I think that's a good thing honestly, instead of being only an arms race for the team that will make the most expensive car they have to be very clever in finding ways to shave a few milliseconds in each lap.
I see that like code golf or the IOCCC, the constraints are what makes it interesting and challenging.
In the case of F1 I think it's also about keeping the human factor, without regulations I'm sure by now we'd have fully automated cars that would react in a microsecond, better than any human could. But that's no good show.
I favor having an unlimited tier for all sports. Anything (safe) goes. I think it would reduce cheating. Then I wouldn't care if the pros are using robots, steroids, time travel, whatever. And there's still plenty of competition for amateurs all the way up.
I grew up watching hydroplane racing. The local races were super fun. Much like going to local drag races.
The reason why F1 now has so many rules governing it is because it was impossible for new teams to be founded, and many teams were pulling out, because the costs were insane.
The budgets of F1 teams, in USD, was approaching astronomical levels to where only a handful of teams could ever justify existing. It would be impossible to fill even a third of the starting grid. If were allowed to continue, you'd have teams burning $1B+ per year.
The other limits have mostly been due to encountering the laws of physics and how it applies to humans. G-forces are limited as a part of car design to ensure the drivers don't black out in the corners from the extreme lateral loads. Pressure suits like fighter jets don't help you, because at least in a fighter jet the G-forces are top-down. Humans have been a weak link on Formula 1 since the mid-to-late 90s.
That can end up killing the competition (and the sport). See the criticism of the America's Cup for instance, where even competing teams said it was getting way too expensive to participate.
People want actual competition, underdogs, suspense. Not having the guy with the biggest bank account win invariably and predictably. They want to root for a human, not an operating system.
And nothing stops you from creating a new "F0" association with no rules, you just have to find a way to finance it and have people watch it.
If the FIA thought removing those rules would make them more money or bring more viewers I'm pretty sure they would have done that long ago...
Easier said than done? E.g. what's to stop a team from buying a part from "some company" that only had one item in stock? Or what if all the engineers on one team decided to work for $1/year because they all got rich from something else?
It seems like you'd need a huge amount of regulation on the teams R&D process to prevent extra money from somehow being spent.
I know nothing about F1. It just seems more tractable to me to be able to have a single inspection item (the delivered car) at specified times (races) than trying to regulate the actions of thousands of people over years.
They ostensibly have this, a Resource Restriction Agreement. It does things like eliminate in season testing, which used to be very expensive, mandating a multi week summer shutdown during the middle of the season when no work is to be performed (even email is shut off for some teams). They also restrict time in the wind tunnel (even though most teams have their own wind tunnel(s), they can't use them all the time they are actually available, and limiting the computing power which gets applied to CFD in lieu of wind tunnel testing. There are a few notable things that don't get limited, for example, driver salaries, which can be very high.
In recent years, a lot of parts of the car are of a fixed design, and cannot be changed except for safety and reliability reasons. This includes the engine, the wheels and the main chassis monocoque (the latter is homologated at the beginning of the season). Chassis homologation caused a lot of teams problems in 2011 during the "f-duct" episodes due to teams having to find all sorts of clumsy workarounds to accommodate the ducting for the device without having designed space and openings for it in the homologated chassis.
Even the freeze on engine design (since 2007-2008 ish), has seen things like ferrari spending ridiculous sums to ostensibly improve the reliability of their oil pump, and oh, look at that, as a side effect, gain marginal amounts of engine horsepower.
Racing stresses components to their limit, on purpose, and fans don't like it when races are decided by attrition. So even well meaning attempts to limit development and restrict spending often fail. If someone has the money and the will to gain a slight advantage, it's hard to stop. Even templated designs and string limits on what development is allowed doesn't stop people from spending vast sums of money in search of tiny gains. Nascar is good example of this. While not all the spending is at the individual team level, you have large collectives and manufacturers doing things like designing their own suspension dampers and various engine optimizations. It's still extremely expensive in aggregate.
Limit how much money a team gets in prize revenue to progressive levels where even the losers can fund the next race, and restrain most of the revenue streams to funnel through prize money, and you effectively limit how much money a team is allowed to spend. Nothing else really does it, they just invite rule stretching.
it is a good thing. it's the same fundamental reason that we ban steroids from athletics.
but human ingenuity being what it is, we shouldn't be surprised that people come up with new ways to bend the rules ... be that 'not-technically-traction-control traction control' or subtly altered performance-enhancing drugs the governing body's not had time to ban yet.
Of course, and at least in the case of formula one it usually does not endanger the pilots, unlike the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports.
One team is being clever and finds a loophole/new way of doing something. They win big. Then next year either it gets forbidden or everybody else starts doing it and there's still competition ash innovation.
Yes changes your sex / danger of death and a whole load of other nasty side effects - I found I turned into Homer Simpson "mm doughnuts"
However they are righteous shit ( I have had to take them for medical reasons) but whilst on 40mg a day I read of a tragic case of a child that died due to a bad reaction and she was only on 60mg a day.
But it stifles innovation. A better solution (IMHO, and since I'm not a big follower of F-1 or racing in general, this is basically me talking out of my rear end) would be to, at the end of the year, share the designs and software with each other.
Designs and software while it might help. It's having people that understand the technology. I read an article that Porsche has been trying to poach engineers from F1 and Audi's Le Mans program that have experience with Hybrid Drive Systems. They said that there are only maybe 10-15 people in the entire world that truly understand Hybrid Energy Recovery systems for racing applications.
Audi don't use an in-house hybrid system — it's bought from Williams Hybrid Power (one of the technology sales parts of Williams F1). The Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid similarly used a WHP system; I wouldn't be surprised if Porsche have gone down a similar route for next year.
Yep but the Audi Engineers have the experience of integrating it with a car. Things like how the Hybrid system effects chassis setup, tire wear, fuel consumption, race strategy etc. All stuff that is not in the manual that comes from Williams.
I see that like code golf or the IOCCC, the constraints are what makes it interesting and challenging.
In the case of F1 I think it's also about keeping the human factor, without regulations I'm sure by now we'd have fully automated cars that would react in a microsecond, better than any human could. But that's no good show.