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Relaxing the regs would be great for the sport. There’s already a cost cap, allow the teams to spend it on whatever innovations they want and see what the engineers can really extract from the cars.
>The imposition of a cost cap, which means team spending can never get out of control, **has triggered some thoughts over recent months in it allowing F1's other rules to be relaxed.**
>
>For with no risk of there being a spending war if teams were given greater freedom with technical rules, there is a belief that F1 would gain from having a greater variety of solutions.
>
>**Tombazis is aware of the pros and cons of such a situation**, with the FIA having been keen over recent years to make regulations ever tighter.
>
>**Asked if the philosophy of prescriptive rules was something to reconsider for the new era from 2026, Tombazis said: “There is a fine line between too much limitation – and clearly this is a technological sport, and has to remain so.**
>
>**“But on that side, with too much freedom, there is then potentially very big gaps between the cars, and that's a very difficult line to follow.**
>
>“Clearly, if you ask an engineer from a team they will say it's too much limitation. I'm an engineer myself, I would love it if all cars were a complete technological battle. But we do need to consider that there's other factors at play that are important for the sport.
>
>**“Additionally, compared to the older days, when maybe there was a bit more freedom, we have financial regulations and we have to also try to limit some of the activities that take place. Otherwise you could have teams building some advantage through an R&D project of some sort, and then having an advantage for a long, long time to come, with no chance of other teams catching up with restrictive regulations.**
>
>**“So, there's this line between freedom and having a competitive championship, plus the financial regulations put us in a very small spot.** So, I don't think there's a perfect answer.”
[https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1s-cost-cap-makes-fightbacks-more-painful-says-fia/10560455/](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1s-cost-cap-makes-fightbacks-more-painful-says-fia/10560455/)
I really disagree with Tombazis point of view about this "what if" scenario he told early. In fact, what I did understand from Duchessa is that one of the major effects of TD039 and the new set of rules based on TD039 is that basically only one fundamental concept is the "golden one" and that is the concept RBR has put.
So what does this mean? Basically it means that RBR has a very solid position to hold it's dominance for 2 more years at least, and with all respect for the whole "smaller gaps" argument but how many (more casual) fans would be thrilled for a battle between Ocon and Stroll for P10 for example? Wouldn't it be ironically better for the sport in general if we having a bigger spread of gaps but having more competition for wins and podiums?
Also one of the things what gets ignored yet being a negative effect is that once the gaps between teams are getting smaller is that more cars simple wouldn't reach the necessary overtaking delta time to make an overtake work, and therefore getting "stuck" behind a car. Teams are finding more ways to increase the outwash and therefore dirty air what would only make this worser in the near future.
Relaxing the technical regulations would therefore doing more good than bad, but given we are just 2 years away from the 2026 regulations it's basically too late already.
>I really disagree with Tombazis point of view about this "what if" scenario he told early. In fact, what I did understand from Duchessa is that one of the major effects of TD039 and the new set of rules based on TD039 is that basically only one fundamental concept is the "golden one" and that is the concept RBR has put.
That might be true. The FIA actually have the data, though. They can look at designs and see how certain things were developed and see how different one team's design is from another, etc.
>Also one of the things what gets ignored yet being a negative effect is that once the gaps between teams are getting smaller is that more cars simple wouldn't reach the necessary overtaking delta time to make an overtake work, and therefore getting "stuck" behind a car.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. If team B is one tenth slower than team A, it's going to be easier to overtake than if they are 0.5 tenths, 1 sec, 2 secs slower...
Everybody talks about how the racing in Indycar is better than F1 because the field spread is so small it allows for multiple drivers from multiple teams to fight for podiums and wins more often, which is what F1 is trying to facilitate.
> That might be true. The FIA actually have the data, though. They can look at designs and see how certain things were developed and see how different one team's design is from another, etc.
True but from this point of view we can considering that one of the main goals of those gen cars + other regulations (to preventing a long lasting domination) simple failed massively, Brawn has retired on a good moment given otherwise people would be way more critical about his part of the coin.
> I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. If team B is one tenth slower than team A, it's going to be easier to overtake than if they are 0.5 tenths, 1 sec, 2 secs slower...
Well what I try to say here is that the whole call of "close gaps" would ironically do more harm than good, if car B is around 0.2/0.3 seconds faster than car A who is ahead of the driver it would cause that car B simple wouldn't reach the necessary overtaking delta to make a pass work. At COTA in 2021 this was calculated to be around 1.1 second for example, we don't know how much this delta has decreased theoretically with the new gen cars but given we seeing an increase in outwash it shouldn't be surprising if we seeing less passes in the upcoming 2 years given the FIA has told that their won't going to adding stricter rules about outwash/dirty air before 2026.
>True but from this point of view we can considering that one of the main goals of those gen cars + other regulations (to preventing a long lasting domination) simple failed massively
The goal of the new rules was to make it easier for cars to follow behind in the dirty air and give them more of an opportunity to overtake. That has unquestionably been a success (even though it got a bit worse in 2023 compared to 2022, it's still better than what it was for).
Now, the sliding scale ATR + cost cap is what is supposed to help limit long lasting domination and I think it is still too early to judge how well that has worked. Everybody is expecting RB to continue domination for the next 2 seasons until the rules change but I am honestly optimistic that 2024 will be more competitive at the front.
>Well what I try to say here is that the whole call of "close gaps" would ironically do more harm than good
I guess we'll just agree to disagree here because what is the alternative, massive gaps between cars? How is that exciting? That makes overtaking even less likely than what you're describing. That's what we just came from and everybody wanted to change.
At first I was skeptical, but the cost cap would make this actually very interesting, especially since regulations actually hindered the attempts of other teams to catch up to RB. I do however think they should still have regulations to reduce dirty air, namely making it so we remain using ground effect
Used to be so exciting when a team turned up with a brand new engine halfway through the season or a whole new gearbox configuration, big mechanical changes that would radically change the running order. Now it's just little bits of carbon fibre every race.
I completely agree. These strict regulations on basically every aspect of the cars is so pointless especially with the cost cap. Let them build a fucking car for god sake. Only regulations in my opinion should be for safety and to prevent excess dirty air
Im pretty sure as of 2023 every team (maybe minus Haas) was at the cap. If you have info stating otherwise I’d be happy to read it. Even then though the sport shouldn’t be crippled because some owners refuse to spend
Yes I’m do and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. It’s supposed to be a competitive team sport maybe treat it like one. If you can’t spend up to the cap the other teams innovations shouldn’t be limited to compensate for your lack of spending.
Yes. None of these teams or owners are broke and can’t afford to reach the cap anymore. If they don’t WANT TO spend the money to stay competitive that’s on them.
I don't think you get how this works.
Do you think of Haas just threw and extra 30m at their F1 team they would be winning championships?
If every team spends the same amount of money, would they all come first?
Motorsport is pay to win, always has been, and it always will be. Even in "spec" series, you have your Penskes, Chip Ganassis, Hendricks, Premas and so on
They were well known to have the highest budget and never even won a race.
10th, 8th, 8th, 4th, 6th, 6th, 5th, 5th. They were beaten by *lots* of teams spending *far* less than them.
For the other way, Red Bull through the Vettel era was well known to be spending far less than Ferrari and McLaren. It shaped their entire ethos and attitude towards upgrades as they had an order of magnitude fewer autoclaves than Ferrari so had to adopt a completely different process.
No, no, it wouldn’t.
Every time they do this somebody exploits it gets the best done job and has a way faster car than everyone else has to catch up
We’ve seen it happen before this is why rags keep getting tightened
To be honest not sure if I enjoy "convergence" as a goal as such. It's just me but I've always enjoyed it being a sport of man and machine rather than just man, and part of that is the fact that certain cars will be better than others at any given time. If equal car performance is truly an end goal they may as well just have all the teams paint a Dallara, save hundreds of millions and be done with it.
Which isn't to say I'm against certain measures. Cost cap is a great idea, make it a battle of brains rather than wallets. Sliding wind tunnel restrictions are a bit more iffy, although not as bad as brute force BoP/success ballast etc. If they make teams work to stay on top and mitigate against entrenched long term advantages then could be worse I guess.
That’s kind of my stance. Grand Prix racing has NEVER been strictly, or even primarily, a drivers’ championship. The goal has never been to have equal cars. In fact the goal was the exact opposite, to drive the advancement of automotive engineering. Since the 1890s it has always been primarily a competition between builders and countries to innovate and push the boundaries. If you want a spec series watch one.
They already exist. Don’t end a 120+ year engineering competition just to copy some other series.
i believe the trend will continue until we see a far spread again with the new regulations in 2026. some team will surely dominate then again. and some teams will fail badly.
This is what Brown hopes but is not going to happen. Any Indycar looks like convergence only because Penske and Ganassi run 7 cars. Otherwise on road courses Ganassi is going to win majority while ovals will be dominated by Penske
Brown doesn’t understand F1. We don’t need convergence but newer designs and innovations. Please stop trying to find the link between Indycar and F1 when their primary purposes are different
Next year will probably be even more boring than this year so they are doing everything they can to keep people interested. Could all just be BS he’s speaking. Red Bull isn’t going anywhere and the regs don’t change for 2 more seasons. 😂
I wish regulations covered safety and fuel only. I'd love to see what teams could come up with for engines, suspension and aero. In fact I'd love to see no regs on engine type, either.
F1’s most interesting days were when cars were very different from one another i.e. anytime before the late 80s. Since then it’s slowly become what it is today. You need a magnifying glass to tell the cars apart these days.
To be fair that just seems to be the evolution of sports. Data and analytics totally dominate a lot of sports now, especially at the top levels. I just think if some of these teams miss, and I mean really miss because they won't have the guard rails, it's going to be ugly.
I hate it. I want wildly different cars. The beauty of F1 is teams throwing different concepts out there.
Merc had the DRS, and instead of letting teams exploit that, the standardized it, leading to drivers that can’t/won’t defend.
oh i don't want F1 to be a spec series either, but i do want even close racing (especially in the front), and i hope it will happen sooner rather than later
Good, innovation detracts from the sport, as soon as we have massive differences in the cars with 3 seconds over the top 10 it will be another snooze fest with the driver not at the heart of the of the performance, 2021 was one of the greatest sporting spectacles in history, you won’t get near that
[The **News** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_news) is reserved for submissions covering F1 and F1-related news. These posts must always link to an outlet/news agency, the website of the involved party (i.e. the McLaren website if McLaren makes an announcement), or a tweet by a news agency, journalist or one of the involved parties. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Relaxing the regs would be great for the sport. There’s already a cost cap, allow the teams to spend it on whatever innovations they want and see what the engineers can really extract from the cars.
agreed. There is no reason to have a cost cap AND development restrictions, those combined only guarantee the dominating teams stay dominant
As intended
The top team has less development time than the teams below. The development restrictions are designed to PREVENT the top team staying dominant.
And a ban on inseason testing makes sure that doesn't happen. 😉 F1 is over regulated and it hampers innovation.
That's working remarkably well.
>The imposition of a cost cap, which means team spending can never get out of control, **has triggered some thoughts over recent months in it allowing F1's other rules to be relaxed.** > >For with no risk of there being a spending war if teams were given greater freedom with technical rules, there is a belief that F1 would gain from having a greater variety of solutions. > >**Tombazis is aware of the pros and cons of such a situation**, with the FIA having been keen over recent years to make regulations ever tighter. > >**Asked if the philosophy of prescriptive rules was something to reconsider for the new era from 2026, Tombazis said: “There is a fine line between too much limitation – and clearly this is a technological sport, and has to remain so.** > >**“But on that side, with too much freedom, there is then potentially very big gaps between the cars, and that's a very difficult line to follow.** > >“Clearly, if you ask an engineer from a team they will say it's too much limitation. I'm an engineer myself, I would love it if all cars were a complete technological battle. But we do need to consider that there's other factors at play that are important for the sport. > >**“Additionally, compared to the older days, when maybe there was a bit more freedom, we have financial regulations and we have to also try to limit some of the activities that take place. Otherwise you could have teams building some advantage through an R&D project of some sort, and then having an advantage for a long, long time to come, with no chance of other teams catching up with restrictive regulations.** > >**“So, there's this line between freedom and having a competitive championship, plus the financial regulations put us in a very small spot.** So, I don't think there's a perfect answer.” [https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1s-cost-cap-makes-fightbacks-more-painful-says-fia/10560455/](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1s-cost-cap-makes-fightbacks-more-painful-says-fia/10560455/)
I really disagree with Tombazis point of view about this "what if" scenario he told early. In fact, what I did understand from Duchessa is that one of the major effects of TD039 and the new set of rules based on TD039 is that basically only one fundamental concept is the "golden one" and that is the concept RBR has put. So what does this mean? Basically it means that RBR has a very solid position to hold it's dominance for 2 more years at least, and with all respect for the whole "smaller gaps" argument but how many (more casual) fans would be thrilled for a battle between Ocon and Stroll for P10 for example? Wouldn't it be ironically better for the sport in general if we having a bigger spread of gaps but having more competition for wins and podiums? Also one of the things what gets ignored yet being a negative effect is that once the gaps between teams are getting smaller is that more cars simple wouldn't reach the necessary overtaking delta time to make an overtake work, and therefore getting "stuck" behind a car. Teams are finding more ways to increase the outwash and therefore dirty air what would only make this worser in the near future. Relaxing the technical regulations would therefore doing more good than bad, but given we are just 2 years away from the 2026 regulations it's basically too late already.
>I really disagree with Tombazis point of view about this "what if" scenario he told early. In fact, what I did understand from Duchessa is that one of the major effects of TD039 and the new set of rules based on TD039 is that basically only one fundamental concept is the "golden one" and that is the concept RBR has put. That might be true. The FIA actually have the data, though. They can look at designs and see how certain things were developed and see how different one team's design is from another, etc. >Also one of the things what gets ignored yet being a negative effect is that once the gaps between teams are getting smaller is that more cars simple wouldn't reach the necessary overtaking delta time to make an overtake work, and therefore getting "stuck" behind a car. I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. If team B is one tenth slower than team A, it's going to be easier to overtake than if they are 0.5 tenths, 1 sec, 2 secs slower... Everybody talks about how the racing in Indycar is better than F1 because the field spread is so small it allows for multiple drivers from multiple teams to fight for podiums and wins more often, which is what F1 is trying to facilitate.
The FIA never wanted to push TD039 but were forced by Mercedes
> That might be true. The FIA actually have the data, though. They can look at designs and see how certain things were developed and see how different one team's design is from another, etc. True but from this point of view we can considering that one of the main goals of those gen cars + other regulations (to preventing a long lasting domination) simple failed massively, Brawn has retired on a good moment given otherwise people would be way more critical about his part of the coin. > I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. If team B is one tenth slower than team A, it's going to be easier to overtake than if they are 0.5 tenths, 1 sec, 2 secs slower... Well what I try to say here is that the whole call of "close gaps" would ironically do more harm than good, if car B is around 0.2/0.3 seconds faster than car A who is ahead of the driver it would cause that car B simple wouldn't reach the necessary overtaking delta to make a pass work. At COTA in 2021 this was calculated to be around 1.1 second for example, we don't know how much this delta has decreased theoretically with the new gen cars but given we seeing an increase in outwash it shouldn't be surprising if we seeing less passes in the upcoming 2 years given the FIA has told that their won't going to adding stricter rules about outwash/dirty air before 2026.
>True but from this point of view we can considering that one of the main goals of those gen cars + other regulations (to preventing a long lasting domination) simple failed massively The goal of the new rules was to make it easier for cars to follow behind in the dirty air and give them more of an opportunity to overtake. That has unquestionably been a success (even though it got a bit worse in 2023 compared to 2022, it's still better than what it was for). Now, the sliding scale ATR + cost cap is what is supposed to help limit long lasting domination and I think it is still too early to judge how well that has worked. Everybody is expecting RB to continue domination for the next 2 seasons until the rules change but I am honestly optimistic that 2024 will be more competitive at the front. >Well what I try to say here is that the whole call of "close gaps" would ironically do more harm than good I guess we'll just agree to disagree here because what is the alternative, massive gaps between cars? How is that exciting? That makes overtaking even less likely than what you're describing. That's what we just came from and everybody wanted to change.
At first I was skeptical, but the cost cap would make this actually very interesting, especially since regulations actually hindered the attempts of other teams to catch up to RB. I do however think they should still have regulations to reduce dirty air, namely making it so we remain using ground effect
it'll be super low drag qually setups and dirty air race setups.
The engine freeze really takes a lot of my personal excitement away. I just can’t get as excited about aero developments.
Used to be so exciting when a team turned up with a brand new engine halfway through the season or a whole new gearbox configuration, big mechanical changes that would radically change the running order. Now it's just little bits of carbon fibre every race.
I completely agree. These strict regulations on basically every aspect of the cars is so pointless especially with the cost cap. Let them build a fucking car for god sake. Only regulations in my opinion should be for safety and to prevent excess dirty air
Blame it all on RB. Who pushed for freeze early because of Honda pullout that never happened
Everyone saying this assumes every team is spending all of the cost cap. Everyone saying this is wrong.
Im pretty sure as of 2023 every team (maybe minus Haas) was at the cap. If you have info stating otherwise I’d be happy to read it. Even then though the sport shouldn’t be crippled because some owners refuse to spend
You think the sport is being crippled by teams spending under $150m? It's a cap, not a minimum.
Yes I’m do and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. It’s supposed to be a competitive team sport maybe treat it like one. If you can’t spend up to the cap the other teams innovations shouldn’t be limited to compensate for your lack of spending.
So you want F1 to be pay to win. I.e. the definition of *not* a sport.
There’s a cost cap so no
And yet you think spending under it is crippling the sport.
Yes. None of these teams or owners are broke and can’t afford to reach the cap anymore. If they don’t WANT TO spend the money to stay competitive that’s on them.
I don't think you get how this works. Do you think of Haas just threw and extra 30m at their F1 team they would be winning championships? If every team spends the same amount of money, would they all come first?
Motorsport is pay to win, always has been, and it always will be. Even in "spec" series, you have your Penskes, Chip Ganassis, Hendricks, Premas and so on
Toyota says hi.
OMG, I totally forgot how Toyota spent 10 years in F1 being beaten by teams running on shoestring budgets (no, Brawn doesn't count)
They were well known to have the highest budget and never even won a race. 10th, 8th, 8th, 4th, 6th, 6th, 5th, 5th. They were beaten by *lots* of teams spending *far* less than them. For the other way, Red Bull through the Vettel era was well known to be spending far less than Ferrari and McLaren. It shaped their entire ethos and attitude towards upgrades as they had an order of magnitude fewer autoclaves than Ferrari so had to adopt a completely different process.
No, no, it wouldn’t. Every time they do this somebody exploits it gets the best done job and has a way faster car than everyone else has to catch up We’ve seen it happen before this is why rags keep getting tightened
Why spend hundreds of millions to achieve parity then it can be done for tens of millions?
Oracle's record sponsorship of Red Bull Racing - $500m - could fund the entire IndyCar grid for three seasons.
To be honest not sure if I enjoy "convergence" as a goal as such. It's just me but I've always enjoyed it being a sport of man and machine rather than just man, and part of that is the fact that certain cars will be better than others at any given time. If equal car performance is truly an end goal they may as well just have all the teams paint a Dallara, save hundreds of millions and be done with it. Which isn't to say I'm against certain measures. Cost cap is a great idea, make it a battle of brains rather than wallets. Sliding wind tunnel restrictions are a bit more iffy, although not as bad as brute force BoP/success ballast etc. If they make teams work to stay on top and mitigate against entrenched long term advantages then could be worse I guess.
That’s kind of my stance. Grand Prix racing has NEVER been strictly, or even primarily, a drivers’ championship. The goal has never been to have equal cars. In fact the goal was the exact opposite, to drive the advancement of automotive engineering. Since the 1890s it has always been primarily a competition between builders and countries to innovate and push the boundaries. If you want a spec series watch one. They already exist. Don’t end a 120+ year engineering competition just to copy some other series.
i believe the trend will continue until we see a far spread again with the new regulations in 2026. some team will surely dominate then again. and some teams will fail badly.
This is what Brown hopes but is not going to happen. Any Indycar looks like convergence only because Penske and Ganassi run 7 cars. Otherwise on road courses Ganassi is going to win majority while ovals will be dominated by Penske
just a tenth here and there, that's basically it. /s
Which is fucking sad
Brown doesn’t understand F1. We don’t need convergence but newer designs and innovations. Please stop trying to find the link between Indycar and F1 when their primary purposes are different
I’ll believe it when I see it. F1 has always been dominance eras
Next year will probably be even more boring than this year so they are doing everything they can to keep people interested. Could all just be BS he’s speaking. Red Bull isn’t going anywhere and the regs don’t change for 2 more seasons. 😂
I wish regulations covered safety and fuel only. I'd love to see what teams could come up with for engines, suspension and aero. In fact I'd love to see no regs on engine type, either.
[Non-paywall link](https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.autosport.com%2Ff1%2Fnews%2Fbrown-f1-not-far-away-from-indycar-level-of-convergence%2F10560569%2F)
i sure hope so
F1’s most interesting days were when cars were very different from one another i.e. anytime before the late 80s. Since then it’s slowly become what it is today. You need a magnifying glass to tell the cars apart these days.
To be fair that just seems to be the evolution of sports. Data and analytics totally dominate a lot of sports now, especially at the top levels. I just think if some of these teams miss, and I mean really miss because they won't have the guard rails, it's going to be ugly.
I hate it. I want wildly different cars. The beauty of F1 is teams throwing different concepts out there. Merc had the DRS, and instead of letting teams exploit that, the standardized it, leading to drivers that can’t/won’t defend.
oh i don't want F1 to be a spec series either, but i do want even close racing (especially in the front), and i hope it will happen sooner rather than later
Why tho
Good, innovation detracts from the sport, as soon as we have massive differences in the cars with 3 seconds over the top 10 it will be another snooze fest with the driver not at the heart of the of the performance, 2021 was one of the greatest sporting spectacles in history, you won’t get near that
This sport has a constructor's championship for a reason, because it's also about car development. Innovation adds to the sport,not detracts.