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Comment by brunorsini | Hacker News Reader

I could never get interested in F1 again after Senna's tragic death.

He was the last driver to die in an F1 crash. Unfortunately not the last person, but I think the road-side crews haven't seen a fatality in years.

My interest in F1 stopped a few years ago when they downgraded the engines and made things all weird for a while. I hear it's getting back to awesome nowadays.

It was partly due to the weird changes they started making 5-7 years ago that the sport is so good now. For the last few years the championships have been fought down to the last race or two, not to mention that we have 6 world champions on the grid. I don't feel strategy plays as important a role now as it did but they have certainly made it more entertaining to people with less knowledge of the sport.

Ending refueling during the race did a lot reducing the time required and therefore positions lost when you come in - so _some_ changes are good, though I agree most don't move the needle at all. This season is great - coming down to the last race to see who comes out on top between Vettel & Alonso...even if only mathematically, I couldn't really ask for too much more.

A few years ago they were discussing making qualy 3 short "sprint" races where the fastest of the pack start at the back of the next sprint - now that would be cool.

Edit: Forgot to mention how much I love seeing anything F1 related on HN.

2014 regulations introduce even more downgraded engines. New ones will be 1.6 litre V6 turbo (now it is 2.4, V8, but not turbo), revs will be limited to 15k rpm (now 18k).

I have read that the engines will probably rev to around 12.5k in 2014. Although they will be allowed to rev higher, fuel flow rates will be regulated to a maximum of ~ 100KG/hour. Keeping the revs lower will also decrease the friction which will allow for higher output per KG of fuel. Previously they optimized for max output / CC of engine displacement.

The turbo engines will also have a motor/turbine on the turbo, allowing them to charge the battery from the turbo shaft. They will be able to use the battery power to directly drive the wheels, or spin up the turbo more quickly to the 100k rpm max speed of the turbo.

Reading this makes me wonder about the possibility of purely electric f1 vehicles, and what such a move might mean for electric cars in general.

There is also a plan in 2014 regulations that cars can only use electric engine when in pits. However, this can be delayed because teams are reluctant to it. Besides electric only engine is quiet so it could lead to some accidents in pit-lane.

I was at the 2001 Melbourne Grad Prix in view of the marshal that was killed. Pieces of the car came down through the trees like it was raining.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB-AcTjAgac

It was very sad, and the drivers didn't spray champagne after the race.

That's a risk you take with racing. It's taken a while but they've put a lot of safeguards in place. Over the years I've seen things which should have seriously injured drivers but they managed to walk away. Probably the worst thing I saw was when Felipe Massa got hit in the head with a suspension spring in 2009 during a race.

Knowing how heavy those springs are and how fast those guys travel, that was one of the most painful things to see. I'm blown away he survived without any kind of serious disability and continues to race.

I can totally understand that.

What I don't get is why the F1 officials haven't learned more out of that tragic accident. Sure the cars are much safer than they were when Senna died, but why do they have to at more and more races in city centers? Sure, I can understand that they want to keep Monaco for historic reason, but there isn't a good reason to have races in the city centers of Valencia, Singapore, and soon New Jersey.

Driving that close to walls at the speeds they do, will sooner or later lead to another tragic accident.

For everyone who isn't a F1 fan check out this video from the race in Singapore to see what I'm talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qYwC2qov44

Its tradition and a feeling of invulnerability until something really bad happens. Sometimes even after the fall things aren't done. IndyCar was working on a safer car before Las Vegas 2011, but I am not sure they have got the total message themselves or really in a financial position to change what they need changed.

NASCAR changed everything after their tragedy and hasn't had a driver death since. The next car after the COT is safe yet and all the tracks have safer barriers. I get the feeling that the restrictor plate racing is going to be the next big set of changes (funny, given that the plate was to keep the speeds down to make those tracks safe).

Street tracks has to conform to the same strict rules as the regular ones. That's why they usually have much smaller average speeds, so things like huge run-off areas are not needed. Take a look at your video again: only in one place the car reaches 300km/h. Crashes on street tracks happen quite often (less room for errors), yet I can't recall any serious one. Ok, Kubica's shunt in Montreal looked scary - but Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a semi-street and unusually fast track. The new ones are fine (safety-wise), really. Open cockpits and loose wheels are the big issues for now - both being currently worked on.

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