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Comment by patrickbolle | Hacker News Reader

I'm a diehard racing fan and F1 is the absolute pinnacle of car technology. I go to the Montreal Grand Prix every year (Singapore this year) and it's by far the most exciting point of my year.

The only thing though... with this insane technology, we see less and less 'real racing' which is a shame.

I read an article (will try to find it) that was saying last week at this year's first race, there was only 1 racing pass the whole race.

It's become a challenge of who has the best first 3 seconds of the race to get into pole position. Once you are in first, besides a strategical error by your team, you can essentially stay in first for the rest of the race.

I'm a Ferrari fan and am hoping this year they can shape up, but I want to see some more passes!

My dad is a Formula 1600 driver here in Canada, and the 1600 races are ridiculously exciting. Open wheel madness, passes all over the track, so much fun.

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You should give MotoGP a try. Sure, it's two wheels instead of four, but the whole 'pinnacle of racing technology' angle is there, and every race is exciting. There are clear stand-out riders and makes, but a winner is not guaranteed by any means. Just look at last season as an example.

> The only thing though... with this insane technology, we see less and less 'real racing' which is a shame.

Completely agree! I was a die hard fan back in the days of Schumacher and my interest went downhill soon after they started introducing what I call 'artificial' racing concepts like DRS (Drag Reduction System) that heavily favored major constructors, who have unlimited engineering budget. Although, an antithesis is the refueling ban during the race. I think fueling strategies were a major contributor in making F1 entertaining. These days it's just.. boring for me. And the odd times to watch in the US doesn't help too.

But there was far less overtaking pre-DRS than there is now according to this site [1] which tracks such things. These stats don't include:

The overtaking figures for each race (across all data sets) do not include:

* Position changes on the first lap of the race

* Position changes due to drivers lapping backmarkers

* Positions gained in the pits

* Positions gained due to drivers yielding

* Positions gained when a car has a serious technical

problem; e.g. puncture, accident damage, etc.

[1] http://cliptheapex.com/overtaking/

There are more overtakes, but not _better_ overtakes. The vast majority are boring passes on the straights, with absolutely zero excitement.

Switch on DRS, breeze past the guy on the straight.

Yes, there were less overtaking. But whenever it happened, a large part of it was due to the driver's skills rather than sheer superiority of the car. The DRS rule says a driver can activate it only if he is within 1 second of the car in front. So when he does activate it, it's just like a free overtake and the car in front can't do anything to avoid because IIRC he can't activate DRS. This just doesn't make sense to me and takes the fun out of overtaking.

I don't think DRS was necessary in the old formula but with the new aerodynamic formula I think it is and will get much better. It's extremely hard to get within one second now so if you can do it you're much faster and only being held up due to the dirty air. Look at AUSGP, not much overtaking and I think it has two DRS zones.

Those restrictions on computing power (25 TFLOPS of CPU) for your CFD simulation cluster seem rather esoteric when it comes to racing cars...those hundreds of pages of regulations must be ridiculous to comply with.

Yeah, the 25 TFLOPS thing is so weird. Is this just to ultimately force a trade off between simulation fidelity and cycle time for analyzing new designs? Can you not run multiple simulations on separate 25 TFLOPS clusters?

Also, how would regulators be able to verify how many simulations were run on how many designs?

It's an R&D spending cap, to keep the sport more competitive. Much like many pro sports leagues impose a salary cap, so the richest teams can't simply spend their way to victory.

In CAD they manifest themselves as a bunch of boxes in which you are allowed to put your shapes, so it's not overly taxing for the engineers to follow. However there is a risk that the 'box' layer is not done correctly at the beginning of the season and you end up missing something important.

The limit on computing power encourages you to think more carefully about what a certain component is interacting with the rest of the car. A few years ago I remember a CFD engineer running a massive DoE with hundreds of cases to get his stats up for the week when there was spare capacity in the cluster. If the limit were removed I doubt there would be any increase in innovation, just way more carpet bombing with parametric designs.

While DRS may seem artificial, it may pay to re-watch Alonso's race in Abu Dhabi in 2010 where he was stuck behind a much slower car for what seemed like the entire race.

With the heavy reliance on aerodynamics and the issues with a car losing downforce in the wake of the one in front, you can view is as compensation for that effect and (if you stretch your imagination somewhat) closer to the pre-aero days of racing.

Since DRS has been introduced however, the number of overtakes in each race is steadily decreasing, so you may see a more radical solution in years to come. I personally would like to see wing-aero substantially reduced and grip / tyre size increased to compensate, but the massive investments in tech and people and aero's tendency to make the whole process mean-reverting make it a strongly vested interest for the top teams.

I'm only a casual motorsports fan, so I have to ask: why do you prefer F1 over rally or some other time-trial format? F1 technology is the pinnacle, but I find the skill of rally drivers or IoM TT riders much more fascinating.

EDIT: I can't find it online, but I still remember the onboard video a friend showed me (on VHS tape) that hooked me on rally. The car comes over a blind rise an absolutely dissects a sheep all over the front of the car. Driver and copilot are silent for a few moments, then the driver turns on the wipers, and the copilot goes back to reading the pacenotes.

I'm a huge rally fan, and I find the driving skills are astonishingly diverse; the technology impressive; coverage spectacular; and all of it much more relatable.

BUT... it's for all intents and purposes a "race your own race" (with occasional exceptions). Despite the commentary setting up sense of competition, there's in reality only one car in camera shot at any given time. That, is an acquired taste as a spectator :)

I remember when they did the WRC recaps on SpeedTV in the 2000's. Rally is by far my favorite form of racing to watch. Sadly the format isn't conducive to drawing viewers (and ad money). They had all that cool telemetry and in-car video before F1 did though.

Rally is insanely fun to watch because of the sheer balls it takes to do it at the WRC level. Unpredictable terrain and drivers who have seen the track at most once before the race makes for a very different type of intensity and precision. My favorite onboard clip from last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eCm8eTNcBU

But ever since the Group B days ended, the tech itself has been less about pushing technological limits and more about "how fast can we make the cars without killing the drivers?"

Also have to give a shout-out to playing DiRT Rally with an Oculus Rift. With a flat screen, you can mentally distance yourself a bit from the immediacy of being in the driver's seat, but VR really makes it feel real. When I try to drive the simulated Group B Pugeot 205 with VR, I feel a gut-level persistent sense of terror and a very real feeling of controlling the beast of a car on a knife's edge.

May be this, or may be not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaSFffngtys

Unforgettable moment.

Yes, thank you! So much better when you have whole broadcast...

> I'm a diehard racing fan and F1 is the absolute pinnacle of car technology.

F1 is also the pinnacle of absurdity. I say this as a diehard fan myself, having been to 14 races over the past 6 years and having followed the sport for 25 years. I was in Melbourne the weekend before last, I'll be in China this coming weekend. Just for the races, nothing else.

The thing is, it feels more absurd now than ever, as the technology has reached the point that overtaking aids have to be brought in. DRS, KERS, etc. Before it was just flying all over the world to drive in circles, now it's flying all over the world to drive in circles with artificial overtaking aids to improve the show.

I still think it's great though.

I think that's were the real drivers are going to start showing up again, the technology helps but now we're going to start seeying the fights happen in the circuits, before we always knew that the guy behind was going to overtake with KERS, but now it's quality!

F1 is totally not the absolute pinnacle of car technology. It's the premier racing series but the hypercar projects such as the Red Bull / Aston Martin and the AMG project will shame any F1 car because they don't have to conform to a rule book.

Sorry, there's just no way putting a bunch of limits on stuff like traction control and other "cheats" counts as being the absolute peak when there are road-going examples of cars with superior tech from an objective standpoint.

I am still eagerly awaiting this generations racing. Active aero, traction control, active handling, augmented driver displays, etc. are all banned in racing. Where once was innovation is now a bunch of rich pricks and advertisers patting themselves on the back while they destroy their own sport. F1 is not alone, but used to be the pinnicle, so it seems the fall is further.

there is a reason, human physical capabilities were surpassed in the 80s with F1 due to massive power from turbos, improved aero, and active hydraulic suspension. They were right on the edge of having drivers passing out due to G-LOCK. Since then the technology has to be restrained because of the drivers, primarily because no company will sponsor a race car where there is a good chance the driver will pass out and crash.

Tracks with sloped turns aren't used because of this. I think they should leave the fully unlimited class for the self-driving cars :)

If it's the hypercar I'm thinking of, it's target performance is that of LMP1 car. LMP1 cars are consistently 5-10 seconds slower around the tracks where they both compete. Impressive that it can come so close to an F1 but no where near "shaming" an F1. That being said, I find events where LMP cars race much more exciting due to all the different classes being on the same track at the same time. I love seeing the GT cars race even though I don't follow any of the series.

I've been wondering about the Ferrari FXX program though as sort of an in-between - cars using tech banned by F1 and not road legal in pursuit of new performance achievements.

One hypercar I found extremely appealing was the Jaguar CX-75 using a turbine powerplant. Those are banned in every racing series. The potential though is staggering, mating the best of electric motors and potential powerband efficiency. Drool. Sorry.

I love how the shape of that new Jaguar calls back to the XJ220! Japan would be the place to field a series that's crazy without being a circus. I too would love to see an all out series but I wonder the extent that humans will be in the car. F1 cars are already pushing 5-6G's in the corners. Perhaps drone-style racing will be where we see insane race track tech. However that tech might quickly diverge from anything that can be applied to road going cars.

Nothing can beat how motorsport looked backed in the '80s - early '90s. There was the B Group rally class, which has since grown into a myth among racing enthusiasts, there were the really interesting Le Mans prototypes of the late '80s - early '90s (the Mazda 787B is still considered by many as the car having the best engine sound ever), the Dakar race was still an adventure in itself with really intense competition and wonderful cars.

And there was also the greatest pilot that I've ever seen driving (I'm 36 now), Ayrton Senna. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BoukLE8V7M , you can see that back then drivers had to take their hand off the wheel while negotiation a curb at 280+ kph in order to change gears (and he was adjusting his visor at 300 kph). And the sound, the sound is irreplaceable.

Later edit: I forgot to mention DTM. Found this YT video 2-3 months ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw-AxiVqihM&) which I now listen/re-watch every week or so. Almost all the cars in that video are now car enthusiast classics. If I ever were to become a millionaire I'd buy a 190E 2.5-16 EVO2 in a second.

Don't forget the Chapparal cars! The first with active aero (a movable spoiler/wing), and then also with the famous "sucker car" that had a vacuum assist for traction.

I'm really with you though that racing series and "progress" also has a big incentive to increase safety and reliability and blah blah blah. I do very much love the quote from "Rush" (super well flimed I must say) about how being on the edge of death "is a wonderful way to live" because of how alive it makes us feel. I know that hasn't changed in motorsport, but simply evolved. Nostalgia certainly has its place.

If you want to see a totally different form of auto racing complete with extremely impressive engineering and (comparatively) microscopic budgets... check out https://ultra4racing.com. In particular, their "championship" race, King of The Hammers: https://youtu.be/eDEPm_H66Xg.

The SL 65 AMG definitely has better tech than any Formula 1 car, but I think that it's also a little important to note that a Formula 1 car is going to be much faster around a track than the SL 65, since it'll be a full thousand kilograms lighter. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_test_track#The_Power_...

I'm not sure if having TCS matters if you're going to be slow.

It has lower tech because it is heavier. It is a huge part of the F1 challenge to fit all those horsepowers in such a small weight

>F1 is totally not the absolute pinnacle of car technology >Red Bull / Aston Martin and the AMG project will shame any F1 car

You know, there is no objective measure of "pinnacle of technology", and F1 cars are completely lacking in a variety of technological kit... the entertainment systems, for example.

But the F1 development budgets dwarf the total budgets of the projects you mention. Teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars on engine development alone each year.

And by objective measure of circuit lap times, nothing touches the F1 cars, despite all the restrictions.

So yeah... The Red Bull/AMG etc might be the equivalent of a fully loaded Alienware PC... but the F1 cars are whatever Intel/IBM/NVidia has in their labs.

The only thing though... with this insane technology, we see less and less 'real racing' which is a shame.

I an under the impression that it is not so much the technology as it is the rules. Specifically, the rules allow for giant rear spoilers that ruin the air behind the cars, with the result that cars behind must keep some distance or lose their downforce, which means that there are fewer opportunities for overtaking.

Yeah, the concern is that cars are following too far behind to be in DRS range. That said, one of the main things we heard about over the last few years was that one of the main consequences of close following, was increased tire degradation, which seems to be much less of an issue this year with the new tires.

Even DRS is a "hack" to fix the difficulty of following.

The challenge is to find a decent set of regulations that allow decent downforce and fast cars, without too much wake disturbance.

Honestly I think narrower cars would make a huge difference (and of course they went and widened them this year... SMH). Passing almost exclusively happens on the straights, unless you're Max Verstappen who is singlehandedly keeping races exciting (maybe some Vettel / Ricciardo in there).

Make the cars narrow enough that passing in the corners is feasible and I think it'd make a big difference.

Yeah, it's to where the only exciting races are the wet races. I've only been following F1 for about 3 years now, and Brazil 2016 was hands down the most exciting race I've ever seen.

9/10 wet races are awful. They're lots of laps under the SC, rolling starts, and a lot of luck.

"we see less and less 'real racing' which is a shame." - I've given up on F1 for that very reason but haven't missed it since I started watching MotoGP (F1 of motorbikes). New season has just started.

You can also go out an buy near motogp tech in bikes on the market. An R1 is closer to a race bike than a ferrari is to a race car.

To watch consumer available bikes racing, there is also World Super Bikes (WSBK).

"The motorcycles that race in the championship are tuned versions of motorcycles available for sale to the public"

And I have tickets to COTA !

Which is why i like the world Endurance Championship. All the technology of F1 and absolutely crazy racing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clZOMYjaGt8

Bureaucrats have taken over F1 and turned an amazing sport into a mind-numbing event for the nouveau riche to flaunt their $$ and poor taste.

At least the North American races retain some of that spirit - people care about the racing and the cars. In Asia it is already an afterparty that people attend where a car race sort-of breaks out.

The USGP is basically the warm up act for a Taylor swift or Justin Timberlake concert

In defense of the concerts: I'm an F1 fan, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to talk at least one more person to go to the USGP with me this year so that they can catch the JT concert.

I mean, it's not like it takes place at a time when cars would be on track anyway. It's OK if a little extra entertainment happens at an event that is, fundamentally, entertainment.

I went to the LoneStar Le Mans last year at COTA, all of the marketing I saw the usgp itself was a footnote.

The only thing though... with this insane technology, we see less and less 'real racing' which is a shame.

I've been hearing that on and off for thirty years of sort of paying attention to F1. Not that it isn't a valid complaint, just not new.

Sadly unless you normalize the cars we may never see true racing as you say. Someone in my F1 watch group pointed out the minimal passes in that race. It would be sad if it ends up being like the Peak Schumacher days where races were more or less won by pit strategy.

Also worried that it's now Ferrari, Mercedes, and everyone else. By a long shot.

Agree on normalization. Or at least keep the core regulation (engines, aerodynamics, tires) untouched for a few years. Right now it's some kind of new regulation every year, and the big teams with their crazy development budgets can buy wins in the next year. If that stuff would at least stay the same for a while, the teams could become more even. For a few years Red Bull dominated completely because of aerodynamics regulation, now it was Mercedes because of engine regulation, and it just becomes more boring all the time.

That's better than the five seasons of single team dominance we've had before (Red Bull, then Mercedes). There's a lot more competition going on this year, and it may even include the podium.

The other more mainstream word for that concept is Balance of Performance. That is generally considered a dirty word amongst most racing purists.

> Sadly unless you normalize the cars we may never see true racing as you say.

For interesting single-make racing, you can watch the GP2 and GP3 races before/after the F1 race and qualifying (for European races, and a few others).

Traditionally, multi-make series have been called "Formula" series in racing lingo.

Sadly unless you normalize the cars we may never see true racing as you say.

Or put a dynamic rev limiter in the cars that's bound to how well you're doing in the race, so the car in the lead literally can't go as fast as the car in last place. Then we'd get 'rubber banding' like computer game AI[1]. That'd be brilliant to watch.

I don't imagine manufacturers would be very happy about it though.

[1] https://www.giantbomb.com/rubber-band-ai/3015-35/

Well, the 2017 regulation cars are faster that last gen - They are saying around 20-30km/h faster in corners, so we should see more passing.

Albert Park is not really a 'passing circuit' per se, being a street race - I am keen to see how these cars go at sweeping tracks like Spa, Mexico or Hungary etc.

Having said that - I'd like to see pit strategy as less of a factor in getting cars in front of each other. Much rather see drivers duke it out on track. We've got some good drivers out there, and I wish that McLaren would get their hardware working well so Alonso can have a crack too, but overall if we can see the likes of Ferrari and RB caning the Mercs on track (and I say that as a Hamilton fan), then all the better for F1.

I just wish they'd pick one in the strategy/speed dynamic and optimise for it. It's kind of in the middle and suits no one.

I wouldn't mind F1 to be based on pitstop strategy if it made a real difference like back in the refueling days, as in there were more elements that mattered (weight, tyres, length of time, track position) that could pan out over the race - now it's a case of who can optimise another half a tenth on their jack-release and everyone does pretty much the same as there's an objectively optimal way to do the race.

"The only thing though... with this insane technology, we see less and less 'real racing' which is a shame."

I was just reading the "Computer Moves" essay (1), that it's now in HN's first page, and I think it's interesting how it express more or less the same about chess and computers that you do about cars and technology.

We better get used to that trend, because I suspect it's not going downward.

(1) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14039919

Love the Grand Prix Du Canada. Easy to get to through walking and the Metro, great fans, awesome city, favorable USD exchange rate (and you can bring in your own beer/drinks/etc)!

I probably won't do Austin again.

I believe sky commentary touched this in the last race and I fully agree: They should take out blue flags, which would make for a spectacular team/strategy display, as well as add way more legitimate race passes.

Yes it would be far less about individual car performance, but that existing overemphasis is what has made the last 8 seasons so predictable.

Having tier 3 teams crash out tier 1 would be unfortunate, but should not really be an issue on most circuits for tier 1 drivers in tier 1 cars with DRS advantage. More likely it will just delay the pass by half a lap.

Agree, demonstrates driver skill of the frontmarkers and will make the race dynamic more interesting. Especially from under-the-table engine supplier preference.

>>Once you are in first, besides a strategical error by your team, you can essentially stay in first for the rest of the race

Knowing nothing about the sport it seams to me that they need to implement some rules that allow for safe passing. Frankly, this is what I would do:

1st-Have a speed limit much lower then the currently max limit.

2nd-Allow for temporary speed boosters. Each car has a limited # of speed boosts that last for a couple of seconds each.

hmmmm... It seems that I'm describing a racing video game. Never mind.

They already rely on your 2nd point quite a bit between KERS and DRS. The former stores brake energy for a speed boost and the latter reduces drag on a straight to improve top-end speed. They haven't helped much.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_recovery_syst...

http://www.formula1-dictionary.net/drs_wing_rear_movable.htm...

As a former big fan, these is my "never gonna happen" idea to make the sport exciting again: award some championship points for the best qualifying performances, but then make the cars start the race from random or semi-random positions. This would force teams (especially the top ones) to optimize for overtaking instead of qualification time and reliability.

That is a huge idea oO

I enjoy the pre-race commentary and qualifying more than the actual races these days. Which, is a real shame.

That's mostly only true for the 1-3 top teams, though - there's quite a bit of battles going on behind them, at least that's what I remember from last season to be the enjoyable part. I hope we'll see more even fights at the top as well.

Le mans prototypes is now my source of old style f1 excitement.

Best race ever: Jenson Button wins in the rain in Montreal.

I was at that race and it was indeed pretty great. Vettel slid his car on the last lap right in front of the stands where I was sitting, not a terrible loss of control but enough to give up the position. So fun to watch.

Well, there was the time that Ayrton Senna won an F1 race, in the rain, 1 minute and 23 seconds ahead of 2nd place finisher Damon Hill. Senna lapped the rest of the field!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_European_Grand_Prix

There were plenty of real passes in the race. Stroll made up 5 places or so on the first lap, and Ocon and Hulkenberg both passed Alonso in a single move.

I have been wanting to check out the Montreal race for years. Its just been bad timing. I find the engineering amazing

Pix of formula 1600 please?

(I race SCCA Spec Miata. If anyone has questions about how to get into racing let me know)

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