sidey
"It is only a change to engines that do not require fossil fuels that will satisfy the green movement"

as i understand it wind tunnels are the bigger problem. for both the eco-peeps and for the planet.
Date Added: 04/03/2008

Steven Roy
A flywheel spinning at over 60k rpm must surely act as a gyroscope and screw up the handling of a car. I imagine it would need to be located near the centre of gravity to minimise the effect. If I am right, and I may be totally wrong, a driver using the KERS energy to power out of a corner will not only have more power than normal but will have a decreasing gyroscopic effect. That is not going to give anything close to stable handling.

Storing energy in batteries is ridiculous. Look at the size of the batteries used in electric cars or hybrids. Apart from anything else unless someone has a new battery design that means a formula on car travelling at 200mph will be full of sulphuric acid. That doesn't exactly tie in with Max's self appointed safety guru reputation.

On the safety point the cars are going to be significantly heavier which means more energy to be dissipated in any accident. It will mean that there is a need for longer run off areas etc.
Date Added: 04/03/2008

Arnet
Yet another example of Max's ham-handed handling of an answer to a question that wasn't really asked.

Williams develops a CVT transmission: illegal.
Renault's mass damper: ruled a moving aerodynamic device!

Just two examples out of many where irrationality and politics destroyed actual technological advancement. Instead we have top-down technical "innovations" that, as you mentioned , Clive, will simply add to costs and weight, putting the lie to Mosley's claim that he is trying to make the sport cheaper and more green.

Both Colin Kolles and Christian Horner have publicly complained about the financial "hit" they will have to suffer because of this "arms race" that will pull engineers from other areas of R & D.

Also, Toyota's Luca Marmorini has said that the whole thing has left him "perplexed" because the type of energy recovery system "chosen by the FIA is quite primitive."

"(They are) extremely simplified compared to the system we have on the Toyota Prius road car, or even on the Toyota Supra HV-R that won the 24 Hours of Tokachi.

"The potential of hybrid engines is immense, but the solution chosen by the FIA restricts itself to recover energy from the rear wheels. The parameters involved should be more.

"Let's say that, if the Supra that races at Tokachi recovers 70% of the dissipated energy, the system chosen for F1 restricts itself to 20%.

"This system will end up being the same for everyone too, and in this case we'll refer to it as an accessory, devaluing a great technical issue along the way."

Surprise, surprise. Once again the teams are forced to comply with arbitrary rule changes. The system is letting the teams and fans down. The system needs an overhaul. I'm not saying that KERS is a bad thing, I'm saying there is a way to go about it, and consulting with the teams has to be a component of that.
Date Added: 04/03/2008

Arnet
Anyone interested in the technical side of things and to see some photos can go here:
http://forums.autosport.com/showthread.php?threadid=99192
Date Added: 04/03/2008

Clive
You are probably right, Sidey. Certainly, the energy demands of wind tunnels dwarf those of a single F1 race. But that is not the problem Max is trying to address with KERS - he prefers to tinker with peripheral matters that will satisfy no-one. And that is where I must attack him, in the hope that he might be brought to see sense.

As for the alternative fuels, I doubt the the eco-lobby would be impressed with Max banning wind tunnels but still allowing the use of fossil fuels. Were he to insist that F1 be exclusively hydrogen-powered by 2013, however, any remaining eco objections would look curmudgeonly at least.
Date Added: 04/03/2008

Clive
I hadn't thought of the gyroscopic aspect of flywheels, Steven, but it's a good point. Whenever we introduce changes on the scale that Max loves, there are bound to be unforeseen side effects that lead to more complication and expense. I say, if we have to be more eco-minded, let's go all the way and eco everyone out of sight.
Date Added: 04/03/2008

Clive
I wrote a post on Marmorini's objections to Max's KERS solution a while ago, Arnet - and it is clear that Max is not quite right when he says that the manufacturers are happy with his proposals. It would probably be closer to the truth to say that they have knuckled under, knowing that there is no hope of winning an argument with a man who reacts to disagreement with even more insane diktats.
Date Added: 04/03/2008

David
At the end of the day, this ‘innovation’ will take its place alongside the much trumpeted environmental darlings: Hybrids and ethanol fuel ... both of which have actually increased carbon footprints overall. Since the Green Movement’s ignorance has so far only added to this perceived problem, surely it’s time to brush them aside and take a more rational approach.

The big picture has to be considered before assessing any carbon footprint advantage by F1 adopting KERS. Essentially, the total carbon produced to implement this proposal has to be measured against the total carbon reduction gained. Having accepted that this doesn’t look so good, then consider how any minute carbon savings stack up against the carbon produced by the planes that transport these cars around the world.

Clive’s right! If (but only if) a change is really necessary, then lets make it meaningful. Provide notice now that Max’s over-restrictive engine regulations will be wiped from the rule book at the end of 2010. New engine specifications for the 2011 season: 2.4 liter, hydrogen fueled, atmospheric reciprocating engines. Period! F1’s engineers are reputed to be amongst the best, so let them go at it. The different teams success will be measured on track. The dominant team’s reward will appear in the record books. The manufacturers’ hydrogen engine road car problems will be solved. Everyone’s happy ... including Max, who’ll get to light a candle and toil throughout the night drafting a whole new set of regulations for the 2012 season.

Date Added: 05/03/2008

Arnet
David, I don't think you can lay the blame for hybrids and ethanol at the feet of the environmentalists. Hybrid drives are the auto industries answer to reading which way the wind is blowing, and ethanol is is a result of heavy lobbying by the farming industry with the Bush admin saying "Sure thing, pardner." Not only is ethanol not the greatest for the environment, but in North America ethanol is derived from whole corn, not just the leftovers, which has not only raised the price of food, but it's energy return means it actually takes more energy than what is derived from the end product. Brazillian ethenol comes from cane, which is cheaper, doesn't rob food from the poor and has a higher energy return.
Still after spouting all that, alternative energy deliveries have to be found. Hydrogen is a temporary solution. Even with fuel cells in road cars, the hydrogen has to come from somewhere, and it also consumes a fair amount of energy to produce. One day, compressed air, or fuel from biomass would probably have the smallest footprint, but those days are far off. In the meantime, if the FIA and their putative leader really care about the environment, one way to make a difference would be to ban refueling, lift the restriction on engine development, and allow different fuels, such as biodiesel.

F1 engineers would probably salivate and rub their hands together at the prospect of figuring out how to make their car run a race using the least amount of fuel while delivering the highest power.
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Clive
Spot on, David - I couldn't have said it better myself!
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Clive
I think you'll find that hydrogen is the fuel of the future, Arnet, although it doesn't matter to this particular discussion on KERS. Take a read of this article on an amazing discovery made at Perdue University. It solves all the problems of using hydrogen as a fuel and makes it easily the best option for an alternative fuel. Hydrogen from water and the product of burning it is... water! You can't get much more renewable than that. ;)
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Björn Svensson
I'm sorry Clive. I dont even bother to read your whole piece. There's just one thing that comes to mind when i read anything about this. Mass.

In which way you bother to go with this. Flywheels, generators and batteries, complexe spring setups, you're going to add a substantial mass to the car.

And what's green about that? A heavier car means it will consume more fuel per kilometer and will make the tire's go bust even faster that today. If there's any way to make racing green, i would rather they were to power the car's with liquid nitrogen.

That is the way of the future, and KERS is just going to be an really expensive extension of the current oil-powered machines.
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Steven Roy
That is an interesting process Clive but if you do the sums you end up with a huge lump of aluminium and gallium to carry round a racetrack. You also have to lug a tank full of water.

Still give it time and the may improve it.
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Alianora La Canta
There is also the problem that the FIA has banned any KERS device weighing more than 20kg. Even the lighter of the two systems mentioned is 55lb, which comes out above the weight limit. So neither of these systems are legal anyway.

Also, Max isn't proposing the banning of wind-tunnels altogether. Even if he doesn't get his (non-functional) budget caps (which he has promised would result in wind tunnels remaining unrestricted), he's only banning 24-hour running. Working-day running is still legal, and the powering-up and powering-down of the wind tunnel required in the regulations will waste a lot of power that currently isn't used. So Max's method of restricting wind-tunnels has limited benefit, if any at all. In reality, Max is more concerned about costs, particularly to the manufacturers. Perhaps the whole customer car thing was motivated by the realisation that the non-manufacturers were gradually being bought out by big business and that new blood was therefore needed to stop a big business from filling the back row?


Date Added: 05/03/2008

john f
I can see how the KERS system adds too much weight, does not make racing "greener". It seems that making a change in the source of energy is the answer to be "green". Making racing "greener" is only neccessary for the way the wind is blowing in the scientific community today. That is another issue entirely. Suffice to say KERS is another dead end. This makes me think that maybe Max know this and it delays making sweeping changes in the engine design. Possibly holding out for a change in attitude with the public toward "global warming".
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Clive
The mass (weight) factor is a consideration, Björn, amongst many others. I did not concentrate on it because F1 cars are built to be well below the minimum weight limit and ballast is then added to bring them up to the limit. In this way, weight distribution can be fine-tuned. Adding the weight of any KERS device would limit the engineers' options in this regard, however.
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Clive
I never do the sums (well, hardly ever), Steven, knowing that sooner or later someone will do them for me. ;)

Weight is obviously going to be a serious consideration with the Perdue system, although they do mention that the aluminium required will weigh no more than a tank of petrol. That leaves the weight of water to be taken into account but, as you say, it is early in the idea's development and such problems may yet be solved. And what better arena to tackle the problems than F1?
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Clive
As you highlight, Alianora, the KERS regulations appear to be yet another example of the FIA instituting regulations in haste without seriously considering practicalities or problems. It may be that the manufacturers have gone along with the scheme, knowing that it cannot be implemented and will require adjustment before too long. And so we end up with the same old scenario - regulations upon regulations, each trying to fix the problems raised by the others.

Customer cars? I thought they were outlawed... ;)
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Clive
Max is a politician, John, so it would not be wise to put anything past him. I find it difficult to believe, however, that he is really indulging in delaying tactics until the global warming scam... oops, scare, blows over. He seems so set upon KERS that it looks as though his heart is really in it.
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Alianora La Canta
Of course customer cars are outlawed, Clive. It wouldn't be the first time the FIA has unintentionally contradicted itself, or banned all F1 cars, after all... Since he's a psuedopolitician, I suspect he's latching on to the latest fashion. He'll probably stay with it until the next new fashion comes in (whether it's five-wheel cars, teleporting cars or simply purple-with-green-spots cars) and then hold onto that in an attempt to maintain/increase his power. Since the eco-issue is the fashionable cause for the motor industry right now, that will be why he's so keen on chasing it.
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Clive
Agreed, Alianora, Max goes where he thinks the wind is blowing. But he remains unpredictable in that he is subject to sudden tantrums. Who would have predicted the ten year engine freeze, after all?
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Steven Roy
They are saying 3 lbs of aluminium per gallon of gas. There are 3.785 litres in a US gallon so 1.26 lb or 0.57 kg aluminium per litre. The density of aluminium is 2.7. The maximum fuel density is 0.775.

Assuming 1 litre of water produces 1 litre of petrol which it almost certainly won't and an F1 car uses 200 litres of fuel in a race(round number). Then you need 200 litres or 200 kg of water which is 45 kg more than the equivalent amount of petrol. You also need approximately 115 kg of aluminium which takes up 42 litres of space.

So you have 160 kg of additional weight without allowing for the gallium and the extra water/aluminium/gallium you need to haul all the extra weight around.

So unless the water is recovered from the exhaust which has to be wildly impractical in a racing car it is unlikely this method will ever work.
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Clive
See, I told you someone would do the sums for me. ;)

Okay, Steven, it doesn't look practical for racing purposes, at least until a widespread method of recycling the alumina is created. But hydrogen remains the most feasible and attractive alternative fuel and, given the necessary research and development time, will prove to be the fuel of the future. It would be wise for money to be spent on such research, rather than on such things as bio-fuels.
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Arnet
Does anyone know how much ballast an F1 car carries? I seem to recall the figure of 70 kg. We know that teams easily create cars under the regulated weight, then add metals like tungsten in strategic areas to increase the weight and affect balance. I began to wonder if the weight of water and aluminum could offset the ballast, but then you would have an inherently unstable platform, because your fuel/ballast would change. I know the pointy heads in F1 would find a way around it, but I still feel that getting rid of refueling would be a first step. I remember how Masters like Prost were able to fine-tune their driving relative to how much fuel they had left to get them to the finish line. It was an added element of skill and excitement. Then there were the ones who ran out of gas.....
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Clive
Something that I don't think Jean Alesi will ever live down, Arnet!

The amount of ballast in F1 cars varies according to how successful the designers have been in getting the weight of the car as low as possible, but I think you're correct in saying it would be around 70 kg. They would be in no hurry to give away the resulting ability to tune weight distribution, I think, and Steven's calculations make it clear that the weight penalty of aluminum and water would be just too much to bear at this stage of the game.

I have felt for a long time that refueling should be banned from F1, however, and the designers made to cope with the resulting larger fuel tanks required. It was that way for many years, after all, and not such a drastic rule change as we might think.
Date Added: 05/03/2008

Uppili
The truth is we are all building a mountain out of a mole hill talking about KERS efficiencies. There is always a cost to any energy conversion and thats something we have to live with. So the energy loss due to friction, intertia due to weight, etc isn't a thing we have control of. KERS therefore is not a totally useless device. It still has its place in F1 and can be a useful "accessory" in the words of Luca Marmorini. Having said that, it is not a "green" solution by any stretch of imagination as Max is trumpeting.

There is already talk of Honda having a very advanced system of KERS of all teams. The technical team of FIA (Tony Purnell) is to be blamed for coming with a primitive system of KERS. The flip side to it is that minnows like Force India, heck, even middle budget teams like Williams and Redbull will be driven out of business if a mad race for development of KERS is allowed. Its a striking proof that the implementation of KERS in F1 is only about perceptions of greenness than any real actions to be green.

Then again, the whole green movement is only about perceptions. Hydrogen is being built up as the best thing since sliced bread. BMW's hydrogen stations produce liquid hydrogen by burning natural gas, which has more carbon foot print than gasoline. What about water then? Well theres a small issue of water scarcity in many countries if it becomes a reality in say 50 years. Also, emitting water vapor isn't all sugar and honey as people think. Water vapor's green house effect is greater co2, which brings us back to square one in terms of global warming. An estimation in a study tells that doubling co2 will increase temperature by 6 degrees and doubling water vapor in atmosphere could increase temperatures by 33 degrees!! I could go on and on about this lunacy..........

One solution i can see is not even care to restrict fuel. Open up all engine restrictions and set a stipulation only about maximum emissions a race car can produce see the results of it...........
Date Added: 06/03/2008

Clive
That is really my point, Uppili - that KERS has its place but is a drop in the ocean if we are talking seriously about making F1 a green sport. The cost of developing it is probably reason enough to leave it alone for the moment. We need more radical measures if this is the way F1 must go.

Your argument regarding the water emissions is flawed in that it was water before and now is water again - nothing is added to the atmosphere that wasn't there before. And, as you know, I feel that the CO2 scare is a load of baloney anyway, since it has been proved repeatedly that CO2 content in the atmosphere goes up after global warming and not before. The study you refer to is based on computer models that have been shown to be wildly inaccurate, by the way. Already the scare mongers are backing down and claiming that present cooling of global temperatures is still the result of global warming!

But that's an argument for another day and another blog. The idea of restricting fuel for the race or emissions allowed is another approach to the problem that deserves to be considered, I agree.
Date Added: 06/03/2008

Steven Roy
For every gallon of petrol you burn you produce one gallon of water. That is why your exhaust pipe rusts. So by taking water, extracting hydrogen and converting it back to water we won't be adding any more water to the atmosphere than we already are.

Clive there is a difference between liquid water and aerosol water coming out of the exhaust. Liquid water will have almost no effect on global warming whereas water aerosols will.

I think hydrogen has to be the fuel of the future as I can't see a better option just now. I guess it must be possible to put something in the exhaust to condense the water and prevent it getting airborne to the extent it currently does.

I picked up the new issue of Motor Sport yesterday and it contained an interview of Max by Nigel Roebuck. I know we all think Max has lost touch with reality but I think I have proof now. Apparently KERS will weigh 20 to 30 kg and be capable of taking in 80 horse power and delivering 80 horse power. Max thinks KERS is going to give 100% efficient energy conversion. Congratulations Max you just solved the riddle of perpetual motion. Which is a real pain because you beat my version.
Date Added: 06/03/2008

DBT
What an interesting article and comments thread...

I've only just read the article so am not totally up to date with the comments as yet, however something in the original article got me thinking.
I'm not an engineer, just someone interested in the technical side of things (thanks for that link, Arnet, I shall be geeking over there as soon as I've posted this).

Talking of how energy is wasted in Toyota's system but the Flybrid is more effecient made me think of the comparison between turbo and super chargers.
Turbo chargers are much more effecient as the energy that drives them is exhaust gases. Would it not be possible to have an energy storage type device run in the same manner. Instead of driving a compressor wheel and shoving more air back in the chamber it could be used to drive something that stores / recovers energy?

Am I being too simple? I think it's a good idea.
Date Added: 06/03/2008

Clive
If Max says it is so, Steven, it must be so.

Otherwise he will slap a regulation on physicists that prevents any use of Einstein's theories for the next ten years. Researchers will only be allowed to use their computers for 8 hours in any given 24-hour period and the president of the Flat Earth Society will be given delegate status to the FIA.

I admit that I pondered introducing the water/steam complication when answering Uppili's comment but decided to avoid the issue for the sake of simplicity and the extra typing involved. I should have known that you or Alianora would spot my laziness and call me to task! In my defence, I maintain that a hydrogen-powered F1 would not add a significant amount of water vapour to the atmosphere and it would all become irrelevant once the humidity reached condensation point resulting in rain.

Hmmm, maybe they'd have a few more wet races, however...
Date Added: 06/03/2008

Clive
Turbos could certainly be used to drive a generator instead of compressing intake gases, DBT, the immediate downside being the conversion to electricity losing a proportion of the energy produced. Batteries would have to be carried and so there would be a weight penalty and then the energy converted once more when required. It would take an engineer (and I am not one) to tell us whether the losses involved in such a system would leave enough power to make it worthwhile.

I considered mentioning turbos in the post as a very effective way of saving lost energy but they are already being suggested for the change in engine rules due after the five-year engine freeze. It remains to be seen whether Max will allow them.
Date Added: 06/03/2008

Steven Roy
There is no reason why exhaust turbines could not be used to power a fly wheel giving near constant additional power. Not being a mechanical engineer I am not restricted by reality so although you probably wouldn't want a flywheel being driven by the exhaust turbine and powering wheels at the same time is there any reason why you couldn't have two flywheels so that one was always being powered and the other delivering the power? In reality of course this would mean two on either side of the car.

It may even be feasible with a bit of clever gearing to have them running in opposite directions to neutralise the gyroscopic effects.

This is so much easier when reality doesn't intrude.
Date Added: 06/03/2008

Clive
Ah yes, I didn't think of storing turbo energy with a flywheel. I can see no reason why it shouldn't work and I like the idea of contra-rotating flywheels too.

As regards reality confounding the ideas of non-engineers such as ourselves, this thread of comments has got me thinking. I may well post on this today (seeing as it's what I'm thinking about and nothing much is happening in the F1 world at the moment).
Date Added: 06/03/2008

Steven Roy
I know the answer. The answer to the question. The ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Well OK I know what should replace the internal combustion engine in F1. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier because I have been telling people it would appear in road cars for many years. Jeremy Clarkson thinks it is a fabulous device but don't let that put you off.

If you have no idea what a Stirling engine is go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine If like me the words don't exlain it to you around a third of the way down there are moving diagrams of an alpha type Stirling engine. Even I understand these so you have no excuse.

The beauty of this engine is that it can run on any source of fuel you can think of. It only needs one hot chamber and one cold chamber and they only need to differ by a few degrees. For example you could use a heat sink from a brake duct as the hot chamber and atmospheric temperature as the cold.

They can run on oil, coal, wood, peat. They can even be solar powered.

And of course like all the best inventions it is Scottish. It also happens to be the most efficient way to convert heat to mechanical energy known to man. You might think this is a fabulous new invention but it has been around since 1816. That's right the most efficient heat to mechanical convertor in history is almost 200 years old. But for self interest of a number of parties this would have replaced every internal combustion engine on the planet. Imagine how much fuel and pollution that would have saved.

I cannot believe I didn't come up with this sooner. Effectively this could be a combined engine and KERS device.
Date Added: 06/03/2008

Clive
Seems almost too good to be true, doesn't it, Steven? In essence, it is a large part of the answer, the only real question mark remaining "where does the heat come from?" At the moment in F1, that would be oil fuel of one kind or another but it could be hydrogen. The important fact to note is that higher temperatures produce more power. F1 would want to run it red hot then! But I suspect that technology is at a stage now where such high temperatures would not be a problem - turbos have to run at extreme temperatures too.

Like most possible answers, the idea requires development before it can be used in a racing engine (although it would be fine for something like KERS). My feeling is that it still leaves the question of fuel selection open - and that is where I think the big breakthrough must come.
Date Added: 06/03/2008

Arnet
Well isn't this the topic that won't die? I came across another interesting alternative fuel: zinc. It can be used either as a zinc/air battery that generates electricity through oxidation, as a fuel cell using water as a catalyst, or as a means of generating hydrogen for a fuel cell, again using water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc-air_battery
Date Added: 07/03/2008

Clive
Yet another interesting alternative, Arnet. I note the article says research into zinc batteries is continuing but it doesn't where this is happening. Such research would be greatly accelerated were F1 to become interested in the technology. I wonder if Max will ever notice...?
Date Added: 07/03/2008

Steven Roy
What this thread does show is that Max is wrong to narrow the area F1 should look at. If we can turn up this many ideas in a couple of days just imagine what F1 could do with two years notice.
Date Added: 07/03/2008

Clive
Good point, Steven. F1 has become the goal of so many of the best engineers over the last few decades, yet Max seems determined to put them out of a job.
Date Added: 07/03/2008

Alianora La Canta
Maybe Max thinks that the less change from outside his offices, the more manageable F1 will be, and that the more it is influenced from the inside, the easier it will be for him to predict future moves. This sort of thinking reminds me of the Auditors of Discworld, and if Max is reading this, I would advise him to read Thief of Time. In that book, the Auditors decide that the universe would be more manageable if they stopped time. In fact, all that happens is that they leave themselves open to being defeated by a small rag-tag bunch of people. If Max isn't careful, he could find himself defeated in the same way.
Date Added: 09/03/2008

Clive
I like the idea of a small bunch of people defeating Max. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. ;)
Date Added: 09/03/2008

Arnet
It reminds me of the recording/music industry. It is undergoing the greatest threat to its foundation right now, because it is a dinosaur. The old ways must evolve and change, or the old model crumbles and is replaced by something completely different. For every lawsuit the industry has launched against p2p file-sharers, thousands more are joining the trend. The old way is unsustainable.

I think the FIA and FOM are dinosaurs, and unless they evolve, they will be replaced. In the music industry, people no longer need the label. They can do it all themselves. I think in F1, the teams need to be the drivers here, telling the FIA in advance what they intend to do, and leave it up to the FIA to figure out how to regulate the changes, like they used to.

Of course, my analogy isn't complete. I can record a cd in my garage and sell in on the net, but I can't just start and F1 team. Still.......
Date Added: 09/03/2008

Clive
I think the analogy is valid, even so, Arnet. The rule is evolve or die. And the FIA could certainly do with some evolution or it will suffer a revolution.
Date Added: 09/03/2008

Alianora La Canta
You might not be able to start an F1 team from scratch, Arnet, but you could work your way up a manufacturer and eventually find yourself leading an F1 team. Still, the governing body is nothing more than an organisation to whom the leadership of F1 is delegated. If the teams took their power back (and all of them could do that if they really wanted to and were prepared to ignore the odd contract or two), then a revolution would be not only possible, but near-inevitable.
Date Added: 10/03/2008

Arnet
It's been mentioned before, most recently in the context of Max saying he gets a kick out of reading online comments about him, but I hope that there are some that read blogs like this one and actually take into account what the fans have to say. One can assume that Max, if he actually reads them, does it for a chuckle, not taking any of it seriously.

It has been my experience that the fan base is extremely well served by this and a handful of other blogs, forums and web-sites, and judging by the comments that follow a wide variety of topics, F1 fans are informed and actually really give a...well you know. The big wigs in the industry have nothing to lose by checking out the views held by the fan base.

Online surveys by the FIA/F1 Racing are limited in that the questions are loaded and they get to cherry pick which topics they "listened to" and say "look, we heard you, and here is what we are going to do about overtaking," while sticking to the dinosaur model.

Like any revolution, it starts with the people and those that listen become leaders, those that don't had better plan their retirement and get out of the way. Or in George Bush's case, learn how to read and knit for his time in prison.
Date Added: 10/03/2008