"Robert Maxwell" (madmax13d)
02/18/2014 at 02:36 • Filed to: WEC, F!, FIA, Conspiracy.
2
6|
"Robert Maxwell" (madmax13d)
02/18/2014 at 02:36 • Filed to: WEC, F!, FIA, Conspiracy. | 2
| 6 |
The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile ) is the organization that controls international auto racing. Like all many new things pre-WWII, the French established international committees for many things that were new and groundbreaking. FIBA, for instance, was established in 1932 to govern international Basketball. It's not suprising to look at FIBAs "Hall of Fame" that doesn't include the three athletes who are the most responsible for the international growth of the game- Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson, who all had impressive international careers. They also did the same thing for Ice Hockey(It's why the rink is much wider in international hockey then the original North American variety), I know the hockey thing isn't French, but it's part of the larger theme that is present here. The changes in both international basketball and hockey is for one purpose, which is to maintain European competitiveness in those sports. With the FIA, looking at the historical record, there is also a similar theme. Every time a non-European marque is successful in the sport, they change the rules. (F1 is a beast I will only lightly touch on._
1.) The change in displacement limit in Le Mans in 1967. The limitation of displacement to 5.0 liters effectively sidelined the works GT MK II and MK IV. The GT40s won the next two years, but the Porsche 917s were faster under the new rules. This ended American factory support for international endurance racing for some time.
2.) The change in regulations for endurance racing in 1993. The change in how Rotaries displacement was counted ended the competitive streak of the rotary engine and the premature retirement of the 787B. Until very recently, the Japanese car manufacturers have had very little to do with the top ranks of endurance racing, keeping their efforts to production based racing.
3.) The change from Group A to "World Rally Car" as a standard for the WRC. This and the end of the homologation requirement ended Japanese dominance in world rally. When you don't actually have to make a quality, fun to drive road car to back up your racing program, it's not hard to build a car that has very little to do with the production model that it is based on. I also think that this really hurt the cause of world rally, because I think that they have a vested interest in F1 being the "top" series. From 1993 to 1999, no European manufacturer won the title, and from the introduction of the World Rally Car, no non-European company has won.
To me, it seems that every time someone else has a winning formula, the rules gets changed. If Toyota instead of Audi was racing the R10, there would be rules banning Diesels in endurance racing. Now for a bit of conspiracy theory.... If Senna's and Prost's ethnicity where switched, I think that we'd be talking about Senna the four time champ, and Prost the three time champ.
The man in the iron mask
> Robert Maxwell
02/18/2014 at 02:42 |
|
This guy wouldn't trade his nationality for one more title
|
Robert Maxwell
> The man in the iron mask
02/18/2014 at 02:46 |
|
I know it( I love Senna), I was referring to the nationality of the president of the FIA at (J. P. Balestre, who is French) the time, who was anything but partial to Senna during the controversy surrounding the 1989 Japanese GP, as well as the entire season.
The359
> Robert Maxwell
02/18/2014 at 05:24 |
|
I can't really address WRC as I'm not as big of a follower, but I can address the other two:
1) The FIA changed the Group 6 rules for 1968 for the entire World Championship, not just for Le Mans. Ford still won Le Mans *and* the World Championship for Makes, despite competing in the Group 4 sports car category and not the Group 6 category like Porsche. In fact there were so few takers for the Group 6 category that the 50 car minimum for Group 4 was changed to 25 in order to allow more cars to enter. The changes to Group 6 also forced Ferrari to pull his backing from the sport that year, so I'm not sure how this was a strike at the Americans.
2) I don't even know where to begin with this one. First, the 3.5 liter endurance formula started in 1991, running alongside the existing turbo formula. It had been previously known that the 3.5 formula would be the de facto formula come 1992. Mazda knew the rule was coming when they build the original 787 in 1990. Not that Mazda had ever been competitive in the WSC or at Le Mans since the mid-80s when they ran in the Group C2 category. In fact the Mazda rarely even complied with the Group C regulations, burdened by weight penalties because they had a non-conforming car that ran as an IMSA GTP invitational. Despite the 1991 victory, helped by weight breaks from the ACO for that race alone, Mazda had neither the money nor the power to develop an entirely new car for the 3.5 liter formula, but despite this the company attempted to push forward in 1992 by rebadging a Jaguar chassis and Judd engine. I'd also point out that the 3.5 liter formula drove out Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Jaguar from Group C racing.
Further, the claim that Japanese manufacturers had very little to do with top ranks of endurance racing is flat out wrong. Toyota and Nissan had been attempting to win Le Mans since the mid-80s, and both entered full-season teams in the World Championship in 1989 and 1990, with Toyota and finishing runners up in the Championship in 1992. Toyota even continued to attempt to win Le Mans until 1994 even after the World Championship had died.
Bad Idea Hat
> Robert Maxwell
02/18/2014 at 07:54 |
|
1) The change in displacement was, from what I can tell, an attempt to head off an arms race wherein the end result would be massive cars with massive engines going massively unsafe speeds. Ford was leaving the sports car game anyways, mainly because they'd done what they wanted to do. Yes, the Group 5 limit on car production was lowered, but that's more of a conspiracy than FIA booting Ford (and it still really totally isn't).
2) This one is one I'll agree with, but for vastly different reasons. Back in the late-80's/early-90's, there were three big forms of motorsport, all competing heavily for money in Europe; F1, sports cars, and rally. Rally had their Group B, and while you could call its death a conspiracy, those were nutcasemobiles with holfuck power, and that group was mercy killed. The real conspiracy is WSC switching to the 3.5L formula. There is no logical explanation given for why this was done. It wasn't to screw the Japanese, it just had that side effect. Why would you turn a class of cars that had immense levels of interest into a closed wheel Formula 1? Because you're trying to kill it in the name of Formula 1. Group C was almost, if not actually the equal of F1 at the time, in many different respects. The 3.5L formula, many think, was FIA's way of putting sports cars in their place, for whatever reason.
3) If it makes you feel better, WRC is headed for a cliff. They're going to end up with two (or worse, one) manufacturer within 5 years, and they'll need to rethink the rules again. I have a suspicion that there's going to be a return to a Group N.
To give you something to think about; why would Japan be interested in dealing directly with the FIA? Japan had their series at home drawing the domestic crowd's attention (JTCC, JGTC/SuperGT, AJSPC, F3000, etc), and had a ton of success in North America with IMSA and Indy Car. They knew that the Europeans they would reach through racing in Europe would pay attention to them thanks to the other series anyways, so why even mess around with the standard FIA bullshit?
Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
> Robert Maxwell
02/18/2014 at 10:11 |
|
One reason I'm suspicious of the FIA: France.
|
The man in the iron mask
> Robert Maxwell
02/18/2014 at 13:09 |
|
Yep, that sucker favoured prost