see they're having another go at a cost cap (from 2015).

 

Double points for the last race is just ridiculous. Dembo has the right word 'artificial'.

Can you imagine doubling the points for the last games in any other world championship (cricket, rugby etc). Why not just give no points at all during the year and give out points only on the last 1 or 2 races. Pathetic attempt from the FIA to inject some more action into the races because many of the other regulations have made it so tedious.

 

subscribing to this thread... You guys have a better tap on whats going on living in the UK

 

I would love to say yes, but things come in pretty fast from the web as it is!

The only thing we can offer is experience on the F1 circuit as a lot of us have been watching F1 for decades.

We still usually disagree

 

I get the logic of it. The teams looks at the points available and once it hits a certain point in the season and the maths mean victory is either impossible or unlikely write the year off and focus on the following year rather than battling to the end.

Arbitrarily saying the last race is just worth double though is a rash measure. The fact is if a team, say oh I don't know Red Bull end up with a car a second a lap faster than everyone and that gap can't be closed then the teams will still do the same because they won't know far ahead of schedule enough if Brazil will be a wet race that levels the playing field.

The fact is no handicapping is working against the Red Bull team. Every attempt at taking away the car features they are gaining the advantage with is met by more innovative work arounds by them while the other teams scratch their heads.

All of next years aero changes are with the intention of stripping their advantage and levelling things out. And the first few races it may have an effect. Then once the actual track running begins and they can put their theories into practice they bolt off into the distance.

Rule stability is what's needed because change just lets guys like Newey flex his brain muscles. This year for instance saw Merc, Ferrari and Lotus close the gap somewhat until they gave up on the season. Imagine if these rules had a few more years in them so that the teams didn't abandon the current car because it's development was still of use for next season?

McLaren shot them self in the foot with a brand new design during such stable rules.

 

What Philip said. New rules tend to shake things up for a while, but then typically by half way through the season the teams have got on top of them. Next year is a pretty big change though, bigger than has been seen for a long long time, and in particular the clever exhaust systems are gone and that's where Newey was so good and Vettel so good at being able to extract the best from them (unlike Webber obviously). So I think it's too early to say. Plus, those engines are going to fail a lot more, which at least means it's not likely one driver is going to win all the time.

I think the double points thing will go away. It's probably going to be universally panned by drivers, fans and journalists alike, and then we'll see the FIA backtrack. I wonder how much this is Jean Todt; he's been a pretty low key FIA president, certainly compared to Max Mosely, but now he's been re-elected maybe he's flexing his muscles.

Rule stability helps the smaller teams catch up, because the big teams have much more resources to throw at a rule change. Potentially a cost cap could change that, if it turns out to be meaningful.

I wonder if what they should do is ban all in season development. So the car you have at the first race is the car you race all year. That would massively cut costs, as well as cancelling out this idea of giving up on the current year and focusing on the next. But arguably that's not really Formula 1.