as above, I know there are many opinions but im convinced more driver skill was required back then. Cars were more powerful with much less downforce. I love F1 but the aerodynamics of the cars are what prevent overtaking, and i think the lack of over taking spoils modern formula 1

 

Lack of overtaking?!?!?!? I take it you dont actually watch it then, more overtakes than ever at the moment

I loved F1 in the 80's and early 90's my fave times but I love it now too.

The skills are different but IMO todays drivers have as hard if not harder job as the 'band of performance' is so fine

Lets face it, the most skillful drivers still win when they perform well (apart from when your german and the FIA turna blind eye but hey ho)

 

Was at its best far earlier than the 1980's. Best in the 1950's with the front engined cars with incredible drivers like Fangio, Farina, Ascari, Moss, Collins, Lewis Evans, Behra. Proper drivers with thin width tyres.
My favourite altime F1 car is the mighty Vanwall still sends shivers down my spine when i see a picture. Rear engines transformed handling & skill was degraded then safety killed off the excitement & we end up as we are now. Sanatised safety racing with pit stops & wheel changes added to stop all dying of boredom. Can imagine Fangio using his Kers to overtake , he passed because he was the best ever & a f*ck*ng genius.
Sorry you Senna lovers but Fangio was on a totally different planet.

 

I agree with Rod on this one. Having sat in a early fifties f1 car built and raced by Geoff Richardson from Hartlebury. Geoff was also pretty handy with Cosworths.


I knew him through my old man who did his apprenticeship with him and I also spent a few Saturdays helping him.

Like I say he not only raced the car but also built it as well

Proper drivers

 

Got to be the 80's the cars had big power simple aero and mainly worked by mechanical grip ,with stick shift and hard steering the driver counted a bit more , but the world moved on and there has been good moments , since and this year has been very good so far ,but for me its not all about overtakes ,look at time trials not one overtake but still can be great stuff. Ho Rod sorry but the idear of safety in the sport Im ok with or would you have it that guys would still crash and be mangled or would you have them burn in there cars like Lauda or Purly .

 

yes well the 50s and 60s really was the golden era of grand prix driving Jim Clarke was incredible too.

 

Ive always watched F1 and the is a definite lack of overtaking compared to the earlier F1 years. A lot has been proven to the equal characteristics of the cars power delivery and the lack of clean air from behind a car (due to aerodynamics) which makes overtaking less possible. Yes it has got better this year but hardly like it once was

 

Yes i think the fact mechanical grip was actually BETTER back then than it is now shows much more creativity with the cars of the 60s 70s and 80s

 

Like it or not, as Stirling Moss says, it was partly the danger that created the excitement in the earlier times. IMO it was far more down to driver skill in those days. I'm not saying they aren't skillful now, they obviously are but it almost always boils down to who has the best car and I don't think it was quite as important in previous eras. Plenty of times relative newcomers used to win.

 

Yer Im with you on this so maybe if the rules just droped the aero then would we get a better sport ? ,I dont want overtakes to be easy but I would like the idear that it can be done without aero makeing it so hard to do .

 

Think the 80's era was better. Bit more driver input, seemed to have more 'mechanical' engineering... Plus, 80's cars had steering wheels, not something that looks like Nintendo made it! Lol

 

80's... Despite being born in the 90's current f1 is boring as hell. I've met Jenson button a couple of times (when he drove for bar Honda) and seems like a nice guy touring cars is always going to be more exciting as they can make contact without interlocking wheels... Resulting in much more daring overtakes.

 

Exactly. the aero should be restricted to a much simpler design with more effort going into mechanical grip. The mechanical grip of earlier f1 cars was far superior, they also had a much wider track in the 60s 70s and 80s too.

 

This is one reason I like the TT , Its the idear of ones own will and the risks we should be able to take if we wish to , but I think if F1 had the same dangers that could mean the loss of 2-4 drivers per year so would you still veiw it if that was the case ?

 

Please tell me your not suggesting that older F1 cars had better grip than the ones made today....

 

no im not, but todays f1 cars only have better grip because of downforce. take the spoilers of a modern f1 car and the grip will be inferior to an earlier f1 car

 

mechanical grip is completely different to the grip generated by aero dynamics

 

I know, theres so much bollox on this thread

 

I agree REAL men only drive FWD

Also Murray Walker, who has watched F1 and commentated since the 50's must be wrong when he makes his list of top drivers as they arent all from the 50's

 

Mechanical grip or grip generated by aerodynamics are all mechanism of achieving better grip, they are only different methods of achieving the same end result.

 

i don't think you are understanding, grip is generated by wheels and suspension components, however these days it is more reliant on the aerodynamic setup of the car. Back in the day, when aerodynamics didnt play such an important part in keeping the car on the road, driver involvement was higher

 

FWD??? mate he said front engined

 

Its not like the old days where getting in a car and driving the wheels off it was enough, maybe backing off to save tyres a bit

The fact the window of performance on a modern F1 car is so tiny and so reliant on many many more factors than in decades past makes the cars MUCH more difficult to drive and demand so much more of the driver as not only physically driving but the mental demands.

Imagine driving round the circuit and manually adjusting aero or diff settings for the same corner(s) every lap like they do now - Whilst still racing!

Its a different ballgame, and a modern driver faces much more demands

At least as skillful as drivers of yore - but in different ways

 

Well, especially the overtaking bit, I think now we are just about on par, if not more so, with the 80's in the last 2/3 season. Note that this only goes up to 2010, 2011 was a good season, and 2012 is looking brilliant!

 

No different to driving one handed whilst changing gear, or in the 50s and 60s using a manual clutch. plus the tracks were far more difficult in terms of surface quality and safety.

 

that graph proves my point completely, look at the huge decline in overtaking since the 80s. Yes i agree it seems to be going back up again.

 

I understand completely..modern cars have much better dampers and much better rubber with a far greater understanding of geometry...there is NO comparison

If you were to remove aero from a modern car to 60's levels and optimise todays mechanical setups for that level of aero the old cars would be fucking shit in comparison


if you want to remove aero and watch a spec series there are plenty to choose from.

Aero is not a problem in F1 in 2012, there is more overtaking than ever.

 

from 1995 to 2009 the rate of overtaking was not even close, that is what i regard as modern f1 1995 onwards

 

Both of you make fair points, I would say in the past driving F1 cars was more of a how big are your balls when diving a coffin round a track and it required a lot of skill.

However now, modern F1 cars experience 4-5G under braking and about 3-5G when cornering. The demands on a modern day driver physically is far more than what it was 50 years ago. They are also much faster and much more complicated to operate.

 

They still brake and change gear with their hands, just no clutch, and make the adjustments and use kers and use drs and converse with engineers whilst driving within hundredths of a second of their ultimate pace

 

Modern F1 is today,last year is history

I cant watch a live race from last year

 

in the 80s im referring to mainly, the track of the car was required to be narrowed for a start. I believe grip was better in the 80s from a mechanical perspective. And with regards to more overtaking this season. yes i agree but lets face it, its about time.

 

I assume you dont count traction as mechanical grip either?


80's F1 had big wings and blown diffusers, flat floors etc

Are you just being nostalgic? I loved it best then too but the reason there was overtaking and 'charges' was the turbo's. People would wind up the boost to pass, then have to conserve fuel hence the big disparities in speed you used to see, hardly anything to do with less aero

 

I feel your logic is somewhat flawed.

Mechanical grip + a little aero downforce = decent grip

less mechanical grip + shit loads of aero downforce = shit loads of grip

Going on about how mechanical grip is superior is a totally moot point.

 

I think it would be good to go with the mechanical grip and leave out or reduce aero grip and varible boost on the turbo's and limit fuel , the right combination of varible's is what gives good racing I would say. also if you look at the cars of the 80 and the cars of now veiwing them from a mechanical grip point of veiw only the 80's car's have wider track and wider tyres so more track an larger contact patch but up front the modern car is better with I would say more contact patch .

 

exactly, although i believe alot more trial end error went into mechanical grip, where as these days much more development goes into aero dynamics which i feel somewhat spoils it. Its just all a bit to clinical

 

They already do a lot of that.

The car can only have one tank of fuel onboard, no re-filling, so a car has to be designed to use a little fuel as possible to keep weight down.

No variable boost, but the DRS system to aid overtaking, not to mention KERS has been in use for a couple of years now.

Also, major changes were made in 2009 to areo regulations (christ was it really that long ago )

Take a look at this



Wings are smaller, a lot of the smaller areo features were removed totally. Todays F1 cars have no where near the areo that the ones in 2008 did.

The current racing is a far cry to the of the 90's.

I wonder how many people on here actually are watching the current F1 races.

 

i certainly do. I have heard in the 2014 season they will be using v6 turbocharged engines again. i doubt they will have the output of the old 1.5 litre v6s but it may make a difference?

 

Madmac yes they did make that big change with the aero , a good thing for the racing but I did like the look of them car's , and the KERS has been a good idear ,but would be nice to be less restricted , and Im thinking ahead with the turbo's coming in 2013-14 ? will they get varible boost ? and yes the racing this year has been good due to a good combo of variables KERS, DRS , tyres .

 

Yes they are and they will have comparable output. Remember the F1 cars of old were pushing out far more power than the current ones (1300bhp+ in the original turbo days), where as today they only put out 700bhp, but are still faster than the cars with nearly double the power.

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlin...1/6/12237.html

But they are being introduced to continue the development of more efficient engines as opposed to making the racing more exciting.

But its not having a certain type of engine that makes a good race, its making sure that the playing-field is a level one, which in the last 3 years has evened out considerably.

But F1 always has been about two sides, the drivers, and the tech, which kinda follows on from what I said about. A huge amount of tech that was pioneered in F1 cars are in modern day cars. F1 teams earn some serious money by inventing and patenting designs which then go on to be used in regular cars. Also, the high pressure world of F1 to constantly advance that tech means its always cutting edge and the best test bed for testing new tech. The new v6 engine will be a good test bed for a lot of F1 engine manufacturers to design and make the next generation of high efficiency, high performance hybrid cars.