What is Racing Becoming?

"Jonathon Klein" (jonathon-klein) 03/23/2014 at 12:09 • Filed to: TUSC, /Drive, F1

2

4

With these past few weeks racing in the world is starting back up. First off was the second race of the season for the newly created Tudor United Sports Car Championship at the 12 Hours of Sebring, following was the first race of the Formula 1 season. Now these two racing series don't have a lot in common except for the fact that they have had fairly extensive overhauls for this new year. TUSC went from American LeMans with GT cars and LeMans Prototypes running together for an entire season to Daytona Prototypes, GT, and a few LeMans open cockpit Prototypes. All while having to deal with new rule changes, new owners, new sponsors and a whole host of other new additions or deletions from last season. Formula 1 has gone through the most extensive rules and car changes since the switch from front engine cars to mid engine cars. They have new cars, with new aero rules, new engine rules, new engines, new electronics, new brakes, new rules, pretty much new everything. The championship for once in the last few decades is completely up for grabs from almost every single team in the field. These series represent major overhauls in the realm of racing and a push towards a more eco friendly persona, better fuel consumption, better management of disposables and the like. But does this actually hurt racing and hurt the fans who enjoy racing? Leo Parente of the /Drive Network posed a question last Friday, will F1 and World Endurance Championship with TUSC, redefine racing?

With a push from the FIA to become greener, it seems that racing is less about who is the fastest and more about who can manage their cars enough to get them to the finish line. This is where I take Leo's question and try to delve a bit further into it. Will it still be racing if the drivers are just managing their fuel and tires all the time? This question and its answer will differ from each individual series. With the TUSC and WEC races, fuel conservation and tire management need to be considered because they are endurance racing. They have to complete a race within a specific time. Pit stops matter and the longer the pit stop the more time they will have to make up. Conservation of those items matter during these types of races. However, what about all out speed? Does this take a back seat to conservation? Can you really call it racing if the drivers aren't able to truly push the cars to their limits? This year marks the entry of Porsche into the Prototype LeMans category. Their entrant, a Hybrid electric V4 Turbo. Toyota has their Hybrid, Audi with their Diesel Hybrid, and Nissan with the fully electric ZEOD Deltawing. The rules of late have been forcing manufacturers to find better ways to be more energy efficient and to find greater and greater recapture technologies. Such as the Hybrid electric systems that convert the thermal heat of braking into usable power on acceleration. Now take Formula 1, these cars are completely brand new. They have new 1.6l V6 Turbo's for better fuel efficiency and they are only allotted 100l of fuel per race. They have the most advanced energy recovery systems on any racing car and indeed, they have two of them. The cars this year are some of the most advanced hybrids on the planet.

What does this all mean for actual racing? Let me first quote the late great Ayrton Senna, " On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high ." He speaks about limits, about the limits of the driver, and the limits of a car. He understood that a racing driver should always be on the edge of the cars potential. Just watch his in car cameras in Formula 1, he isn't saving tires, he isn't managing fuel, he is racing, he is putting everything he has on the line. Senna understood that racing requires bravery; it requires the ability to think calmly in a moment that would for most other people inspire pure terror. He knew in his soul that a driver's job is to go as fast as he can go , just think about how he viewed gaps, " By being a racing driver you are under risk all the time. By being a racing driver means you are racing with other people. And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver because we are competing, we are competing to win. And the main motivation to all of us is to compete for victory, it's not to come 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th. I race to win as long as I feel it's possible ." This is what I feel is either being thrown out or no longer exists in racing. There is a mindset right now that racing should be about promoting green technologies, and in some respects, I can agree. However, these technologies should be designed to make the cars go faster nothing else. The goal of racing is to be the fastest person on the grid, it's not managing your fuel or managing your tires or anything like that, the simple goal is to come in first. Dictating that the cars can only have a certain amount of fuel is fine, so long as it's more than enough to complete a race at full speed. Having energy recovery systems is also ok when it helps performance. Racing cars should be the pinnacle of auto design and technicality. I want to see a field of the most advanced road going cars on the planet, not what they could build to circumscribe to the rules they were dealt. This is especially true in Formula 1. F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsports, the highest degree in the pecking order of all racing. They have the most advanced cars and the best drivers combining to form the perfect union between driver and machine so they can go the fastest and dare to push the limit.

Watching the first F1 race and indeed the practice and testing leading up to it, everyone was not only talking about the reliability of these new cars, but the fact that the drivers would need to manage their tires and fuel way more than ever before. All I thought about every time I heard them speaking about it was that F1 was going to turn into a hypermiling Prius fest. I personally don't want that, and I am guessing neither do all of you. Why can't we have a better balance that allows for constructer's and drivers to push the cars harder and really race them? Why can't the FIA allow more fuel and let Pirelli or Michelin, or Yokohama, or any of the tire manufacturers build the best tire they possibly can? Rather than dictating that they can only survive a certain period of time. Racing is fun when the cars and drivers are really pushing one another to go faster, brake later, and turn in harder. It is not fun when the rules make the drivers have to back off the throttle to ensure they make it to the end of the race. The real test will be from the fans. With WEC, TUSC, and F1 all going this more eco friendly route, will fans still show up or watch the races? I will at the very least say that one of the best noises right now in racing is from these new eco friendly cars, the Toyota TS040 leaving pit lane under full electric and then making the switch to the gas-powered engine is as if fire and brimstone was falling from the skies. Take a listen.

Follow me here on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Check out !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Also head over to TheSmokingTire to see why we need !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

Photo Credit to TUSC, and Sauber

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Jonathon Klein 03/23/2014 at 17:55

0

Fragility has always been a part of racing. From the outside it appears to be drivers constantly pushing to the very edge of their car's performance, but throughout F1 history there are drivers who excelled not because they were full-tilt all the time, but because they could nurse their fragile cars through to the finish far more capably than their more brash colleagues. Fangio, Prost, Clark. All three were masters of prolonging the life of their race cars, of knowing when and where to push to get the greatest benefit at the greatest time.

Sidney > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires 03/23/2014 at 18:20

1

This is a very example of Correlation and Causation.


Engines at the 80's were fragile because they were making 1500hp
Engine at the 00's were fragile because they were spinning at 20k RPMs.

Engines today are fragile because FIA don't allow cars to use enough fuel to cool down the engines (and generate power).

Same is for drivers, drivers at the 50's drove carefully because that were their limits, drivers at the 90's drove carefully because that were their limits, but drivers today drive carefully because FIA don't allow tires to last enough...

Everything related to fragility today related to "FIA don't allow X", while fragility before was because the cars and drivers were on their limits.

Just for proof, Fangio once decided to go faster. He catched-up the Ferraris 15s ahead of him, and broke Nordscheileife track record 6 times. Try this today, without getting Disqualified...

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Sidney 03/23/2014 at 19:09

1

True, although it does dispute the idea that in the past drivers were constantly driving to the limits of their abilities.

I don't agree entirely with the FIA's strategy for limiting performance, but there is a good argument that the cars that are capable of being built today were they unrestricted would be well beyond a human's capability to manage themselves. Like today's fighter jets, the vast majority of the systems would have to be computer controlled, to the extent that a driver's sole role within the car may be to withstand the g-forces.

That's not really a future I would be interested in.

Thus, restrictions would have to be implemented to ensure that it is still in any way a driver's championship. The argument as to where those restrictions should be is the eternal one.

The cars today are still on their very limits, as are the drivers. They are just pushing the envelope on the restrictions they are given. That is no less of a technical and intellectual feat. That is also why their engines are fragile. It would be simple enough to make an engine that's reliable within the FIA's regulations, but it's the push for every ounce of horsepower possible within those regulations that causes fragility.

The tyres last season were a little on the gimmicky side. I was not a fan. That's not Pirelli's fault mind you, they were asked to make fragile tyres and they did that very well.

I feel they have done it better this year. The fuel limit is low, but not impossibly so. The tyres are tough enough to take a beating. The cars are lairy with all the torque they're producing. I've got high hopes for this season :)

jtso > Jonathon Klein 03/26/2014 at 17:00

1

" Just watch his in car cameras in Formula 1, he isn't saving tires, he isn't managing fuel, he is racing, he is putting everything he has on the line."

Actually, I bet he was doing all that, but inching towards or touching the limit like he said in the quote above that line. Go past the limit and then the fuel runs out, the tires wear out; both require a time wasting pit stop. Go way past the limit and the car breaks or worse. In the turbo era boost had to be limited for the transmissions to survive.

When Group C rules were implemented, people said the same thing, "This isn't racing, it's an economy run." To an extent, that's correct, but it lead to the best variety of machinery.

The problem I see now is the FIA and the rest are just adding restrictions on top of more restrictions. There has to be give and take. If they want to reduce fuel consumption, they should just restrict fuel allotment, but open other restrictions like minimum weight and the air restrictors. Making everyone run a hybrid system isn't fair to teams that don't have experience with them and then aren't allowed a lot of testing time.